Review of Manker U21 - 18650/26650

Disappointing about the stepdown when the light is driven at spec. Also, no tactical momentary on-off feature. I hate press-and-hold UIs. But still, looks and sounds like an impressive light.

Thanks for the review. Would it be possible to pop the driver out to see if a resistor mod could be performed to increase current? Also, is the LED sitting on an “integrated pill?”

Thanks again,

On mine, the driver appears to be epoxied in, similar to a soft thermal epoxy you find under many MCPCB's. Notice in the OP picture, there's no driver retaining ring. When you remove the bezel, it gives access to a really nice 28 mm MCPCB that appears to be copper DTP, but not sure. But no easy access to the driver from the bezel end. So, possible way to pop out the driver is via the switch hole (like an SRK), but from past experience, you can risk damaging the driver by trying to force the driver out by breaking the seal of the epoxy.

For me, I might try drilling out a hole on the edge of the driver, and use leverage from a pry tool. Not sure how resistor mods work with a well regulated boost driver. Also the turbo stepdown cannot be disabled, most likely.

Thanks for the review. The clear pictures are a great help.

Thank you guys for the feedback.
Soon I should get my hands on a 26650 and update the graphic.

Wait new data base on 26650

Thanks for the review - is the tint really that greenish? Looks almost like those early Javelots with their dedomed XP-L´s …
Too bad for the harsh stepdown to 60% (after 2 minutes I suppose?) I hoped for a thrower without stepdown.

Cheers,
K.

Budda, as You clearly have access to both U11 and U21, why not make picture with both those lights for relative size comparison?

@Kusie
My eyes are very used to warm tints (almost all my lights are under 4000K).
I don’t know why the camera shows the beam a bit on the neutral side.
The tint is a CW, but not too cool.
The XP-L with greenish tint I believe are the one “custom dedomed”. The XP-L Hi and the XHP35 Hi are produced dedomed by CREE, and so the tint is fine.
A light without a stepdown is a light without a turbo mode. Turbo mode is something that you should use for a short period of time.
The turbo mode can differ from light to light, for a small AA battery may be 500 lumens and for a triple led copper light may be 3500 lumens, but the principle is the same: this mode will push the components to the limit, and for the sake of the light, this mode is limited.
My advice is: if you need a 100’000 Cd light, choose one that have this value at hi mode, not at turbo mode. Thus you will have the amount of throw you need with no stepdwon.

@Altonx
I will make pics, but the size are quite different.
I’ll throw in some other lights to compare, bigger than the U11.

turbo stepdown can be reset after the off-on switching ?

Thanks for the beautiful pics & review!

After the third hailstorm, I made some use of the hail collected today.
Manker U21, Manker U11, Predator V2.5, 47 quark 123^2


I added the images at the first post.

Here with similar form factor single 26650 reflector throwers:

The compact size, to me, is a big advantage. The reflector I.D. is very close, maybe 1 mm shy of an HD2010, to it's right.

Sweet pics Budda,looks neat on the hail. I wish Manker would offer a BLF discount for us,I would definitely buy it.

My thought too.
If only Manker offers BLF discount, I would jump into it.
Pity there’s also no direct access to Turbo

Btw, nice written review @Budda and plenty of nice pics too :+1:

Thanks guys.
Your feedback is very important to me.

@Bombay: I have not forgot you. I’ll make another runtime graph to answer precisely to your question.

ok, thanks guy

BOMBAY, while I did the test you asked, I got very different results from my runtime graph above: the stepdown is very very low.
The Turbo curve I get now is completely different from the one I got before. I checked the data log from that old test, and I can’t find any error.
However, I tested the first 10 minutes of runtime at turbo 3 times with 2 different cells and got the same results… This can’t be wrong.

After the stepdown at turbo, the output is still much higher than the one high level.

And, coming to your answer: yes, you can. Just switch off and back on the light.

However, as you can see in the last graphic, what you gain is around 10% of output. Such a small gain at 1000+ lumens is something very hard to notice by eye, while the light will have a lot more heat to handle.

The main post has been corrected and updated.

thanks for the great review and graphs. Run Time looks very good with + 1250lumen and 18650 battery, I have cold hands, act as a good heat sink :). I like this type of flashlight, now I use mostly eagle eye x6r xp-l hi, sometimes blf d80 but I think that I have to buy my first Manker light

I have and like very much the Fenix PD40 and this Manker U21 will be a nice addition for a light with more throw.