You're welcome Rannypudding. You know it would be nice if they made a little brother for this light. Same head but with a 1x or 2x 26650 compatibility for say $10 less.
It would almost be perfect. :)
This one is in my DX wish list for a long time, it's ~48$ over there!
I appreciated the tail cap measurements and the mouseover comparison between two and three cells most, but all the other photos and commentary helped make this a pretty thorough review. A lot of work went into it. Thank you!
Thanks and you're welcome. I still have a lot to learn as it's only my 4th review but each time it gets a little easier.
Just a quick note to add. I didn't test this so it wasn't mentioned in the review but there is no low voltage protection built into the driver on this light.
It's worth bearing in mind if you use unprotected cells (although protected cells are always best used in series configurations as I'm sure most of you already know)
Great review! And great light too.
You're welcome. If you order this one please let us know your thoughts. I'm really impressed with it still.
Thanks very much Sean
Totally great review! I especially like the very green environment you’re in. The huge big field, feels very nice. It’s the first thing I notice before the light itself.
i hope you guys wont be mad at me if i ask a question here (not opening new theme). i hope too, that you can understand me clearly because i dont speak english very well! my question is in short by your opinion which flashlight should i choose r43s or trj12? thank you for your answers and if i did something wrong - like posting-asking at the wrong place, please sorry!
Hi Vlado, first and foremost Welcome to BLF. Thanks for joining to ask your questions.
There is no problem with you asking your question in this thread.
Personally, I haven't had the pleasure of owning or using the TR-J12 and I cannot find any review of the light to point you to, but there are several TR-J12 owners on this forum who may be able to give you some detailed insight.
From what I can gather though, it seems that without much doubt the TR-J12 will be putting out more lumens with the extra LED along with a slightly higher drive current. How much brighter it will look to the naked eye is difficult to say. It usually takes a fair few lumens for our brains to recognise the increased brightness levels. (take the 2x vs 3x cell comparison above as an example) The pictures show the difference clearly while with the naked eye it's virtually impossible to detect.
So it really all comes down to the form factor, it's weight and convenience to use and carry. Another thing to consider is the build quality, so hopefully a J12 owner can chip in with their thoughts.
Since the J12 is capable of using 26650 cells, you should be guaranteed some good runtimes but it comes at a cost of extra weight and (perhaps) spring issues due to the added mass of the cells inside.
Again this will need someone to confirm, but I suspect you will most likely find yourself using the light far more in a 2 cell configuration for convenience.
The other thing worth considering is the user interface. As far as I know the J12 uses the standard 5 modes which you have to step through. Some people find this annoying and I do too but if the driver has a 'Good' memory mode, this isn't such an issue.
Also the convenience of having the mode switch right under your thumb (on the R43S) is one of the main contributing factors on why I personally like this light so much. With a long light such as the J12 and R43S, having tailswitch only operation can become a drag and real fast too.
It's all down to personal preference really and without having reviewed the J12 I cannot give you more specifics (I wish I could) but I do know the R43S is a good light and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it. For me though, weighing up the pros and cons, I would likely choose the R43S, but then I'm biased now :D
I hope that helps, even if only a little :)
thank you for your answers and for welcome me! i was having similar thoughts about my question like spasmod - s43s would probably be dimmer than trj12 but not much (i hope) and on the other hand have much better UI and better runtime (i hope again) with 18650 batteries. i wrote 18650 because i already have some of them from my old flashlight but dont have 26650 and honestly not planing to have some of these any time soon. so it looks like s43s would be much cheaper option for me because i have sanyos 2600mah (which i also get after reading some of the posts on this site, i had 2400mah trustfire earlyer ) and an i4 charger, so i only need the bigger flashlight than the one i own now (small sun zy-t04 with 1x xml t6 and 2x 18650 bought from tinydeal)
does anybody knows is there a more powerful driver that can be used instead of original one? and question for spasmod- can you please measure the diameter of the driver and post dimensions here?
I don't believe that you will find more powerful driver for 4xT6 configuration light,
If you are good with the soldering iron I would do something like this:
- remove all components from old driver and use it only as a battery contact
- get 3 x cheap NANJG 105C (2.8A versions) drivers
- get 1 x NANJG 105C programed for electronic switch from DrJones (they are, after all "Made in Germany" :D )
- connect them together 1 master -> 3 slaves
- enjoy in about 3.5K lumens :D (cook meals, fry eggs etc :P)
total upgrade costs about 20 bucks...
Hi Vlado,
I'm not sure about which other driver may be a good replacement for this particular light but Sirius9's suggestion would definitely be worth looking in to.
The driver itself is 26mm wide in this light, and there's plenty of space in the driver cavity to stack 105C boards etc.
Thanks a lot for the review! Frontpage’d and Sticky’d.
Been on my list too, but it looks like it’s been given a brand name and replaced with this: RUSTU R43S
I’ve been looking at this and couldn’t find anything about it on here then I stumbled on this awesome review of the Aurabuy unbranded version (thanks Spasmod!)
It’s actually even cheaper for US buyers at DX on their new “US DIRECT” site only $45.97 with fast (5-7 day!) free delivery in the US: RUSTU R43S US DIRECT Now this is getting hard to resist!
While reading this review & thread I was thinking exactly the same thing, still wishing, but here’s something pretty close: RUSTU RX-40 Per the specs it’s a slightly larger head, but different reflectors, (smaller, more shallow?) Unfortunately it doesn’t have the side mode switch. (There’s a review on it here and on here and it didn’t score so well.)
I’ve also been looking at the Shadow SL3 although it’s only 3xT6, but has the side switch only (controls both on/off and modes). The nice thing about the R43S having the tail switch and side mode switch combination is for “tactical” use, it’s easy to find a switch to quickly get it lit in high mode in a situation of urgency.