I lost my beloved Fireflies e12r on a camping trip late last fall, and it’s just not gonna show up I think.
Since apparently the e12r is not being made any more, what to replace it with?
I’m looking for a single cell 21700 pocketable light-
- around 9-10k lumens on turbo
- Anduril OS
aux lights (so I can find it at night in the tent!)
That’s about it. I’m NOT picky about color temp, body color or finish, clip, or charging options, though a built in USB-C port would be nice.Not picky about brand, but would like a well made, sturdy light. Beam shape is flexible, bit would prefer it not to be pure floody.
I’m just now discovering the new Fireflies E12C, which would be an option…but has anything else come up to challenge the performance or useability of the E12R?
Thanks!
Brotha, the E12R is back in stock with FF. You just don’t hear much about them here. But you can definitely replace yours right now. They are updating the site at the moment with a new US Warehouse, but when it’s back up, it’s listed there for purchase. If you create an account, they give you 10% off too.
As Lojik said, the E12R will be back in stock soon. Nothing quite like it, so probably worth just waiting and ordering another one.
The E12C is in stock, which has the same body as the E12R, and same top-end performance, but uses a less efficient driver so at low-medium levels it’ll use a bit more battery and probably wont sustain quite as high lumens near top of ramp before thermal stepdown. It’s a bit cheaper than the E12R though, and still a great light.
The Noctigon K9.3 is kinda similar, but 2 channel with 9 LEDs on one channel and 3 on the other, so not quite as bright on turbo, but similar. It’s got a 52mm bezel though compared to the 48mm bezel on the E12R, so it’s less pocketable but still not too large. Also doesn’t come with a pocket clip, though there are likely a bunch of clips that will work with it.
There’s also the Noctigon DM1.12, which has 12 LEDs on the outside and 1 LED in a larger TIR on the inside for a dual channel flood/throw light. Aux lights and a lighted switch as well. The flood won’t be as bright, only ~4500 lumens, but still plenty of power, and the combo flood/throw makes up for it since it’ll throw much further using less power than the E12R with something like a W2 or SFT-40 in the center. Definitely a good setup for hiking/camping, along with the option for a 26800 tube for a ton of capacity. It’s bigger than the E12R though, with a 63mm bezel.
The Fireflies E07x Pro is in stock. That has “only” 7 LEDs but is still crazy bright, especially with XPL HI or other bright LED options, and it’s smaller, with a 38mm bezel, so much easier to pocket and carry.
But yea. You loved your E12R, so, probably just get another one!
Since you use this for camping, I strongly suggest going with the new e12r or e07x and not the e12c because the e12c uses inefficient linear driver. Most of emisar or noctigon lights use inefficient linear driver too such as the d4k which only does about 300-400 lumens sustained after turbo but it is very small. There are some emisar lights with efficient boost driver but they have no turbo.
Actually what lojik said is correct, the new fireflies e12r and e07x have been released end of last year. They stopped selling them due to the component shortage during the pandemic, but they are finally back in stock, this time with an improved driver inside for even better moon mode and other features. Same charging with USB C. The e07x is a bit smaller but has the same driver, so maybe it would be a good replacement. I hear that fireflies (now they changed the name to fireflylite) is coming up with some improvements to the physical body for e07x version 2 as well. One complaint many people have is the switch, and apparently I hear that they will change it, or offer the rubber button. The website currently is under construction for the new year but hopefully it will be up soon!
Too bad fireflies was having some shipping problems though so maybe you could wait a while for their flashlights. I dont know if there are any other distributor yet.
Actually one thing I realize people dont talk about is the charger in the firefly flashlights. I was looking at the teardown that people have done and the charger is actually a really nice high quality 2A constant current constant voltage charger, and probably better performance than almost all external battery charger than uses pulsing current to charge which is not as good for battery but easier to design. Surprising how they manage to fit all this performance into one flashlight quite underated imo.
There actually might be, not sure anymore. Jack did have some E12R SW45K boards for previous builds. So I know for a fact a few people were able to get E12R SW45K still, but you’d have to email and ask if any are left.
Thanks! But…the old site still has the E12R listed as SOLD OUT on the sale page. And the link you provided is just a front page, and the chat function doesn’t work unless you download whatsapp!, which I don’t want to do.
Where to go from here?
Thanks! I already have the E07 for my wife. I’m not seeing anywhere where it says the E12r is in stock - would you mind pointing that out? The page in the usual FF lights still says sold out.
Actually I am interested in buying a e12r for myself as well but I missed the sale during end of last year. Fireflies (now call fireflylite) released a new website also end of last year with all the new flashlights and choice of leds. But during the new year they closed the webpage with plans for opening a USA-based warehouse. I expect this page to be updated soon but we do not know the time yet.
My suggestion is for the new e07x pro, not the same as the normal e07. The e07 is a classic but has a normal inefficient linear driver like the e12c. The e07x pro has the new driver, same as the e12r. Hopefully there will be some updates to the website soon but I think it is not possible to buy it yet. For the aliexpress website, I don’t think I have heard anyone buying it on aliexpress before. It could be from a seaprate distributor and it may be an older stock. Personally I will wait for the new website so I can customize the emitters and use the new upgrades such as the switch.
