The output on turbo is amazing. The tint is a nice pure white without noticeable green.
On turbo on a fresh 18650 cell the head becomes too hot to touch in seconds. This is the disadvantage of having a big chunk of direct copper in this kind of light. Heat transfer is just a little too good. The LED can withstand much greater temperature than your hand. Sometimes it’s better to have less effective heat transfer that lets the LED get hot, but then takes longer to radiate it off the light resulting in a cooler exterior body housing.;
It looks like there is no further stepdown from High @ ~850 lumens. Are there heat issues with sustaining that brightness with this light? Comfort-wise or otherwise?
Just tried letting it tailstand at 850 lumens high for several minutes with a fresh 30Q inside.
Even at just 850 lumens the head of the light was too hot to comfortably touch, though not burning hot. You wouldn’t want to rest your hand there, but you won’t hurt your thumb operating the control. If you were using it to go for a walk at night at that setting you’d either need to use a glove or hold the light by the body tube.
For comparison, I also tried tailstanding my modded Jaxman E2L 3xXPL HI 5A2 with H17F driver with temp sensor and an 18500 IMR cell. After running about the same period of time on 100% FET power with the temp sensor activated, the E2L was producing substantially more lumens than the E14II, while remaining much cooler than the E14II. This result is not too surprising given the E2L’s aluminum construction, dark-colored anodizing (better emissivity than polished copper), and much larger surface area from the more numerous and deeper heatsink fins.
Definitely not by the head. It gets burning hot in much less than 40 seconds. Can probably still hold it by the body though.
Incidentally, the threads on the head match those of the Convoy S2. A convoy S2 battery tube will screw right into the E14II’s head. It isn’t long enough so won’t make battery contact and won’t work out of the box, but it does actually screw in.
This does open up the way for modders who want to use the E14II as a mod host. You could add a tailcap mechanical clicky. Or maybe use the E2L’s 18500 body.
My turbo goes for a minute and while I can press the button to turn it off I can’t really have my other finger on the opposite side of the button touching the copper. So 4 fingers on the tube and one presses the button. It really is to hot to hold the head in a few seconds. I bet the head gets too hot to hold faster than my soldering iron.
Just tried leaving my E14II tailstanding on high (850 lumens). When I got back to the light after 10 minutes it was still going strong… but the entire light was too hot to touch. Even the tailcap.
850 lumens might be ok for extended running if you hold the light in your hand, but clearly won’t work for tailstanding indoors.
I’m definitely feeling like more and deeper heatsink fins would be a good idea.
To be fair, no LED light this size should be left on high unattended… particularly if it has multiple modern emitters and runs at 30+ Watts. Hot rod lights aren’t about safety or comfort.
Hold it during use to monitor heat and to wick away some heat through your hand. Or use it in ways which otherwise keep the heat under control, like on a moving bicycle.
Had the light less than a week and already the switch or driver is broken. Now the light is stuck in the “on” position and cannot change modes. Guess I’ll have to do a driver/switch replacement.
Considering this wasn’t a super-cheap light it’s disappointing that it failed so quickly.
Haven’t decided if I want to try disassembling it or not. I like the output, tint and how it feels in the hand. But I consider it too heavy for pocket EDC and the head heats up way too fast. I’m not sure it’s worth any effort trying to disassemble or mod this light.