Something is clearly wrong about the ET specs. It’s a 219B but they claim it’s from the “B11” bin which doesn’t exist. That’s not even the correct naming scheme. It should say D220, which is the brightest bin available for the 92-CRI emitter they claim to be using. Then again, it should probably also say it’s a 4500K tint instead of 5000K tint, but this particular bin of 219Bs seems to be noticeably colder than the equivalent bin of 219As, so I can understand claiming it as 5000K instead of 4500K.
In any case, the yellowish tint isn’t normal. Anything with 90+ CRI at 4500K should look white, not yellow. I have ten lights with Nichia 219s in them, and the EagleTac looks rather different than any of the others. I have three lights with too-strong AR lens coating, and I can remove the lens from the other two. All three make the beam warmer and color-tinted, and all three look quite a bit better when I take the lens off.
So, I’m pretty sure the tint issue is the lens, not the emitter.
It occurred to me just now that I can actually test it; no need to guess. I took the removable lens from my regular D25A and held it over another Nichia 219B light, with a third 219 shining next to it for reference. When I shine the white 219B through the D25A lens, the beam turns warmer and yellow and colors no longer look nice in it.
I have seen similar results with another lights’s AR lens.
I had a Nichia 119 that looked slightly yellow with lens and less so with lens removed.
Also removing reflector got rid of all yellow.
I’ve noticed the coatings on the lens as well as reflectors can change tints.
The “around 20” statement seemed to me to be the averaging of 18 for the XML and 22 for XPG. OK, got the 4 lms, but then why do you use 6?
No big deal - it’s your call of course, but those two modes are the only ones that stand out as inconsistent to the rest of your measurements & lumen scale differences.
I’m glad you identified the problem. I just found the correct datasheet for high CRI 219B (min 85). Here. You’re right D220 is the brightest bin available for high CRI. Do you know why I see some yellow with my 219B D220 from IOS? The lens is without coating.
It’s hard to say. Individual emitters vary quite a bit, and the bins Nichia uses aren’t as narrow as the bins Cree uses.
I’ve seen at least 300K of color temperature variation between different 219B emitters in the same bin, maybe more like 400K. And next to a 6500K cool white emitter, if your eyes are calibrated so that 6500K looks white, anything in the 4500K to 5000K range will appear warm and sort of yellow. OTOH, if your eyes see 4500K as white, the 6500K tint will look rather blue.
Next to other emitters of a similar color temperature though, a high-CRI light should look pretty white. Do you have any other 219s or other high-CRI neutral/daylight lights to compare against?
A smooth reflector basically mirrors the emitter from the center outwards, so you are seeing the corners of the chip pointing towards the center of the beam, creating a dark X. It all averages itself out at distance, since ideally, your reflector will image to a point infinitely far. In my opinion, I almost think that seeing a dark X up close is a better sign than seeing a fully filled circle up close.
Perhaps the lens isn’t coated for a broad range of wavelengths, but maybe just coated for wavelengths centering around blue? AR is for increasing transmittance, and most typical high output LEDs are on the cool side, so if you had to pick one coating, you’d pick one for a blue wavelength.
Also, these may be truely current regulated, but thought I might posit the possibility that even though they are a smaller chip, perhaps they are more efficient at lower currents than the driver (or flashlight maker) is expecting, and perhaps this could somehow result in more light out for the same amount of power to the LED.
It certainly looks pretty white next to my T6-4C and T5-5B (of course it is much warmer) while the only other light with 219B I have right now is the L10. The L10 certainly a little colder (whiter) than my 219B from IOS. I guess not by much, maybe just my eyes. It could be the driver or reflector that caused that yellowish tint.
I don’t think a flat AR coated window will do much splitting of colors. A large focusing lens will. The way the colors get separated in reflector lights is that the light emitted sideways that hits the reflector has had a longer path through the phosphor, so it has less of the original royal blue or whatever left in it than is in the light emitted forward that forms the spill. That can be an advantage with a typical bluish LED because the spot is warmer and the spill is often too dim for the tint to matter much. But the bluish spill blinds other more than a warmer spill would.
On the other hand, I don’t see much advantage to anti-reflection coated lenses in flashlights, unless you want a very clean ringless beam.
I verified it on another D25A, and on an Olight S10. Stock AR lens equals nasty tint with a blue halo, no lens equals beautiful beam, plain piece of glass also equals beautiful beam. It’s not the reflector. I think this is also why so many ZebraLights have green tints, but I can’t remove the lens to test those.
Odd that they would use such bad coatings then. I don’t see green or yellow with my eyeglasses. Maybe a lot of people want coated lenses because that is like other optics but don’t notice the quality. Or maybe they don’t know what they are selling.
Just a quick note. You must have gotten a Friday afternoon sample. My late 2014 D25A (Nichia) has a similar low mode to my 2012 model (around 0.5 lumen or less).
The threading is nice and tight (a bit sloppy on the 2012 models I’ve seen), and I like how they redesigned the head to hide the brass threads. Overall, not a huge difference from the 2012 model (excluding 14500 use, I don’t use 14500 in these lights).
My knurling was clean, and I did note a blue tint to the edge of the spill but I don’t see it in use since it’s at the very edge.
