This is my review of the new Sunwayman F30R, this is my second review ever so please feel free to suggest any better ways to organize it or show / explain something better...
edit: light provided by my wife's bank account for review.
I bought this light at the same time as tterev3 planning to work on his project EMERALD along with him (I will be doing any machine work needed up to [if needed] building an entire new heatsink / pill and helping any way I can especially during testing when a second set of eyes is always useful, he's doing the driver / UI which will be a buck driver for either CR123's or 16340 and a much extended version of his "MELD" FW) however since my job isnt needed yet I didnt have to rip mine apart instantly like he did, I get to play with it for a little while in stock form and just from the one outing I took it on plus playing with it here for a few days its not a UI I like, and the color output is much to low than what I require, but for the standard consumer who isnt able to do what tterev3 and I do this is a cool little light in stock forum. Now keep in mind I bought mine at wholesale (I'm a vendor now) so you'll have to be the judge if its worth the MAP price to you or not.
First the spec's (direct copy / paste from the mfg's site:
Same as with my other SWM light (and as is expected of a tier one name brand) packaging is excellent, no paper thin cardboard box here
inside the box the light (and diffuser) are protected very well, held in place with foam cut to fit.
Included in the box is the light, the diffuser, English user manual (written in proper grammar), warranty card, small advertising pamphlet for similar models and a bag containing a very generic lanyard and one spare o-ring.
Lets have a look at the light
See that big old dent there on the smooth part between the body knurling and the tail cap? Thats were I dropped it straight on a rock from waist level about 6 hours after I got it. Man why couldn't it have hit the knurling where it wouldnt be quite as visible!
The main XM-L2 is perfectly centered as it the majority of the 5mm encapsulated LED's, the reflector is absolutely perfect and the glass has a very nice AR coating on it.
Here you can see the red emitters, my camera has a hard time with low wavelength blue light, my guess is these are 445-455nm blue (classified as "Royal Blue") by the way they make things glow. Obviously the ones not lit in this pic are blue, there are no white 5mm's.
This is a lineup with some similar diameter lights, I dont own many CR123 lights and none that have the cells arranged next to eachother so this is a comparison with some popular 4AA lights since they're about the same width.
F30R, EA41_Pukelight, FF Rook, Imalent SA04, BS PadMe. Notice all of these lights have milled battery slots, I hate cell carriers!
The cells are arranged in series for 9V from primary 123's, ~12.6v from secondary 16340's. notice the ano goes down into the locator pin hole and the threads are anozides meaning tail cap lockout is possible!
Some interior pic's (borrowed from tterev3)
driver and Sw
I've gotta say I've been very impressed with the two SWM lights I own (a V11R purchased a few weeks ago and now this), the soldering is really done well with plenty of solder to ensure components wont loose contact over time / from a shock and the solder joints are all very good. They're the only light's I've seen done like this, usually the factories try to use the smallest amount of solder paste possible to save $$)
The UI on this is pretty good (tho I'm not a fan of descending mode order), the way it works is the lower button is the power button, the upper button is the mode button.
-Press the power button to bring the light on in the saved mode, press again for off at any time (which saves that mode)
-Press the mode button to step threw modes, it will start from the position you are currently in, not reset to high every time (off time based mode changing), the order is Turbo/High/Med/Low.
-Hold the power button (from off) to enter color, it will come on at the last used color mode)
-Press the mode button to change threw the 4 color modes (red/blue/strobe1/strobe2) again the light will remember the last used color mode
-Double click the power button (from on or off) to enter strobe
-Hold the mode button (from on or off) to enter moonlight. If you shut the light off in moon it will come on again still in moon with a single press of the power button
This part here is a little tricky
-When you first press the mode button to exit moon the first step it takes will be to the previously saved level, if this is low or medium you will actually step UP threw the modes: Moon/Low/Turbo (at which time it will resume the normal descending order). If your last saved level before moon was Turbo the first click of the mode button will be direct to turbo.
-Double click the mode button (from on) to enter SOS.
-SOS and Strobe cant be saved
I was never able to grasp what exactly to expect from the "police strobe" by the written description so here are a pair of video's showing the difference from Strobe1 (R/B only) to Strobe2 (R/B/W). The diffuser is on in these. Note these are both part of the color sequence, there is also a normal white only strobe and SOS/beacon.
Beamshot's
Once I got a clear, low humidity night I headed out to my normal shorter range location. I was actually very surprised this light did so well for only throwing 18.500Cd.
(white balance daylight)
100m to gymnasium wall, zoomed out
same 100m shot but camera zoomed in
Next was the really surprising one
200m to the church wall
zoomed out
Zoomed. In this pic the white house to the left (where the cat tail lights are reflecting) is on the other side of the street 100m past the church wall @ 306m from the light.
color output's
wall is 10m, rock is 5m
(mouseout = F30R, mouseover = SA04)
Red
Blue
Just to have it posted (since the F30R is R&B only)
SA04 Green (yes this is taken with the same locked in settings)
As you can see the output is actually useful, not like the SA04 that doesnt even reach 5m. Sometime in the next few days I'll be posting a new thread comparing all my RGB/R+B/RGBW lights (both my own creations as well as the factory lights I own). Watch for that to come. I was actually pretty impressed with the F30R's color output, I'd really like to get an F40A to compare but that probably wont happen unless I can get a sample for review, I definitely cant buy myself one just to test one small thing...
I also got some shots in a wooded area showing the diffuser cap in use
Mouseout = blue, mouseover = red
Moon
Low
medium
High
Turbo
(this is where I dropped the light and chipped it :( )
Lumen Cooler readings (Readings taken in my lumen cooler, the more name brand factory lights I get the more confident I get in my ability to calculate the actual lumens from the raw data very close, as you can see my numbers are nearly exactly on par with SWM's F1 numbers)
Red 8.5Lm
Blue 19.3Lm
Moon .85Lm
Low 73Lm
Med 260Lm
High 532Lm
Turbo 881Lm
I also measured throw, (measured @ 5m and converted) I got a reading of 18,850Cd @ 1m
Well guys that pretty much wraps it up, thanks for reading!
Can't have the set moving about randomly.