Group Buy CLOSED: MAXToch SN6X-2X

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141

Received mine. Took about 9 days from payment to MY. Not bad. Everything looks good, good machining, holster and pouch seems of good quality.

There are 2 things i would like to point out from my observation though.

  1. The lanyard quality is bad. I hope you guys can get a better quality lanyard especially where the metal hook thingy (I don’t know what its called haha), since the flashlight is very heavy, a bad lanyard would be be very risky.
  2. The transition from the hotspot of my flashlight is quite uneven, the centering of the LED looks a tiny weenie off center, like 0.05mm. Not sure if that contributes to the uneven transitioning of the hotspot? Its my first thrower flashlight so I’m not sure if that’s normal.

Will wait for night time to test it out :smiley:

142

Thank you~

143

Got mine today - nice quality host, which I was expecting, nice size and weighted head. Popped in 2 KP 3100's charged, and got a 2.03A tailcap reading, 4.06A effective... nice! Results with the light meter/PVC lightbox:

lumens: 1,003 at start, 962 at 30 secs (962 OTF rated)

throw: 98 kcd (measured at 5m)

As a comparison, just re-did my Crelant 7G9 (thrower, 3 parallel cells, slightly smaller diameter head than the 2X) and measured 4.02A at the tail:

lumens: 1,468 at start, 1,472 at 30 secs (1,472 OTF rated)

throw: 107 kcd (measured at 5m)

Several differences here -

7G9 specifics: Nanjg at 4.9A, springs copper braided, XM-L2 U2 1C on a SinkPAD, stock AR lens

I'm speculating there's a good deal of loss of that 4.06A (effective) before getting to the LED in the 2X, as is typical. The Nanjg setup in the 7G9 is more efficient though probably because of overall resistance, I can't achieve the amps I wanted (4.9A) in the 7G9.

Overall, impressed and glad I ordered this. The simple 3 modes and quality of the host, plus high amps for a stock light is great attributes for this price.

Cons:

  • holster is a bit under-sized - can barely get it closed
  • lumens is under-performing, though my PVC lightbox is general a little low

Comparing the beam pattern with the 7G9, the 2X has a wider flood area and wider beam pattern. This isn't surprising because the 7G9 has a very deep reflector. You can clearly notice the 7G9 is brighter side by side though. I'm still not quite sure I can explain the low lumens though, but between the lack of a good copper star, lack of an AR lens, and probably only 3.3A to the LED, it might explain most of it. They did rate it at 1,300 lumens max, whatever max means..., so can't be sure they made this up or attempted to calculate it, or what.

144

Thanks Tom, so tell me, do you think it will perform at the higher level with a copper star and spring bypass mods?

145

It's mostly a matter of resistor modding capability - how high can it go? I believe the way a regulated driver like this works is it controls the amps to the LED's, so if it's designed for 3.3A to the LED, you typically see quite a bit higher at the tailcap. Usually copper braiding the spring in the tail won't help output, it will just reduce the amps it's pulling from the cells, so you get better runtime. Prelim #'s for me are very good - only 960 lumens but 98 kcd, very good ratio. Funny, cause I get over 1,000 lumens out of sooo many small lights now...

146

Thanks for the info Tom.

I wish I could test mine, but it’s been sitting in the Singapore post office for over 3 weeks :frowning:

147

is it a 30mm star? And is the pill hollow or solid?

Hurry up swiss post!

Chris

148

Mine’s still in Singapore :~

149

Got it torn down. Star is 31.5mm, 1.96mm thick -- aluminum. Driver has a nice big coil, and a bigger R056 resistor, kind of stands out on it's own. If this delivers 3.3A to the LED, than I want in the range of 5A, so, I want 0.037 ohm resistor, but of course I don't have one. But I do have a .1 ohm, and do the math, so a 0.056 and 0.100 in parallel is 0.036 ohms, which results in 5.13A.

Wow - 5.1A in this light should do some damage! Well, I hope not... Smile

Other problem is the reflector/star setup. I have some space to make up if I replace the stock star with a Noctigon, 0.42 mm. Also, the reflector has a 19mm diameter flat bottom -- ugh, so how will I get a clean de-domed emitter situated into the reflector well? Could do the LED wire extender trick I've seen posted - use thin copper braid to extend past the star's edge, protect with kapton tape. There may be other variations of that.

