For years I’ve heard the Olight hate around the forums. “Over priced.” “Proprietary.” “Terrible emitters.”
Then I got one. It was the Odin Turbo LEP, and I like it a lot. But any company can accidentally make 1 thing good, right? When I reviewed the Warrior 3S, I was blown away about how good the flashlight was. From UI to design, it had it all. I wasn’t a fan of the 7000K SFT70 of course, but a 10 minute swap to an XHP50 4500K solved that.
I felt strongly that I had been misled. I was told that Olight was something I should avoid, and felt that their reputation around enthusiast circles for being something to avoid was unfair. So I made this video about how easy it is to turn the Warrior 3S into your favorite EDC.
I really like the S1R II and S1 Mini – but never use them because of the LED. Many Olights would be really great if they had a better LED. That and their proprietary batteries.
agree… the reason I stopped buying Olights was the lack of High CRI LED options.
and the reason I sold my Olights, was because I did not know how to get them open to change the LED
I still dont recommend Olight, because they still dont offer High CRI.
And even though I was able to change the LED in a Ti S Mini, I still dont use it. Because the 4 mode UI cannot compete with a more granular ramping UI…
iow, Olight UI cant touch Anduril Ramping.
otoh, Olight is a great light for people that would find Anduril too complicated. And Olight is great for people that dont know about High CRI, and cannot change an Olight LED.
I understand not loving a 7000K low CRI emitter. I’ve gotten so picky with tint and color that nobody makes an off-the-shelf light with a decent emitter. So once you realize how easy it is to customize your own emitter, Olight becomes a strong contender.
While we wish Olight would ship with even a 5000K emitter stock, I’ve had discussions with Jackson Lee about “what sells” and apparently cool white fly off his shelves via eBay. Non-enthusiasts think they love cool white.
I love my warrior 3S in gray, the status lights are so well designed and intuitive. For me, the stock emitter is alright, the only thing I don’t like is the shift in lower modes.
Aside from the the better tint do you notice any unwanted artifacts-ugly corona in the beam?
Which is the best place to order a XHP50.3 HI in 5000K? I haven’t done any modding in the past couple years.
Proximity only operates on high and turbo. Moonlight through medium is not affected. On turbo, put your hand near the beam, when it steps down due to proximity, double click again… now proximity is disabled until you click off.
For light painting the flashlight is connected to a light painting tool via an adapter which doesn’t play well with proximity sensors due to back scattered light. I need the light to turn on in any memorised or single click accessible mode to create a light trail at a specific brightness. Thus messing around trying to disable the sensor whilst the light is on is not a suitable workaround.
So you mean to say they are 0.0030 or 0.0060 ? yeah that’s pretty green. The bin Mouser has right now, and have had for about 30 days or so benchtests (no optic) at –0.0020 or so, and is 0.0003 to 0.0005 in a Warrior 3S optic. to me, that’s as perfect as I can get. Would LOVE –0.0010 but, I’ll take it as is for sure.
I ordered 10 from mouser about 20 days ago. They were great. So I ordered 50 more. Those are good too. Aparently they refreshed stock by ordering 1,000 about a month ago.
OK very interesting, so it’s a restock and not the same as the ones I have (1st reel they had of them), I’ll order some of this new bin, thanks for the info.
There are a few different issues here. Let’s start with the EDC thing. You say “not so big that you cannot pocket it”. I contend that there are less than 1 in 100 people that are going to put that thing, or anything that big, in their pocket everyday. So right away it’s not the best EDC light no matter what led is in it. As to the olight angle. My first EDC was a baton III that I pre-ordered because of the hype here on blf. 2016?. I like the magnetic charging and the UI. I carried it for over a year until I understood there were better LED options out there. I don’t like how they handled the magnetic tailcap issues on those two models a year or two ago. They knew there were problems with lights inadvertently coming on in turbo and they didn’t want to address it initially. Switch triggered by metal objects. And yes of course nobody likes proprietary batteries. If I’m carrying multiple lights on me or in the vehicle or in a pack I kind of like the idea of the same batteries fitting all lights.
I detest cool white. And especially cool white and low cri. And I think that manufacturers that offer warm and/or warmer neutrals should be rewarded. At some point we need to have (more) lights available “off the shelf” that we can recommend to non-enthusiasts.
There is still a place for cool white low CRI lights, examples being “tacticool” use when you want max lumens with general purpose/throwy beam. If I’m using a flooder for nearfield illumination purposes, then I prefer more neutral high CRI.
