Lumintop Ant Man (14500 LEP flashlight)

LED Flashlights – General Info 1 x AA / 1 x 14500 Flashlights
1

I posted my first impression of this light in the WYGT thread, but I think it is better to start a dedicated thread about it.
(I repeat that post and add some beamshots at the end)

Got my Lumintop Ant Man today.

First impression: nice but it performs under specs, and they missed some opportunities.
On the best 14500 out there, Vapcell H10, I only get 120lumen/67kcd. On the golden Vapcell only 100 lumen. Maybe a tail spring bypass could boost it a bit but I doubt that even de specs can be met with that. The current on the H10 is only 800mA, sounds like going 14500 causes a voltage-struggle getting the laser going, seems that Lumintop did not make a boost-driver for this one.

The beam is pretty nice, no rings or anything. The tint is typical LEP: 7600K, 63CRI, duv +0.013. Nothing wrong with that for a thrower.

Disappointing to me, the projection lens is only 13.5mm diameter while easily a 16mm lens would have fit. This would have produced 40% more kcd.

The ring is blue GITD stuff.

The phosfor looks like many other LEP’s, it is the back-illuminated type.

The size is a bit larger than a Convoy T2, but it still feels compact to me.

But what I like best about the Ant Man is the design, it is the best looking flashlight that I have ever owned, reminds me of the old Foursevens Quark AA, but nicer!

Now that it is night, here are some beamshots. I compare the Ant Man with my two best 14500 throwers to see if it is in a different league.

Left is a Lumintop GT-micro that I modded with a 1mm2 White Flat, middle is the Ant Man, right is a cheap Cofly zoomie that I heavily modded a couple of years ago with a BLF-A6 direct driver and a dedomed XP-G2 S4 3D. As you can see, the Ant Man is the smallest, but not by that much.

The GT-micro I measured at 125kcd, the Cofly at 56kcd which is very close to the Ant Man (67kcd).

First the Cofly left and the Ant Man right:

The camera did something funny with the colours of the XP-G2 beam (edit: camera was fine, it is a pile of brown Taxodium needles on the grass), but you can see, at 40 meter distance on the grass, that the beams are not very bright (maybe I reduced the brightness of the picture a bit too much, on my new phone it looked brighter and closer to reality) and quite similar in brightness.

Now the GT-micro on the left and the Ant Man on the right:

The Ant Man is rather blown away by the GT-Micro.

And to show that the Ant Man on its own does do a proper job throwing a beam (and to show off the 4.4x optical zoom on my new phone), here is some houses at 100 meter distance. The greenish illumination of the top floor (looks not green in reality) is done by the Ant Man.

So to conclude: the Ant Man does not perform better than my former best 14500 throwers, but I believe if Lumintop had tried harder, they could have achieved that while staying within the size of the Ant Man.

I may do a runtime/output test later, if ChibiM does not beat me to that.

Please post your thoughts of, and experiences with the Ant Man in this thread :slight_smile:

2

Hope to get mine home soon. Doesn’t seem to impress too much, but for its size, it might still in reality. Intriguing! Thank you for the rundown!

3

I know understand the brown bit in the XP-G2 beam: it is a pile of brown needles fresly fallen off a Taxodium tree which lives just left of the beam in the middle of the grass field. The brown spot is actually in the GT-micro beam too.

4

Hm… Not that impressive.

I wonder if it can be modded to higher output. Maybe replace the driver with a higher power one. I’m not familiar with lasers though. I wonder if a higher power driver might fry the laser module. I recall reading lasers are more sensitive than LEDs.

As-is, the main purpose the Ant Man looks to be as a toy for your cat. Safer to have the kitty chasing around the Ant Man’s beam, than the green beam from a $2 laser pointer cat toy.

5

I bet a collared nm1 would far outperform this lep module. I would be curious to hook it up to a bench supply and try 4.4V

6

Thank you for the review. I was really wanting this light, but I think I will pass now. I will continue to edc my modded gt micro. Hopefully lumintop makes a version 2 of the ant with higher kcd and Lumens.
Their new lumintop fw1aa with the nm1 might be a better purchase…?

7

What a very underwhelming result. But I am in agreement with you about the looks - I think it’s a very nice-looking design and good aesthetic. Just a shame that the performance doesn’t match the cool looks.

8

Yeah, Lumintop is spiraling down recently. Mediocre performance although Thor 1 is nealy the same size (module).

Lumintop, wake up.

9

Yes, I wonder what made them make this one so different? The battery power of a 18350 is not that much higher, maybe the narrow space inside the Ant Man only fit a smaller less powerful laser? It runs at under 1A and gives off three times less light as the Thor I. And then going for an extra small 13.5mm lens does not help either.

Some calculations based on my (450kcd) 4Tool L10 : with the 400lm module of the 4Tool, a 13.5mm lens should throw 130kcd. If a 16mm lens was used in the Ant Man + a 400lm module, throw goes up to 180kcd.

Some things were likely not possible because of the size, but also some things were not engineered well enough by Lumintop.

10

It’s really too bad.

This light would have been an absolute must-have if:

  • its output was 400 lumens; and
  • it used a 16mm lens; and
  • it had a sliding bezel to make it a zoomie

As-is, I’ll pass unless some modder reports that output can be massively cranked up either by modding or replacing the driver.

11

Thank you for looking into this light.
IMHO it complies with the three major criteria specified by Lumintop.

1/ We need a new LEP light
2/ We need it to be 14500
3/ We need it fast.

Apparently the looks are good and the feel is good.
So it is a dream light for every customer who thinks the criteria are sufficient.

Thanks to you I’ll stick to my old fashioned led-light 14500 for the time being.
And wait for the first member who can spice this LEP up a bit.

12

What light is doing better after 4 minutes at 100, 200, 300 meters. Or if you’re in the field with a battery that’s down at 3.7 volts. I’m going to assume that the Ant-Man is not going to get too hot.

13

Yes, that’s where LEP shine I guess!

14

I’m not sure that this light perform well with a depleting battery, if it does not have a boost driver (as I expect sofar) the output will go down faster than the battery voltage, blue lasers work at higher voltage than blue leds. But I may be a bit fast with my conclusion, must do the runtime test first to be sure.

15

You beat me!

Oh, and your serial number is the same as mine

Doing a runtime test while we speak.. battery I use is also a Vapcell 10H

I am not surprised it's not reaching the claimed output, but it's a pity it's not reaching the claimed 87000 cd.

16

edit… If it’s drawing less than 1 amp it’s hard to imagine why the battery choice matters much. I think I would recommend trying to get an amp draw starting at 4.0 volts. What lights and batteries do for the first minute at 4.2 volts on batteries doesn’t help in the real world. Assuming everybody’s using flat tops?. Does it have springs on both ends?

17

No, only spring at the tailcap

18

I'm not so sure that Marvel would approve of the name of this flashlight.

They probably have the name "Ant Man" copyrighted.

19

I totally did! :stuck_out_tongue:
But I’m very curious about your copy’s performance, I may have gotten a dud.

20

The full name is Lumintop Ant Man Thor Mini :smiley: