Review Brinyte B21 Complex hunting light

Brinyte offered to send me the B21 complex to review.
Thanks Brinyte!

Since Gchart already did a review I decided to field test it and go from there.

Specs according to Brinyte:
LED colors: Red-Green-IR850-White
Voltage: 2.5V-8.4V
Battery: 1*18650/2*CR123A

As happened with Gchart, they swapped the IR850 for a UV LED unfortunately. The IR850 would have been perfect for my InfraRed nightspotter. I use my modded B158 with IR850 pill for that.
This B21 light could have been perfect for that, being able to use other LEDs as well.
According to Brinyte the production version will have the IR in stead of the UV LED.

I did a total teardown. I have more pic’s on request, but most important are the LEDs

Some observations:

Thermal path seems bad, but I had no heat problems yet.
Also the switch is housed in a plastic threaded piece that screws in the tailcap. It is a total pain in the * to get back in. Hopefully the final production is metal.

Tailcap to body has nice square threads.
No blinky modes :+1:
You can lock out the light by unscrewing the tailcap slightly.
Instant on for any color or white due to double switch at tailcap.
Possible to operate with gloves.
Final production seems to get a remote tactile switch option but I have no info on that.

It is advertised as a hunting light, so let’s see how it performs!
Since we all like pictures:



It can either be fired up with one LED at a time:

Or 1 color LED combined with white

Comparison picture:

It takes both protected and unprotected 18650’s. Didn’t test CR123A. Oh and .30-06 rounds don’t fit :stuck_out_tongue:

Now time for some beamshots & beam comparisons to my other hunting lights B158 and Nitecore HC65 :arrow_right:

Testshot

B21 Green

B21 UV

B21 Red

Nitecore HC65 Red

Left B21 on High, Right my modded XPL-HI FET-DD B158 on High

Some more beamshots at 25mtr about 30 min’s after sunset

Testshot

B21 Red

B21 UV

B21 Green

B21 XPL-HI Lo

B21 XPL-HI High

Left B158 Right B21

During night:

Testshot

Nitecore HC65 on High

B21

Conclusion:

The light looks a bit awkward but is actually built quite well. Feels sturdy however lacks the high quality seen on the B158. This is possibly due to prototype.
I would like to see batt.check mode.
It lacks a proper moon mode unfortunately both in white & red.

The UI with 2 switches works very well.
White as well as red & green are remarkably bright.
It is quite throwy (But obviously is no match to the B158 throw wise)

It packs a lot of light options in a very decent way in a small and light package.
When fitted with IR led, it’s the most all round hunting light I know of.

Thanks for the review! The head of that light reminds me of the movie Hollow Man.

Yes, or paw patrol :smiley:

Thanks, it was I think my first “regular” review.

The Elephant Man rather…

The interesting thing with this light is that it has a dedicated reflector for each colored LED which makes for much better lighting compared to others that stick the colored leds around the same reflector as the white leds.

Yes, especially the red & white throws above my expectations.
I used to have a WF-502B in red, but the B21 is way brighter and throws a lot better.
It doesn’t look “tactical”, but it actually is very useful.

What's the price? Don't see it listed anywhere.

Ok, I just got a reply from Brinyte that they will probably not go into production :person_facepalming:

They will work on a new hunting light wich looks better. The “paw” got a lot of negative attention. Looks like a company that’s actually doing market research.
Too bad I made a review about a prototype, but hopefully they come up with something better!

No wonder I could not find it anywhere lol. I have to admit, the paw has a spooky look to it, I think they did the right thing by redesigning it.

I agree, it is not exactly matching the rest of my huntig equipment esthetically.

Hopefully they address some of the other shortcomings as well!

gchart did a GAW recently, and I won his Brinyte B21 Complex prototype. I’d agree with all of your assessment, except the IR LED. I’m not a hunter, so I don’t see any value in having two ‘red’ LEDs. I think it would be cool to have a blue instead, and a simple RGB UI. Having said that, though, I like having the UV emitter.

I wasn’t surprised that the white had decent throw, but I was surprised at how well the colors did. Having separate reflectors surely helped. I hope that the new design doesn’t eliminate that feature.

The dual switch in the tail is cool. One for the white emitter, and one to select between and turn on/off each color. However, considering the light has two switches, the UI is a little too simple for my taste (again, I’m not a hunter).

I haven’t taken mine apart yet, but just looking from the outside, it looks rather well put together for a prototype. It feels nice and hefty in the hand. Maybe it’s the internal build that lets it down? A plastic insert in the tail does sound like it could be a point of failure in the future. I can understand why they’d use plastic, though. They’re using a dual-tube design similar to the Fritz FW3A for e-switch in the tail. Plastic would help insulate all the metals from each other so that they don’t short together and cause switching problems.

Dutcheee, can you show us a picture of the plastic insert outside of the light? Or is it too much hassle to put back together?

As a hunting light, I see zero use in an UV emitter. For a normal light it might be a nice gimmick.
I’d rather not have it at all, since you have to cycle past it. I only want useful modes in the field. Blinkies and UV or blue isn’t.
IR on the other hand can be very useful for nightvision gear using infra red.
For household use I see no use in it, other than making night shots with a video camera. The often record a bit of invisible IR as well. Try to shoot a your IR remote and see if it lights up.

Yes, I think the plastic tail has to do with the dual tailbutton to isolate things. I just switched to a new smartphone and am on holiday now. Once I’m back I’ll check if I can find the pic’s of the internals.

Yeah, that’s exactly what I thought too. Since I’m not a hunter, I like the gimmicks. :smiley:

Thanks!