Ohh - the pill design is the uni-body approach, no separate pill, but the pill section is nice and chunky - it weights 138 grams, and the pill top appears to be about 3.6mm thick.

Well, should test the current to the LED first, try the resistor mod on the bench, and see what I get.

150

Great to hear it has mod potential Tom, and overall quality is good.

Interesting that yours at 98k exceeds manufacturer spec of 94k. Mine was 92k stock but that was with XM-L2, not XML2-U2. Somewhat surprised at the lower 960 lumen output - mine is v bright but don’t have a box to test.

Be interesting to see what it would do with AR lens, copper braiding etc that the test Crelant has.

As a direct comparison for Maxtoch’s new 2X what is the normal RRP purchase price and kcd output of the 7G9 stock standard?

(Ah…just found a review which tested 57.2k for the Crelant - are these current model stats - sounds a bit low?)

151

Pictures - pill parts:

Showing the 26 AWG wires:

Driver:

20mm Noctigon vs. the 2X star:

152

I only compared it to the 7G9 because it's the closest thing I have in reflector size. Also got a K40 and TN31, but they are heavily modded and bigger. I paid $81 new for the 7G9 at the time, but originally it was a XML U2. The 7G9 is a heavy light, with a SS bezel, AR lens. The new Crelant 7G9 is a little different, but pricey - maybe you can get one for about $120, but really not worth it. The SupBeam K40 is better all-around, and I think the group buy price for the K40 was like $85.

153

My 7G9 is the original v1, don't think they sell it anymore - it had a XML U2 and was driven at 3A. I just used the 7G9 because it's close to the reflector size of this light (little smaller than the X2) and driven close to the same in amps. I wouldn't recommend a 7G9 in general - too pricey for the overall quality/performance. A SupBeam K40 is a much better deal than a 7G9, which I have too, think the group buy price was $85 for the K40, but my K40 is heavily modded now.

I'm very confused about the lumens. I even did a sanity check of the 7G9 in the box to be sure the equipment was working, and it checked out ok. So, I know the box isn't falsely measuring throwers, as compared to flooders for example. I measure from AAA size to super flooders, and it's been pretty consistent.

Well, the important thing with this light is throw, and seems to do very well stock, and the beam pattern looks pretty good for a thrower - not too thin and narrow of a center beam.

The other weird thing is that on MaxToch's website (maxtoch.cn), they state the lumens ratings were done in laboratory conditions, so should be a real 1,300. However, a TN31 is rated at 1,376 lumens, runs at higher amps, has an AR lens, bigger reflector, and has a true direct thermal path copper star. So I think the 1,300 lumens is over-rated.

154

if mine would ever leave singapore……….

155

Could be completely wrong here but …it won’t be the first time … :slight_smile:

If we dedome an led we get more light output going straight ahead = greater lux but a loss of overall lumen output with less light bouncing off reflector wall.

With this 2X at 98kcd and 962 lumens could the higher lux but comparatively lower lumens output be a factor, in some kind of similar way, of reflector design. Wee bit more light going down the centre, but less off reflector walls sort of thing.

98kcd is very high output for a lo-med price 2 batt 18650 light with zero AR/copper etc trickery - but 962 is comparatively low. Reflector design as cause?

Tom - can you test this with glass off? Will this simulate AR lens effect at all?

156

Probably a bit, a bit of the glass quality, a bit of the current loss over the driver, wires, switch etc, and batch variance.

I wouldn’t be too worried. 96k with dome on is awesome really. Over double what my sn6 was

Chris

157

Thanks Tom, great info, great pics, can’t wait to get mine! :slight_smile:

158

Me too. Thanks for the feedback.

159

HHmm, I measured 3.6A at the LED, but this was directly from the driver on the bench. I used an XML T6 at first, then tried it with the XM-L2 U2 MaxToch star and got the same result. So the R100 should go to about 5.5A I would think, if it works of course...

Update: Wow - the R100 worked perfectly - 5.5-5.54A or so, right there as calculated. Sometimes things do work as expected... Modes still worked fine, though scaled up of course. Now the work begins...

160

Nice Tom E.

I have not bought the light, but still im following your updates. :) Its nice when things actually works as expected.

Good luck on getting the emitter in focus!