Randar 813 (XML Zoom), Romisen RC-39 (TIR Zoom), NF-500 and X2000 (XR-E Zoom) Comparison
Being almost the first owner of some exotic flashlights, I had to make a small review of some flashlight I recently got. Here I will try to give an idea for a stock XML Zoom, a TIR Zoom and how they compare to some other well known XR-E Zoom lights.
Bought Randar from taobao.com using one of the agents, choobuy.com to route the package to my address. Total expenses: ~$22 + domestic shipping + agent fee + International Shipping = $33.5
Romisen RC-39 is for $18.50, X2000 is for $12.56 from DealExtreme.
NF-500 is for $11.29 from KaiDomain.
A size comparison:
Features:
Romisen RC-39
Romisen RC-39 is a 5 Mode flashlight, with 3 brightness modes, one strobe and one SOS mode. It has a wide zooming head with TIR optics and this brings somewhat different beam profiles than zoomies with aspheric lenses. This design is rated highly due to its reflector plus lens behaviour and said to be more efficient than lens only zoom lights. It is indeed seems to be brighter than a similarly driven light (NF-500 in this case) especially at the throw end. The beam is pure flood and pure throw (no emitter image) at both ends, on the other hand, a more useful but ugly beam at the midrange.
The emitter is a XR-E Q5.
Randar 813
Randar is a multi group, multi mode flashlight, with a 3 mode no-strobe group and a bigger strobe heavy another group. The group switching is made at the low brightness setting by switching off the light just after the light blinks once. It has a smaller, know body shape with aspheric lens. The flood end is pure and bright, while the throw end is the usual emitter image, but with six bars because of the bigger XML power LED.
The emitter is a XM-L T6.
NF-500
NF-500 is more of a conventional Zoom flashlight, with XR-E Q5 emitter. This light has three modes, high, low and strobe. Due to its XR-E emitter, the beam image at the throw end is tighter than Randar’s, with 3 bars of this emitter. Flood is smooth but of course less brighter.
The emitter is a XR-E Q5.
X2000 CR123
X2000 used in this comparison is the CR123 version of this famous family and has only one mode. It’s emitter is again an XR-E like NF-500 so the beams are very similar. X2000, on the other hand is driven harder than NF-500, so the results are brighter than this light. X2000 is the shortest of the lights due to its half sized CR123 battery. But since the barrel width is shared with other X2000s with different battery configurations, it is pretty wide for a CR123 flashlight, and needs a spacer to hold the battery in the middle.
The emitter is a XR-E but I don’t know the bin. May be Q5.
Build quality:
Among the four zoom lenses in this review, Romisen has the toughest and the best built body. It is bigger than the others and when you open the tailcap, you see the impressive material thickness of the barrel. Again, Romisen’s anodization is the best with even its threads are anodized, but you can still see some aluminum showing on the threads. Talking of the threads, Randar’s threads don’t give much confidence as it has pretty fewer threads on the tail side. Randar’s tail switch is held in the cap only with friction so it can easily drop inside if pushed hard with no batteries in the light, which drops another star from the build quality of Randar.
The only light tailstanding is X2000 , at least for my samples.
Randar’s zoom head is the tightest of these four and may need a second hand to pull or push the head. For the others, Romisen and X2000 has just the right friction while NF-500 may be felt a bit on the loose side which isn’t severe to the point of changing the zoom by itself.
Performance:
Current Readings with my new digital multimeter ( VC-98) and its stock cords are as follows. The odd thing is, although this DMM and leads were rated highly, I could measure only 1.9 A for my DIY C2 light with 8xAMC7135 driver, which was rated at 2800mA on high. It may still be the stock leads causing this. The flame black Trustfire 18650 batteries I used should have easily pumped out 3A. So read this chart accordingly, you may measure even higher than these.
I know many would ask how such amperage in a zoom lens would act and I tried Randar for a 10mins run at the highest setting. The light gets warm overall in 5 mins and this becomes just too hot to hurt a hand in 10 mins. The light seems to transfer the heat all over the body quickly but since there is just too little material to compensate the heat, I still wouldn’t keep it on at the highest setting for too long.
|
High |
Mid |
Low |
Romisen RC-39 |
850mA |
570mA |
290mA |
Randar 813 |
2000mA |
690mA |
155mA |
X2000 CR123 |
1200mA |
|
|
NF-500 |
670mA |
|
150mA |
THROW End |
FLOOD End |
|
|
Romisen RC-39
|
|
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Randar 813
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|
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X2000 CR123
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|
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Taken with settings, ISO 400, f:6.3 1/50s, Nikon D70, 18-70mm lens @ 24mm focal length. Didn’t bother putting beamshots for NF-500 as it is almost the same as X2000 but a bit darker. Well I took some in another setup but not in this.
Throw compared to some other (EDC) lights, at the highest brightness settings for all:
| Maglite XL100 | Fenix E10 | Tank007 E07 | ITP EOS A3 R5 Upgrade |
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 |
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| Randar 813 Throw End |
Randar 813 Midrange |
Romisen RC-39 Throw End |
DIY C2 XML |
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Please note that these shots are taken with a brighter setting: ISO 500, F:5.6, 1/40s, @24mm
My conclusion:
Randar is a nice pocket blaster for its size, with a useful flood and mid range, though with a bit useless throw end. The build quality is decent but some points, like the tailswitch may need some work to make it better.
Romisen RC-39, on the other hand is a very nicely built one. Being my first TIR zoom, I found its zoom action more useful and more efficient than convex lens ones. Although its current is low, taking thinking of this as longer runtime could make a plus also. The light isn’t much friendly to DIY and the current must be limited due to its emitter-on-a-rod designs bad heatsinking.
For the rest, I always preferred zoom flashlights as nice light saber toys, with their almost non existing spill at the throw end. In real life this is kind of useless unless you really try to point out some place further or throw far signals. Would like a brightness setting in this case but still the light loss in the lens should be considered if talking on a EDC light.
All in all, I would buy or build an XM-L Zoom Light anyway so I don’t regret having Randar 813, especially to show off. But having a reliable TIR Zoomie like Romisen or a genuine Led Lenser makes more sense if I would buy one and use it for everything.
_
I’ll try to update this thread with some outside pictures if I can. Thanks for watching.
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Seckin
