Review: Skyray King (3xXM-L - 4x18650)

Thanks for joining, CM2010. Welcome to BLF!

These are flat tops. You need Orbtronic or AW button tops. The best for the King…… Of any light…. I have seen a lot of batteries come and go, damaged, burnt, self destruct, but the Orbtronics keep on ticking and after 10 charges get stronger !

Have you tried the king with AWs? They are LMR (“IMR”) so I would like to know if the king supports that.

Every battery capable of discharge at 5A without problem, would be great for the king, like the Orbtonic, Trustfire 3000, etc.

II would recommend flat top AW’s. With any light that requires direct PCB to battery contact, button tops will damage the surface unlike a spring. You can use button top spacers. AW’s are widely known for there 1600mah red label
cells they made a few years ago, discharge 9-10amps. Oh, and Black Label 32650’s and 26500 as well…

This is the best image of what the top of the battery should look like ! To fit the King……

Manny - I just purchased a bunch of Panasonic’s. I’ll alternate between them an AW’s.The 18650 cell
in your pic im assuming is yours? Can you tell me if in fact that is is a red ring around the top or positive end?

The ones i have do have a button although it appears to be a bit more recessed than the Panasonic in your pic.

The cells i have are identical to this one

side note, AW purchases highest binned raw cells from Panasonic …

The red ring is on the plastic cover, once removed the red ring is gone. The best are Panasonic cells, Orbtronic are Panasonic cells and they are better built ! Orbtronic cells have a different weld spot on positive to negative protection… They are a hell of a battery !!! They come from Clearwater, Florida and customer service is #1. I have been a flashaholic for almost 10 years on CPF for 4yrs. And new to BLF…. Just read this:

great review, i’ve been running my skyray 40 mins straight temperature seems to be over 65c very hot to touch i recok it’ll cook an egg lol light output is consistently good so i turn it off didnt want to fry it :stuck_out_tongue: anyone got run times on the new panasonics 3400mahs ? :slight_smile: really love this monster its my favourite light apart from the most used tank e09 keychain light. all my p60s collection dust now.

Still love my King ! My favorite torch….

Sorry for this poor technical question but, I buy Raysky king nw and its feel very good flashlight, is there another alternative of a more powerful and price balanced flashlight, more leed add increase linearly the lumens?, Considering alternatives of 5 ​​and 7 leed?

Tanks and again.

Eduardo.

Welcome to BLF Eduardo!

Another good alternative is TR-J12 (especially if/when modded with KD driver), but it's way larger AND not available as NW => I tend always grab King (or APEX) so the TR-J12 is left to shelf..

+1 on this …… TR-_J12 is tops……

Eduardo don't assume that more emitters = more lumens is a linear equation. It's not. There are overheating problems that arise very quickly and prevent it.

The most important thing for the led emitters is being able to dissipate the heat they produce.

Emitters produce heat, quite a lot actually when driven at full power, and if they are not able to dissipate the heat through the body of the flashlight, the emitter will overheat, reducing the light output, and in the worst case they can be damaged from overheating.

Sky King and some other 3 emitter design lights have very good thermal path and works well at full power (they get hot but within a "safe range" )

There is general concern that multi-led arrays of 5 of more emitters cannot easily dissipate all the heat they could produce if driven at full power, because the size is limited and the emitters are placed so close to eachother. So to avoid severe overheating those multi-led flashlights are driven well below max emitter output.

That means that if a good single XM-L driven at 3,5Amp can produce about 900lm, and a good 3 x XM-L can still drive them 3Amp and output abt. 2500lm, it's hardly possible that a 5 x XM-L can drive them at 3Amp and not overheat, thus will probably drive them like at 2Amp that means abt.600lm per led, total 3000lm.

Same applies to 7 and 9 XM-L lights.

Yep…… The King just puts out a wall of light, and doesn’t get extreme hot…… I measured about 2,346 lumens with 4x Orbtronics…. To get a TJ-12 to put out serious light you have to get new driver and pay someone for the build…. I can’t so it myself, or I would ….

Thanks to the 3 for the quick and kind reply, I understand the problem of the temperature of the LED, but the flashlight of 5 or 7 LEDs are limited by the manufacturer to deliver less amps. As I can see there are 3 versions of TR-J12 with DX, MF and (recommended) KD driver, is for this amp limitation?.
Probably I’m assuming to much, Im an economist and electronics are quite complex.

Thanks again.

Eduardo.

” NEVER MIND ALL READY ANSWER”, thanks to all again.

It's a pleasure to have you onboard, Edoram!

Just thought I’d mention in here that I’ve been running my King on just two Panasonic NCR18650A’s since I’ve had it. I haven’t attempted to measure current yet, but ceiling bounce comparisons between it and 3 other XM-L lights (driven at 2.8 - 3.0A) running simultaneously, tell me that it’s almost certainly running at full spec with this battery configuration.

If the current measurements provided by ‌_the_ are correct (around 7.5A) that means the driver wants around 3.75A from each of my cells, which they have no trouble at all delivering. My run time will suffer of course, but I don’t really have cause to operate this light on high for extended periods of time anyway.

FYI :wink:

I got 1920 lumens with 2 cells and 2,360 with 4 Orbtronics …

Hmmm, and the Orbs are NCR18650A’s too, correct?

Did you happen to do a measurement with 3 cells?

Performed a measurement the only way I can given my lack of specialized equipment.

beeCam LightMeter (app for my Android phone) reported 372 lux on 2 cells, and 384 lux on 4 cells (with a base reading (ambient light) of 12 lux) during ceiling bounce tests.

(these numbers are only meaningful in my own particular circumstance of course)

Can’t say that I can really notice the difference visually however.