New Update 1-17-2017….I’ve modified my PT16 to take an 18500, no springs, and now with 4 XP-L W2 1D emitters. This compact little dynamo is making 3401.7 lumens out the front on an Efest Purple 18500 1000mAh cell rated to do 15A continuous. Wowza! She do get hot!
Update: Not being one to leave well enough alone, I removed the charger and fixed it up with magnetic ended leads so it can be used with my battery bank. Then I bored the tube for an 18350 and it now does 2186 lumens.
Update: 2-28-16… With this being the older User Interface and the new style already hitting the shelves, I modified the tiny little Pineapple Nutshell. I put a quad set-up in it with 4 XP-G2 S4 2B emitters, bored out the emitter shelf and used an extra copper mcpcb with both the quad mcpcb re-flow soldered to this second one. The copper mcpcb stack sits on a shelf that is left after boring out the original flat. I then stripped the driver and piggybacked a 15mm FET driver in, with ToyKeepers 64 level ramping firmware. This allows the light to start in moon or turbo, save the last level in use for instant start up in that level, and/or ramp forward/backwards through the levels to get just the right amount of light. It now does up to 1493 lumens with a fresh 16340, pulling 4.16A at the tail from an Efest Red V2 button top IMR16340. Very handy! Still charges as before with the micro USB port in the top of the battery tube, everything looks stock except for the quad up top.
I gotta say, this one was quite the little challenge! But it was worth it, crazy seeing ~1500 lumens from something so small!
I have to admit, from the very first glimpse I was smitten by this tiny light! From the pineapple knurling, triple XP-G2, 16340 size and even the built in charger, I couldn’t resist. I talked to the folks at Mec-Army, found they were in the process of making some changes, but went ahead and asked May at GearBest if I could do a review on this first edition PT-16. She offered me a very attractive discount to do the review…And so, here we are! This little beaut can be found here at GearBest Mec-Army PT-16
I will be adding a bunch of pictures to this post as soon as I can get more cooperation from my internet service. (really slow today) Wanted to jump in with some initial impressions that I will expand on further later today and tomorrow.
Awesome form factor! Right out of the box it’s just super tiny and snags ya! Design, build quality, fit in the hand… really really surprising. I’m not gonna lie, it’s an expensive little light. Costing right at $65 it had better be special to help justify that kind of monies. And Mec-Army is paying attention to feed-back, updating the UI to better reflect what the customer database wants to see. This is an early sample, the UI is … well… it needed the update. It starts in Turbo, isn’t really intuitive, but is perfectly usable even at that.
A couple of looks at the charging system at work. Very clever stuff here…
The charger isn’t really fast, but the cell is so small I really couldn’t expect a fast charging rate. Mec-Army included a cell in the light with thin plastic discs inserted to break contact… these had to be removed the first time and they include a little warning sticker to remind you to do so. The really neatly designed tail cap has double o-rings, comes off quite snugly as they don’t intend for it to be taken off for battery changes. The top end of the tube has a single o-ring but a groove that covers the micro-usb charging port might be able to handle a second o-ring that would have to be moved aside to charge. Need to check that.
I know a lot of you like to cut to the chase, so here’s the instruction manual with their claims…
Here’s what I found with my UNI-T clamp meter and my lightbox…
With their supplied MRB-16340…
0.01A for 3.76 lumens
0.15A for 85.56
0.61A for 313.26
2.61A for 938.4
With an Efest Red Button Top IMR16340
0.03A for 3.21 lumens
0.17A for 83.49
0.61A for 307.05
2.95A for 1104
Taking it outside on a 300 yd walk to the road it’s simply a bust out laughing giggle like a school girl experience! It’s tiny, but it PRODUCES! I loved it so much I bought it’s little brother at full price, the PT-10.
And that’s yet another impressively clever thing Mec-Army is doing here… they use the same head and put a different battery tube on it to cover all the cell options from 18650, 14500, 16340, 10440. Awesome! (I got the PT-10 a couple of days ago, new UI, much improved. Stay tuned…)
So I’m gonna jump out now, will be back with more pics later…
Thanks for checking it out… big thumbs up to Mec-Army!
(I’ll be back)