Overall, I’m quite happy with my late 2014 model. I think you just got a bad sample. Unfortunately these mass market lights can have pretty big sample variation.
Ha! Great review and nice pun in the title.
The D25A was high on my list but, aside from ergonomics (mode switching), it seems that QC also prooves bothersome.
BTW, the driver came out of my D25A while I was trying to melt the glue holding the head together. It looks like the driver will be relatively easy to replace, and I can even keep the original contact plate.
So, the plan is to replace the driver, connect all three pins of the contact plate (batt plus, batt minus loose, batt minus tight), and write some firmware for it to take advantage of the tight/loose sensor. The down side is that I don’t have any boost drivers available so it’ll require 14500 cells after the mod.
And I still haven’t gotten the pill to unscrew from the head yet. Sigh. Stupid extra-strong glue.
Oh, and I also have a 2012 model of the same light now. It’s much better than the mid-2014 model. However, it still needs the lens replaced to get rid of ugly tint… but that’s a simple matter since the bezel unscrews easily.
Mostly, I’ve just been too busy to finish it, and the availability of other drivers is a fairly recent development.
RMM sells a 15mm 5x7135 driver right now which should work, if you remove the D25A’s contact board. And the oshpark thread lists a 12mm FET driver which should also work (piggyback on the contact board). These are both available right now, and are both pretty good.
I’m hoping for a FET+1 driver or maybe a 2x7135 driver instead, though even a 1x7135 is bright enough for my purposes. And I’m hoping for a 14mm solution too, because that would work in both the D25A and in the new CNQG brass AA lights.
In any case, there are options. I mostly just need to do it.
I like the brass AA as a host, but its driver is only 3-mode and has slow PWM and inconsistent memory and it’s not reflashable. The plan is to replace both the driver and the emitter, and then it should be a very nice light.
Also, no clip. It’s unfortunate, but nobody makes any clips compatible with it.
I usually just take it for granted now that every light will need to be reprogrammed and likely also modded physically before it’ll be worthwhile. So I view most of them as nothing more than hosts. But maybe if the BLF A6 sells well, some budget manufacturers will start using better drivers and firmware in stock lights.
I ordered a 2014 D25C Ti from Illumn recently and got heads up from ToyKeeper about possible issues with models from 2014.
Have spent 30 minutes reading this thread.
Still waiting for my light to arrive but one thing I can confirm is that the AR coated lens will shift the tint to warm/yellowish.
If you wear AR-coated glasses and you are reading this, just try to put on and put off your glasses while looking at your screen.
Tint shift is pretty noticeable.
I got my 2014 D25C Ti with Nichia about 20 minutes ago. This is my first Eagletac light. The UI is quite new to me.
I played with it to test function, and paid attention to the two major concerns ToyKeeper had in her review. Neither of them exists on my sample! Lucky me.
Tint and blue halo
The tint of this nichia219B is just perfect. It is not cool at all but very pleasing neutral white without being rosy. I will upload some tint comparison later. Right now I am at work and only has D25C and nitecore MH20 with me.
I did see some blue halo outside the beam when close to a white surface. But it is way less obvious on my sample than TK’s. It is also way less obvious than Olight S20R, SWM C20C, or ZL SC600 MK1.
One thing I noticed is that TK’s D25A is with light orange peel reflector. My D25C has a SMO. The lens on mine is a same or similar AR lens.
2. Moon mode
When head is tightened, there are two modes, turbo and strobe (group 2).
When head is loose, I get group 1. By tightening/loosing head three times, I get to lower or raise the output of whole group 1. When group 1 is in the lowered state, the first mode is a true moon mode, being less than 0.5 lumen if I assume MH20 has a 1 lumen low mode. When it is in the higher state, the first mode is brighter than MH20 1 lumen mode, being maybe 3-5 lumens (only by estimation). Though I am using an efest IMR 16340, the other two modes (medium and high) are retained at some extent except the medium mode is too bright (about half of high). This is expected as mentioned on Eagletac specs. This is also similar to what you see when switching from eneloop to 14500 on Thrunite T10.
Overall, the modes are satisfactory on my sample even using 16340.
I completely agree with TK about the upper/lower Group 1 crap. Why can’t they just assign four nice modes in Group 1 (head loose), and group 2 as tactical mode (head tighten).
I did observe PWM in lower modes. They are pretty high frequency. I have to wave my light really fast to see it. So this will not likely to bother me.
From Eagletac website, D25C was the one that user can open the bezel and replace the lens. D25C was the one to have optional mode memory in Group 1. D25A and D25C may have different drivers based on what Eagletac said. “D25 clicky Ti series use the A400RC III driver and A950RC III driver. Both feature high efficiency, clicky and twist head operation, programmable 0.5 lumen moonlight mode, optional mode memory (D25C only), added auxiliary modes (i.e. disorientated strobe, fast SOS), and most importantly dimmable feature with single li-ion.” The one in D25A might be less consistent compared to the one in D25C.
Overall, this is a great buy for me, especially from Illumn at the price, and three days delivery. (There are quite some purchases go like “that is not what I wanted” in the first twenty minutes I had it in my hands. This is not one.)