Been shopping for a couple new flashlights. Haven’t bought anything new and interesting since I did work for ShiningBeam back in the day, still rocking some of his lights but they are finally starting to show their age.
I’m looking for some good general purpose lights primarily for camping, hiking and at home.
Would like a light with a good balance between flood and throw, a wider beam being preferable to a narrow one. SOmething that can maintain it’s high output for a long time. Good LED with good CRI and tint. Either 18650 or 21700 but not too bulky (still easy to pocket). Would like to get a right angle light as well.
Some current contender are:
The Convoy’s, of course, they still use the logo I made so I gotta get a couple.
Fenix E35 V3
Zebralight SC600W
ArmyTek Wizard C2 Pro - I really like the versatility of a right angle light and people say this is the best but it can only maintain it’s high output for a minute then goes down to ~500 lumen which is a little useless if you’re using it for a bike light.
Olight Warior Mini 2 - Those proprietary batteries though
Some of the Wurkkos lights look decent for the price
That’s going to be almost any light in this size/mass range unless it’s using the absolutely most efficient emitter… which means cool white and extremely floody.
+1 for the Zebralight, maybe even the SC700 if that’s not too big for your use case.
I’ve been carrying a Skilhunt M200 for quite a while, and using their H03 headlamps and have never failed to be impressed. There is simply nothing that I’d “improve” on them……and yes, I bought and paid for all of them. (2 - M200’s & 3 - H03’s).
Other than them, I’m a big Convoy fan. There are very few needs that they don’t have a rugged, practical, economical light that applies.
Emissar DT8 E21A, Skilhunt H04, Acebeam EC65, TK18 (Nichia), Convoy S12, Sofirn IF25A 4000k.
Fenix won’t have good CRI and tint, but can sustain high output.
500 lm it’s a good output. Most of 18650 hi cri lights won’t sustain more than that.
For bike light, the best option is a proper bike light.
If you have a NiMH charger, high quality AAA cells and don’t mind just getting in the habit of swapping the battery every day I would strongly recommend the Manker E02 II 4000k hi CRI version. Hands down the most useful and used light I have ever owned. No power house for sure. When outdoors I almost always have something like the SC31 Pro or a Convoy C8 available but rarely used. (Have a helmet mount for the SC31 as a bike light and I think it is far from useless!)
Indoors and while urban dog walking I simply rarely use more than the 30 lumen low (roughly 5 hrs). The roughly 100 lumen high is good for over an hour and 200 plus lumen are available and sometimes used.
AAA is no 18650 and that is exactly the point! The E02II can be worn as jewelry. It is completely unobtrusive, instantly available, and provides excellent useable light. Mostly I use a light either for seeing the sidewalk imperfections, finding doggy doo, or fixing something with my hands. Clips to a hat, shirt, or sticks with a magnet. The TIR and the high CRI make for excellent useful light. Lumens are not everything. Moonlight is something I also use frequently and the E02II has that more than covered.
Clearly if you are trying to see out further than across the street or need the run time of an 18650 it won’t do the trick. As you are looking for a couple of lights I am suggesting one that can do things the others can not and does some things so well that I no longer use the others.
The Skillhunt M200 was actually one of my top picks as well, forgot to list it there. It was the first light I was really considering buying and then I did a deep dive into whats available these days which just made it impossible to choose anything lol
Would definitely prefer a 18650 or 21700. I have a couple AA/AAA lights and while it’s nice to have a light that you can easily find batteries for if need by I much prefer a light I can recharge. One of the things I really like about the Olight’s is their charging system, I know there’s a another company out there that does something similar too.
I wish more manufacturers gave you a choice of LED’s, if Olight had the option for a neutral white with decent CRI I would overlook the proprietary batteries because everything else about them is really nice.
As for the output level, I know the lights offering 3000+lm turbos can’t sustain that for long but something that could hold ~1000lm would be nice. Which is my gripe with the Wizard, it drops down to 400-600lm (depending on the LED) after a minute or two and one of the biggest reasons I want one is for it’s flexibility but it wouldn’t really work as a bike light. Seems to be the same issue with the Skillhunt H04. The Zebralight right angle lights look nice but no magnetic tail cap limits their appeal.
I have several ZebraLight headlamps and flashlights. They’re by far my favorite brand for EDC. I’ve added magnets to most of them.
