Wildtrail WT90 Review – Largest Thrower with SBT90 & Anduril 2
You have great knowledge of flashlights and it shows in your excellent review.
I appreciate the “windshield wiper” beamshot comparison. Very very well done. I would assume you’re into photography?
The light is beautiful (I’d love the aluminum finish) and throw is amazing. Sustained brightness from turbo seems to be 15-20% of max? I was expecting a better drop off for this large light. If you have time please check what happens if you increase Tmax to 60 for example.
Thanks! I’m glad you liked the review! I’m not particularly into photography but I do have a specific process for taking beamshots to make sure they’re comparable, and I find that the windshield wiper comparison is the best way to compare beamshots.
I also expected better thermal performance (less stepdown). I did check to see what happens with cooling and a raised temperature ceiling. It’s all part of the runtime graph in the runtime section.
Great review. And very comprehensive. I really wish Wildtrail would have addressed some of the issues you have pointed out. Such as series battery configuration, buck driver using an ATTiny1616, and having Anduril 2 right out of the box. And not having good thermal regulation is a no, no. I’m starting to have second thoughts. I already put my order in for one. Whenever it arrives, I’ll give it a try. But, I may end up selling it.
Oh got it now - I didn’t see that you did raise Tmax to 70. Could you explain what exactly “Turbo Cooled” mean, and why does that run end in just one hour?
BTW your “Convoy Guide” Grizzly’s Convoy Guide – Grizzly's Reviews was very helpful when I was new to the brand and trying to decide which light to buy. Keep up the good work. (Actually it’s helpful even now. :+1: 
)
Turbo cooled means I had a fan blowing directly on the light for the whole runtime. It only ran for an hour because the fan (and raised thermal ceiling) allowed it to stay much brighter for the entire runtime. Higher brightness always equals less runtime.
I’m glad you found the Convoy Guide helpful!
I’m a fan of up-close and intimate pictures like this, and these shots are lovely. It’s almost like you’re standing next to an aircraft or something.
When I saw you posted this with Anduril, I was wondering what the motivation was for flashing it to AD2. Narsil is considered the perfect large (mainly single emitter) thrower UI because it’s Anduril-like, except it has the ability to essentially disable thermal regulation all-together. So the light can either operate unfettered, or just to whatever your “personal touch” liking is, literally. Maybe not ideal in smaller lights, but the WT90 is an excellent candidate for this. Thats why when I saw your review, I was interested to see how you got it to perform. But the main performance issue was in-fact the thermal regulation it seems. But I see when you cooled it and set it to 70, it pretty much held turbo.
So I wonder if you didn’t cool it, if it would still hold at that lumen anyway. WT90’s are a 10min+ Turbo light with Narsil. Never checked actual temp, but I don’t think it hits 70 anyway honesty (could be wrong tho). The E07 2021 can sustain almost 1000 lumen for around an hour when set to 70 uncooled with SST20 5000k. But to do that it only reached 60c. The WT90 has tons more mass than that, so it can/should definitely do great without it getting too absurdly hot. But even if it does, you can set it to cool down whenever you feel it’s too hot to the touch.
Here is a pretty informative and rather funny video on how it all works.
I like your review! I fall into the camp that throwers should use simpler UIs (and buck drivers) mainly because you can better take advantage of the greater size and thermal mass. NarsilM isn’t my favorite UI, but I like that thermal throttling can be disabled.
Although parallel batteries don’t need to be married, it is advisable that they are the same capacity, condition, manufacturer for maximum performance and cell longevity.
Yeah - just want you to know that there are nutty hobbyists who read the expert-level Convoy guide that you obviously have spent a lot of time on. And that it just caused me to buy the MAO M21B with B35AM. :+1:
Thanks for the “Turbo Cooled” explanation. I envisioned you have some fancy cooling device that wraps the light or something lol. Simple but works to perfection; I may try myself with my Wurkkos TS30S. I so far have hesitated to cook that thing to 70° C Tmax.
I’m glad you like the photos!
I updated to Anduril because I really like Anduril’s stepped ramp, manual mode memory, and momentary turbo. Those are all things Narsil lacks (I suppose it does have stepped modes but it works differently and in a way I don’t like). It’s also for consistency’s sake, since every e-switch light I my permanent collection runs the latest version of Anduril 2, meaning they all work exactly the same and I’m very very familiar with the UI.
The ability to disable thermal regulation does not interest me. I always want my lights to be thermally regulated and Anduril has the best thermal regulation around. I used Narsil when I reviewed Lumintop GT94 and I was not impressed. The thermal regulation especially gave me a lot of trouble as it would kick in way prematurely so I HAD to disabled it just to get the light to work correctly. Very disappointing.
Perhaps when I get the light back (it’s currently with Adair21 getting red button LED’s installed) I can do another test with the ceiling set to 70C but uncooled and see how it performs.
VERY interesting discussion. Runtime of another SBT90.2 light, Convoy L8, that I had my eyes on for a long time but didn’t get because it’s bigger and more expensive than the Wurkkos. I feel like SBT90.2 is the culmination of latest advancement in LED design as far as brightness and throw and was looking at a lot of lights with them.
Hope my comparison comments are correct?
Thanks for the great review.
My trail lights are really simple as far as how I use them.I use Max output until it’s too hot to hold then cool it down as needed.
I disabled the step down as soon as I got the light, that was June of 2021. My battery carry was modified so it does not have a parasitic drain anymore. It also has bypasses in the carrier and the head of the light.
When it gets too hot to hold I just dial it down. That doesn’t happen too much even in the summer. Because the light has a lot of mass to it.
I have a TN42vn CFT90. Got that four and a half years ago. Outrageously priced! I like the Wild Trail better, basically the same output, but it has Better battery configuration and three times cheaper!
I agree with @tactical_grizzly , I find it annoying using anyone else's ramping after using Anduril.