Thanks for linking the Acebeam! Didn’t know about that one, it looks awesome, can’t wait to find out more info on it.
That’s most certainly so, but I ignore every brightness that can’t be sustained for at least an hour. I’m fully aware I’ve totally different idea’s about things than about everyone around here, but the 550/600lm mode is what I count as the higest mode on that light. If the light can really stay a at that level for 2h20m then I most certainly wouldn’t reject the light for that.
Thanks for the info about Olight no longer short circuiting. Not sure I’m happy with it because my list just got one item longer again 
But on the positive side Acebeam is of my list. Flood is a magic word for me. My use is mainly close-up work light.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s certainly nice to have but no selling point for me. I just make sure sure I have a bunch of spare cells. Charging is something for the night.
My favourite is the Zebralight. It misses the ‘lens door’ of the Skilhunt, which perhaps is just a gimmick? But my main concern by far is that I can’t find virtually no info on runtimes. I jsut want a clear graph of run times. Not just the turbo I never use anyway. And uncooled.
My line of reasoing is this: If the runtimes were crushing the competition they would be in big red headlines all over their website.
What’s I’m missing on all lights are optional RGB filters.
The PID thermal regulation on the Zebralight leads to wildly variable runtimes, depending on the current environmental conditions. I can’t find graphs for the H600Fd Mk. IV either, but they were only starting to ship 6 weeks ago, so it may be that no one has done them yet. However, maukka has produced graphs that show the effect on the Mk. III and posted them on CPF:
As you can see, it can only sustain 45% to 50% output at room temperature. He had to take it outside in –8°C conditions and cool it with a fan before he could get it to hold near 100%. It only runs for 37 to 40 minutes under those conditions.
Thanks for those tests. They confuse me even more in combination with this test.
Scroll down to about 3/5 of the page.
It shows the effiency of various headlights.
Olight 133 lm/W.
Skilhunt 123 lm/W.
Armytek 94 lm/W.
Zebralight 67 lm/W.
Assuming I uderstand things correctly; to provide a 600lm beam the Olight uses 4.5 Watt. The Zebralight requires 9.0 Watts.
That would not only mean the Zebralight has half the runtime at the same output, but also has a extra 4.5 Watt of heat to dispensate, which makes stepdown more likely.
The XHP50 max output is 149lm/w. 4 Watt at the tested 600lm.
Olight requires 4.5 Watt. That’s 0.5 Watt system losses.
Zebralight requires 9.0 Watt. That’s 5 Watt system losses.
All that said it’s hard to understand how a few watts can overheat a light so quickly.
My main point is that the Zebralight should have twice the thermal problems as the Olight has. Does that show in the the stepdown graphs?
To at least get some specs I used the numbers from this light.
Very hard to compare because tests use different generation light and leds. Also the cell used for testing is diffrent. But personally I see no proof that the lm/W performance is half of the Olight. I’m not saying te reviewer was wrong, but I truly want to know what causes those (seemingly) contradictions.
For me personally lm/W is a big selling point because it affects runtimes and stepdowns.
That are the numbers I’m after. I’m not going to cool my light. I use my light mostly above freezing.
For me personally this lights max performance is 2 hours at @430 lumen.
The mark IV light may show some improvement but I don’t have high hopes because it’s still PID regulated at 592lm.
I simply can’t understand the need for PID at 592 lumen. Let me explain why.
I have a Convoy BD04 zoomie. Cheap. Small. Thermal path certainly isn’t improved by the zoom mechanism.
This 650lm light runs about 50 mins on high, using worn out ,unknown cells from a laptop batterypack.
That light stays at 650lm all the time. Even indoors @22C without fans, without moving it to improve airflow. Yes, the head gets a little hot, but far from dangerously hot.
Why can Convoy do what the higher market segment brands can’t? They need fancy thermal regulation that leads to worse performance than Convoy that needs none.
That’s a fact. Another fact is how a light gets rid of that heat.
And also how that heat is generated in the first place. For example a large difference in efficieny of the electronic besides the led itself.
I compare 650lm unregulated Convoy with a 560lm regulated Zebralight. Sure that doesn’t change the number of chips in the light but 6/8 chips need to be driven less hard to get less output than the 4 chip in that zoomie.
Without wanting to sound rude, you only make general statements but don’t really answer what I wrote. So I repeat again. Why does Zebralight require thermal regulation at 560lm and Convoy doesn’t at 650lm?
Nowhere you answer that. I can think of a few answers but I simply have no way of proving them. Ineffecient design of the electronic and bad thermal path for example.
Nowhere you answer why the lm/w differs so much between tested (regulted) flashlights.
I’m not talking about turbo mode, unless you call 520lm turbo
That’s the way I tend to see it, too. You can’t even override the thermal regulation to step back up to full turbo if you really, really need to.