These four all have magnets inside the tailcap springs:
The H602w and H600w Mk II can fit a 3/16” magnet, but the H600Fw Mk IV body was very slightly shortened and can only accommodate an 1/8” thick magnet. They’re all grade N52 and 1/2” diameter. I buy mine at K&J Magnetics.
You need a short 18650 to make this work, and unprotected cells are out of the question. My flat-top Panasonic NCR18650B and Samsung 30Q cells both work.
That’s an Armytek Wizard Pro deep-carry clip with a rectangular magnet attached with heat-shrink tubing. The two magnets allow for mounting and aiming in nearly any direction.
My SC62w has a magnet in the spring too, but newer generations of their flashlights are made to be as short as possible and have no room to spare inside for magnets. Another option is adhering a magnet to the outside of the tailcap. I used 5-minute epoxy to attach a 1/16” magnet to the outside of my AA-powered H51w. I did the same with my AA-powered SC5w because it (and a few other ZL models) has pogo springs rather than a traditional coil spring in the tailcap.
BTW, I owned a Wizard Pro v3 but sold it because I found it heavy and bulky compared to my ZebraLight headlamps. The ZLs are about as light and compact as an 18650-powered light can be.
I also prefer the ZebraLight headband and mount. I take them in and out of the silicone mount regularly and haven’t had one tear yet.
Regarding sustained output, I don’t think you’ll find a compact single-18650-powered light that can steadily put out 1,000 lumens. The runtime graphs I’ve seen show the Mk IV ZebraLights dropping to about 600 lumens after heating up.
I think I have even more options then when I started now lol thanks guys.
Those magnet mods for the Zebralights is a good idea, shame they don’t come that way so I don’t have to try and find magnets that fit.
So far my favorites are the Zebralight SC600w, Fenix E35 v3, Skillhunt M200, TrustFire T11R (especially for the price), Acebeam T36(though maybe a bit too narrow of a beam). If Emisar ever comes out with a D4v3 I’m all over it.
Now how to pick just one? Or, better yet, how to convince the wife that I need them all?
EDIT, At first glance I didn’t care for the looks of the Emisar D4v2, looks a little Dollar store flashlight-y but the Ti version sure is nice. What’s the best LED? Something with good balance of output and CRI and a warm to neutral tint 4k-5k.
What do you guys think of this Build
Switch ring - Flat (?)
LED - XP-L HI V2 5D 4000k
Switch light - Cyan, maybe or white
+Magnet in tail cap and pocket clip
I’m guessing extra floody optics are pointless as this looks like super flood light to begin with. Do they come with a battery?
I have several Noctigon and Emisar lights. Excellent quality and performance for reasonable prices, and Hank offers great customer service.
I haven’t tried the raised switch ring, but I haven’t had any accidental activations with the flat one.
If you’re going for the throwy HI emitters, I’d suggest skipping the floody optic. You can try it on your next D4v2.
I’m a bit of a CRI snob, but surprisingly, I’ve always liked the XP-L HI 5000K tint. Haven’t tried any of the warmer flavors yet.
The SC600* Mk IV models have pogo springs, so adding a magnet inside the light won’t work.
I have some Fenix lights and am very pleased with the quality, but their emitter choices usually turn me off. BTW, the lowest mode on the E35 V3.0 is 50 lumens, in case lower modes are important to you.
If you go with a Fenix model, I highly recommend Fenix Lighting as an excellent authorized retailer. They’re great folks and have an amazing showroom with nearly all their models loaded with batteries to test out, in case you’re near Colorado. They offer free shipping and a 20% off coupon for signing up for their email list.
If you’re still thinking “Good LED with good CRI and tint.” that IMHO rules out Fenix. A few of their lights have a good tint and more like 5700K emitters, but many of the new ones like the E35 v3 are very CW with a greenish tint (seems to be true for all SST-70s at this point).
SST-20 in 4000K is the best “jack of all trades” emitter for the D4. Higher max output and throwier than the E21A, much better color reproduction and also lower cost than the XP-L HI. Not as pleasant a tint as either of those at lower outputs, but “minus green” sheets are pretty cheap and will cover a LOT of flashlights.
For the switch backlight, consider if this will ever serve as a “nightstand” light - cyan is one of the brightest colors for the switch LED IIRC and something like amber will disturb sleep much less, even comparing the low settings for different options.