Have a good day!
Yes, we have the choice for E12R with Nichia 219b 4500k on our new site: https://www.firefly-outdoor.com/ , but our site is being upgraded and will reopen this week, later you can place the order on the site.
Thanks for your loving of our lights.
I like it that it has USB-C charging. How much was the discount when it was on sale? TIA
Wow that is a great news! Actually I think the usb charging for the fireflies lights is under-rated! It actually uses a really nice constant current battery buck converter battery charger at 2A and so it should work with almost all usb ports and usb c - c cable. Compare with actual external battery charger that actually usually use ‘pulsed’ current to charge battery.
For the led choice, do you consider Nichia 519a? The reason why I say is because the 219b is very rosy and nice but quite inefficient. The 519a is a very nice neutral white but more efficient so it will be a bit brighter but still very good colour and tint.
Thanks everyone! I signed up for the notification for the new website opening.
An led question - I bought the E07 I have with the XPL Hi V3 1A 6500k LED because I really wanted to see how much light I could get on the trail from a tiny light (spec about 6800). Loved it!
I ordered the E12R in a group buy when it was first coming out and advertised as being around 13,000 lumens. I decided to try a different led, the LH351D 5700K for a slightly better tint and color temperature, as it was still advertised as being 13000 lumens.
When I got it, I loved the light…but was really underwhelmed by the output. I know its a bit floodier, but aide by side with my E07, the output looked about the same :(. I know that Fireflies corrected the output specs soon after that. Grr.
I’m tempted to try the Nichia 519A 5700k, as its listed as having the same output as the XPL hi…but I REALLY don’t want to be disappointed in the output again.
Is the 519a really as bright as the XPL hi??
I cannot confirm how bright the E12R will be but I think the 519a has a lot of benefits because it has really nice overall tint (much nicer than lh351d in general), and also have a lower V_fwd compared to lh351d or sst20 or xpl-hi. The lumen per watt of the 519a is maybe not quite as good as xpl hi, which means on regulated mode it may not be as bright, but on turbo in the same flashlight it should be brighter than xpl hi.
Also the optic has a lot to do with how bright it looks. The e12r optic is a bit more floody, so the hotspot will not look as bright and it may look less impressive even if there are more lumens. Also keep in mind the e12r driver has a few more components inside such as reverse polarity protection fet and current sense resistor, so the output on turbo may be lower than other simpler flashlights, with the benefit that it can probably run in turbo for longer (e.g. 1 minute instead of 15 seconds). It will also help if you buy a really high drain battery like molicel 42 or 45 if you want the max turbo.
Personally I think turbo on fet is a gimmick and I much prefer sustained good long runtimes at high brightness. The 519a is the best high cri option right now.
1lumen did a test with e12r and nichia 219b lumen and was 6564 lumens on turbo. I also found this page that SKV89 did a test on e12r and he later comment about e07. Both using 219b leds, the e12r measures 4319 lumens and the e07 was 3000 lumens with his lumen tube which he says may read a bit lower than usual. Fireflies E12R, NOV-MU, T9R, T1R prototype test results. I am not surprised about the big difference in numbers because fet mode is unregulated and depends a lot on many conditions. For example, how clean is the screw thread? How warm is your battery and what voltage did you charge it to? A warm molicel 42 charged to 4.25V will be much power powerful (more than 2x or 3x or even higher) on turbo compared to a cold samsung 50e charged to 4.15V.
Thanks! All good (and known) info
So basically, you’re second sentence - “but on turbo in the same flashlight it should be brighter than xpl hi” is what I’m looking for, if that can be confirmed.
Thanks again.
Have a good day!
Yes, we have the choice for E12R with Nichia 219b 4500k on our new site: https://www.firefly-outdoor.com/ , but our site is being upgraded and will reopen this week, later you can place the order on the site.
Thanks for your loving of our lights.
In my experience, the concrete statement “We will reopen later this week!”, when coming from overseas businesses ACTUALLY means “We will probably open some time in the next few months…”
I’m tempted to order a FF E07X instead of the Emisar D4K/D4S because it has by far a superior driver but I’m afraid the light I’ll order will either have the wrong emitters installed, either will have a different color of the anodization or will not arrive at all.
1) Unlikely to have the wrong emitters unless you requested for a tint mix. Most users who requested for custom aux layout/tint mixing got the wrong layout.
2) There won’t be different anodisation because only black is available at the moment. Expect some kind of uneven anodisation which is normal…
3) 2 to 3 months delivery time seems to be the norm for FireFlies. Your flashlight will come to you but you have to wait….
In my case, (PL09 Quad) everything arrived as ordered but there was soldering flux on two of the emitters. Not only were there black spots, there was a deep pit in one of the leds. I dedomed the emitters to “fix” the problem. Now I have a tint that I like, but I lost a lot of output.