Yes, I suspect that the BD04 cooks its innards a bit! The one I have isn’t a bad light, though, especially when lighting an area in flood mode. Decent value for money.
The BD-series light I really like is the BD06, which I see you also have. It happily does 800lm on a 26650 until the cell conks out, and yes, it gets a bit warm, but nothing problematic. All that extra metal makes a very useful difference.
I like that light enough that it might just manage to displace the custom Convoy X3 that’s been riding about in my backpack for the last 2 years. Same sustained light output, conveniently smaller, but still good enough on heat dissipation. The only reason I’m still swithering is because I like the extra throw of the X3. I might just have to carry the BD06 around for a few weeks on a probationary basis
[quote=Phlogiston]
I have no way of verifying that. I have no fancy equipment to make graphs like many testers on this forum so I can only state what I notice by feeling with my hands.
Temp goes up slowly and after 50 minutes at max it’s warm. But still cool enough to hold it without risk of burning myself. Of course what I feel on the outside isn’t the same temp as the hottest point inside. But my thought is that after nearly an hour the inside heat had enough time to travel to the outside. Sure, I’m fully aware a tiny inside surface area doesn’t translate to the same heat at the much larger outside surface.
Professional tests on this forum often show regulated temps of about 50-58C. I’m not going to place any bets on it but I would guess my zoomie stays below 58.
Even my 650lm zoomie provides enough light in most cases. I just wanted a little more lumen and runtime. But that was for my handheld lights. Sure if by magic a headlight would exist that pumps 2 hours at 5000lm on a single 18650 I would buy it. Totally unrelalistic. And also to bright for many things I’m planning do with my headlight. My guess is that changing a fuse 250lm is far more visible than 2500lm due to reflections. I fact I know for sure. Even my zoomie I switch to lower modes when reading lables. That’s why I hope a combination of high cri, warm time, smooth flood will beneficial for those tasks.
That’s why I’m looking for a headlight that has a max of about the same as my zoomie.
I’m accused of looking to much to all those numbers. Well, that’s true. But OTOH it’s totally false because my simple logic is this: “If a my $30 zoomie has proven several years that 650lm without stepdown works, a $90-120 headlight should be able to output the without stepdown too.”
Maybe I should just ducttape my zoomie at the side of my head
Nitecore has some nice options too. Shame they mainly focus on throw. But their lumen/runtime is exactly what I’m looking for.
http://flashlight.nitecore.com/product/hc30
1000 lumen for 60mins . No mentioning of stepdown. Likely quite similar to the ones listed below.
http://flashlight.nitecore.com/product/hc33
1800 lumen. Steps down after 30 mins. That’s a little short, but still not so bad.
780 lumen. Steps down after 90 mins. That’s good enough for my purpose.
Quite floody with a 100 beam
http://flashlight.nitecore.com/product/hc65
1000 lumen. Steps down after 90 mins. That’s good enough for my purpose.
Quite floody with a 100 beam.
The main light is regular cri. The additional 26lm is high cri.
The main drawback of this light is that it can’t be detached and uses as regular flashlight.
Yes this is the Nitcore I own. NW version, I use it daily, it has a great neutral tint.
Also maybe don’t disqualify the reflector lights - if they meet your requirements otherwise you could apply the DC Fix over the lens (as Boaz suggested in an earlier post) to diffuse the beam. I have a feeling the DC fix solution over a reflector light would produce the same result as a TIR/diffuser type lens.
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I wanted to upgrade to this but unfortunately there isn’t currently a NW version available. Hopefully they eventually will offer that.
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Yes I also need it to work as a regular flashlight / angle light.
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I’m also awaiting the release of the NW version of the Rofis R1 and R3, I like how they adjust from angle light to straight flashlight. The R1(16340) is already available but only in CW currently, there are several good reviews on it here on BLF. No specs out yet on the R2 (AA/14500) or R3 (18650)
Although these Rofis lights are reflector lights, if you like them you could also apply the DC Fix from Boaz to diffuse the beam.
I just bought a Jaxman E2L host this week from them, great host, with integrated shelf, so no pill needed and even better heat transfer, and just a tad shorter then an S2+ plus, it comes with a nice stainless steel bezel.
Jaxman offers the optics as well (carclo 507) and i have asked if they sell the triple copper dtp mcpcb with nichia 219C and they do! (7,5 USD)
Very happy with that, not sure whether to use an A6 driver or a current regulated one with it.
A spec for the R2 has just arrived:
http://www.rofislight.com/products/rofis-r2/
Be warned, sometimes it shows an annoying full-window popup advert. If that happens, close the tab and try the link again in a new tab. It worked for me at the second attempt.
Rofis has nice lights too. I like the angle. Most brands have some unique going for them.
TR18 or TR20 for me. While they both use a 18650 the are different in alomost every other aspects. Throw, lumen spacing, floodiness, turbo behavior, length and weight.
