I tested the throw on the gold king a couple months ago. It put out 25,100 lux at 1m. Real life tests showed the king put out about .3L at 300yd and about .1L at 400yd. My meter only reads down to tenths, but that should still put it safely in the 350yd range in real life throw down to .25L.
Never had my hands on the TM yet, so I can’t vouch for one. Always thought they were cool though. The king coming out at 1/3 or so the price with pretty equal specs made it an easy choice for me over the TM11 though. I’m sure both are awesome lights, and the Dry too.
Would have been a great deal if it weren’t for the shipping charge which they never disclose until you contact them. This is why I prefer sites that give all inclusive price with free shipping.
I trust them. They are in direct contact with the factories and dont sell any fakes. For some lights they have the lowest prices on the net. The better selling items are also listed on ebay, at higher prices to compensate for the ebay listing fees and whatnot.
i decided to do a little digging inside the light…. cant help myself…
my light does not use the original driver board. it uses a simpler board with a mcu, a few resistors and caps and 2 mosfets…from what i can tell by the part number… all the datasheets are in chinese but i think thats what the transistors are…
well anyway, i was under the impression that i was getting the orignal board so i contacted ric and he is shipping me an original driver board asap. great customer service.
well anyway while i was in there i hooked a meter inline with the LED feed (which also was wired differently than the original…. its still in parallel but 2 wires feed the LED’s and then + and - are jumped from one LED to the next) only got 4.5a…. hmm thats a little low and when i jiggled the light, it would flicker and get brighter here and there.
so i took the light apart and cleaned the boards of some remaining flux (driver and tail board where the springs attach) and used ilsco commercial al/cu connection anti corrosion goo on every connection where a board met aluminum of the light.
i also rewired the LEDs with 20ga teflon coated wire and reattached it to the driver through my meter. i made up some 12” 12ga leads just for this, popped the batteries in and hit the switch……
……. 10.25A……. 10.25A……
goodness…… insane……
so if any of you are getting low output, disassemble, clean, lube and possibly rewire. its ridiculous now.
so ridiculous that im thinking about making up a custom copper or brass plate where the led’s mount to help get some of the heat out of the thing.
This is bullshit. Seriously. I mean, come on Ric. Don’t you realize that I’m trying not to spend too much money on flashlights these days? That picture is just too damned nice. I’m totally blaming you when I go broke.
How can you tell the difference between original and the simpler one? Pictures? Wonder which board I got :~
Is the difference Big If I did not get the original?