Received a review sample of Perun Mini about a week+ ago, an angle light that looks and feels similar to the 2017-released Olight H1R Nova headlamp, except that Olight is making the headband an optional purchase, despite one of the biggest disappointment of the 18650-size Olight Perun package (released at end of 2019) was the exclusion of headband. Specifications of Olight Perun Mini:
Package of Olight Perun Mini:
What's included in the package:
You can download the user manual from the following link: [URL]https://olightworld.com/index.php?route=product/download/download&did=188[/URL] The headband picture below:
is an optional item that you need to purchase separately or get it in a kit version which Olight is asking for an additional ~US$5.xx There are two colors available when this was first launched a couple of weeks ago, the regular Black and a limited run Orange. Different sides of Olight Perun Mini:
Olight changed the pocket clip attachment featuring a big round tip to secure the clip in place, making the pocket-clip less likely to accidentally detached from the Perun Mini. This really works!
Unlike Olight H1R Nova, there are no tailcap, the body and tail charging is a uni-body:
Battery included is the same battery that is used for S1R Baton II, an IMR 16340 550mAh ORB-16C05-10C. The IMR battery is needed to power up Perun Mini Turbo mode of 1000 lumens for 1 minutes before dropping down to the more runtime friendly 250 lumens. The charging tail end:
The head switch button:
Perun Mini supports 6 modes with Off Timer, all access from this single electronic switch:
To perform mechanical lockout (one that doesn't drain your battery so much), loosen the body half turn.
standby current is approximately 2.2m.
The included Duty Patch:
Olight should have really included a headband, the H1R Nova type, instead of this duty patch, their justifications when confronted was this is to be use on vest, hat and bag... and they send yours truly this picture:
saying this is how we should use this duty patch. after some to-and-fro messaging, I gave up trying to convince them that this Velcro thingy is not a good idea. Even the headband to go with this Velcro is such a bad design that makes yours truly thinks there is something amiss within Olight Engineering/Design team.
so I ask my kid to model for the following shoots:
and this is the beam angle:
part of the light/beam is blocked by the hat's bill/brim and given that this is a floody beam profile with the purpose of illuminating larger area in-front and near you, wearing on hat like this is downright not safe. putting safety aside, if we were to use the headband designed to go with this Duty Patch, the Velcro backing will touch your forehead and if you have a sensitive skin, you will find that not only it's not comfortable, but after mixing with sweat you may get rashes or red patch on your forehead.
I really dislike the tacti-cool direction that Olight team is taking with their light design for the recent releases.
Following is an animated gif showing with only 60° rotating mechanism of the Duty Patch at 6 positions (yes, it "clicked" quietly into places with a retention):
Size comparisons with other Olight models:
The measured output:
The usual disclaimer: I do not claim the above measured lumens as authoritative nor an indication of over/under-stating the number given by manufacturer. It's calibrated against some known light output (e.g. SureFire, Elzetta, etc.) so take it with a grain of salt and just as a relative reading.
The runtime behaviour on Turbo mode (continuous):
Zooming in to the first 2 minutes of the runtime:
and comparing the manufacturer's claimed output and runtime between Perun Mini and H1R Nova;
there is a text inside the user manual that I thought you might be interested to know:
where it says "The product is not compatible with disposable CR123A batteries"... they ain't kidding... because I tested with the following batteries:
and it only runs Moon, Low and Medium mode, with High mode running for seconds before dropping down to Medium mode. This is unlike the S1R Baton II, where we can still run High mode quite comfortably. When the CR123A battery Voltage drops below 3.0-3.1V, we only gets to run Moon, Low and Medium mode with no access to High mode, any further dropping in battery Voltage will only see Moon and Low mode running.
Tests has been carried out to validate the difference between Perun Mini and S1R Baton II driver/firmware, when Perun Mini can no longer run High on CR123A, the same battery when immediately transfer to S1R Baton II, it runs high with no problem, and don't forget the high in S1R Baton II is 600 lumens compare to 250 lumens of Perun Mini. when Perun Mini can no longer go to Medium mode with CR123A, the same battery when immediately transfer to S1R Baton II, it can comfortably runs Medium mode with no problems. I'm honestly disappointed with this change where they do not support the use of CR123A battery. I'm guessing this could've due to the change in LED used, OSRAM P9 vs CREE XM-L2.
Also, don't use any 16340 battery (especially those with in-built micro-USB port) that are longer than 34.3mm in length due to the very tight tolerance of the Perun Mini body length. If you do, you are running the risk of crushing either the battery circuit or worst, the Perun Mini driver board. Best to get them Olight's IMR ORB-16C06-10C batteries as standby/spare (it's relatively low cost).
You can safely run Perun Mini with unprotected IMR 16340 cells (make sure length of cell is less than 34.3mm) as Perun Mini has LVP in-built.
Despite some of my disappointment, I would still recommend this Perun Mini as an alternative to the discontinued H1R Nova and get the older H1R Nova headband if your preferred store still carries it. My sincere suggestion to Olight:
- Come-on Olight, isn't it time to use 18350-size battery? It's disappointing that Perun Mini is still release with the IMR 16340, and that "buffered-up" 550mAh capacity...
- Include a proper headband (e.g. the older H1R Nova headband) instead of the Duty Patch in your angle light package, and that includes Perun and Perun Mini.
- Neutral White, Neutral White, Neutral White... or 90-CRI, 90-CRI, 90-CRI...
My current view of Olight as a flashlight company is they like their comfort zone too much with their success at the US market and they are bank-rolling on the models like S1R Baton II, S2R Baton II, etc. that released back in 2018, we don't see much innovations from Olight compare to 2 years ago, well, nothing wrong with that, but they started to remind yours truly of flashlight company like the good'ol MagLite. The "fashionable" limited edition release is basically just different colors of the same light... the compromises and trade-off like anodizing of their lights is alarming as I can no longer trust the HA claim that Olight made because the anodizing layer is so thin... the material used compare to older lights seems lesser grade as dropping from below waist height (<1m) will easily dent the light (stainless steel included) and sometimes chip away the metal. The engineering direction of only supporting the use of their own custom battery for newer releases is also not good for the consumer as certain degree of interoperability was taken away.
I hope the plan to release some updated models in the second half of year 2020 do materialize and they can pull off what they had planned. Good luck Olight.