May I ask why you are even looking for an new headlamp? The one you have isn’t ideal, but no light is. What you have doesn’t look bad. Not at all.
Are the step stepdown numbers they give for the other models the same as what you know from personal experience with the light you own?
Then I think some DC fix might make those the perfect for you.
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Yes I really like my HC30, I just thought I’d try one of the new XHP versions for the higher output.
I have to consider the levels though:
HC30: 210(M) 400(H) 1000(turbo)
HC33: 240(M) 780(H) 1800(turbo)
So for the Nitecore I might miss the 400lm and 1000lm levels. I really like angle lights so the new brighter one I get may end up being only for certain uses, and continue using the HC30 daily. I also need the magnetic tail cap, that is a very useful feature for me. I had to glue one on my HC30 but it came off.
I’m looking at the Rofis because I like how it goes from angle light to straight, that one could replace my HC33 for everyday use. I like how the head rotates on the new R1/R3 versions (better than the TR18/TR20), also the TR18/TR20 are CW only. Rofis informed me they plan on offering NW versions of the new R1/R2/R3 around March this year, so I’m waiting to see if they do.
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It does mention it, I believe tha’ts what the “(ATR)” is:
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To be honest I haven’t paid attention to the stepdown much, on mine, my needs are different from yours in that respect. I really can’t say I’ve even seen it step down so it must be gradual, but I certainly haven’t tried to run it on Turbo for anywhere near 60min. probably 10-12 minutes at the most, it gets kind of hot on turbo.
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Here’s a runtime/stepdown graph (click on the graph for the review on BLF):
I’ve probably never run it on turbo past 15 min. so looking at this it really doesn’t drop much within that time.
The high mode does run steady for me, didn’t know it would go that long though!
So the turbo is useless, but high is great and bright enough for my use.
I’ll certainly try when buy such a light.
I’ll try it anyway on for example my Fitech which has a very bad looking beam. Right now have more lights I really need so I’m looking for a green (or blue) DC fix for one of my lights.
I’m leaning to “Zebralight H600Fd Mark IV XHP50.2 Floody 5000K” because that seems to serve all my needs out of the box.
What like about the Zebralight is that I can fully configure my mode groups by selecting 6 brightnesses out of 12. So I could configure away everything with to aggressive stepdowns. I can even configure different groups for different uses. It’s important for me I can select really low output for certain tasks to avoid being blinded by the reflection of my own light.
But as you very well know, it’s never easy. For example there isn’t much I really like about Rofis but the adjustable head is just great and would pay $50 extra for a Zebralight that has such functionality. I still have 5 weeks to decide because the ZL is out of stock
I don’t know of anyone who has done that. I probably would have done something like that if I thought the BD04 was worth the effort, but I don’t like it that much. Mine is just collecting dust.
Yes I’ve read here on BLF where someone has done that, pretty sure it was either vwpieces or firelight can’t remember exactly who and I really don’t remember the specifics, just that it’s been done. It wasn’t an easy mod IIRC.
Got me curious now where I read it though, I may try to find it later.
I started reading the Nitecore HC30 review and posts again and found out the graph I posted apparently is not showing stepdown by Thermal Regulation:
The reviewer stated: “There was no thermal regulation activated in my test…………………… The HC30 gets hot after few minutes on Turbo mode. There should be a thermal regulating to adjust the output keeping the temperature in optimal range,but as I already noted,I did not manage to activate it”
Apparently the stepping down in the graph is due to unregulated current, not the thermal protection circuit. This is something I need to learn more about, how to tell whether the dimming is from thermal regulation kicking in or from decreased voltage from unregulated operation? There aren’t any temperature measurements in the review.
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I also found out swapping the reflector in the HC30 with a TIR is a very simple mod!!
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It was posted by X3 in the review thread (discussion starts here on post #14): Nitecore HC30 1x18650 battery,Cree XM-L2 LED,Headlamp REVIEW - #14 by X31
He swapped the reflector with a 60 degree wide angle TIR diffuser lens, it’s basically a drop in swap, he only needed to grind some around the TIR to fit.
It looks like the photos disappeared from the posts, but I found these photos on X3’s public album:
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Beamshot with reflector (before):
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With 60 degree TIR/diffuser (after): Goodbye hot spot!
60 degree diffuser TIR @ fasttech: https://www.fasttech.com/products/1606/10007055/1574903
Looks like Convoy shop has them too: https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/LED-lens-for-CREE-XML-XML2-LED-60degree/330416_1577614278.html?spm=2114.12010108.0.0.e76b47drqNnyp
I’m pretty sure I have the exact same 60 degree wide angle TIR diffuser (I also bought it from Fasttech), I’m going to try and dig it up and do the mod on mine, I’ll post about it here when I do.