First of all Ric and CNQualitygoods did a great job shipping this to me quickly. Took about 2.5 weeks to Canada. They were not the most responsive as a team but eventually do respond to emails you send them.
When I received the package today I was first very impressed with how well it was packed. It came in a pretty nice black cardboard box that was wrapped with a lot of bubble wrap and the exterior paper of the parcel. When opening the box it was deeply seated in foam with packing paper stuffed on top. There were 3 slots in the foam which housed the 3 keeppower 3400 mah 18650 batteries I also ordered… very nice.
My first impression of this light was holy @#%!. This light extremely impressive. Its smooth black contours are very nice to look at. Picking it up it feels weighty and like a beast in the hand. Gripping it, it just feels good in the hand and feels very well built and high quality. The tail cap threads were very nice and smooth. The glass lens and reflector were all in good order and the LEDs were perfectly centered. Taking out the battery carrier it feels solid although it can be a bit tough putting in the batteries because you have to kind of line up the top of the battery onto this small raised metal platform in the carrier but its not bad.
Firing it up (clicky button feels great), I was astounded by how badly the BTU shocker destroyed my Skyray STL-V2. I realize this isn’t a surprise, but to see the increase in power in person was very impressive.
I’m waiting for dark still to do some outdoor beams and will be comparing it my skyray stl-v2. I’ll try to get some shots some time. Also I should mention I got the Cool white (CW) version with the BTU driver.
Overall thus far I am very impressed. It really seems like a quality product. The question now is how will it do at night and how long will it last? I know it won’t compare to my 55W modded Thor of course… but I wanted a light that was more practical than a big HID but was still more powerful than the skyray and it seems like this is the light.
Ok I decided it was dark enough and just head out. The BTU is a very impressive light for sure. It was at least 3x brighter I would say than the skyray stl-v2 at approximately 100 meters to various sets of trees. The hot spot was much bigger and there was more flood. Overall great light. But I do have to admit that compared to my Thor this light is left in the dust. The thor is just obscenely bright…. it just makes you say wtf!!! when you hit these same sets of trees. But, of course thats to be expected as the Thor 55W mod is probably 2x the lumens and has a giant reflector.
Overall I’m very happy with this light.
EDIT: I got some indoor beamshots for you. I will get some outdoor shots soon enough.
First I have to apologize for the first photo of the skyray is blurry, I hope I can get better pics to you later. Secondly I apologize for my messy basement. The distance here to the white curtain that I’m aiming at is about 10 meters away.
No problem, yes I noticed that too! The Skyray is actually more floody! I think it might be related to the shape of the reflector where the skyray is wider and slightly less deep compared to 1 of the BTU shocker’s reflectors. But the BTU throws much better and the area it does flood is brighter than the same flood area of the skyray.
The thor is in a league of its own. Its scary how powerful it is. I would really like to have an LED light that approaches the Thor’s lumens and throw.
So he still is selling them without the AR lens, though his sites clearly state ‘Toughened ultra-clear glass lens with anti-reflective coating’ Ummmmmmm.
Some of the ebay HIDs are dross, careful which one you get
One thing I’m noticing right now is I’m having a hard time telling the difference between the high mode and the turbo…. there might be a slight difference but they look almost the same to me. Could this mean the turbo mod is not functioning correctly? Or is this normal? I guess its 2000 lumens vs 3000 ?
Turbo - high, hopefully you should notice the kick down. It may help looking at some distance - I find being able to tell the difference between roughly 1100 and 1300 lumens much easier at a distance. You should see a difference - think maybe it's 3000 - 2200 or so, but it's no big drastic change.
I did some outdoor range shots and can confirm that there is virtually no visual difference between the high and turbo modes. Is it possible that this is a driver problem that can be fixed with a driver swap?
I also ran the light in turbo mode for 4 minutes and there was no drop at 3 minutes like is suppose to happen.
Visually you don’t see a lot of difference between the turbo hand high if you just happen to be looking at just one power. But switching between the two, you can certainly see it. Mine was basically 2200otf on high and about 2880otf on turbo when it was stock. Not such a huge difference. Also the automatic kick down from turbo to high is a slow kick down - meaning you won’t see it happen. The Tk75 actually has a very quick and noticeable kick down from turbo.
