Disclaimer: Wuben sent the light to me for free. They did not pay me for the review and they had no influence on it.
Specs by Wuben
You can find all information on the manufacturers site:
What you get in the box and build quality
The light comes in a typical white Wuben box with blue accents.
It’s a classic sleeved box, not the flip style the X4 comes with, but still makes a very nice fist impression.. Included is a multilingual manual, a USB-C cable and a lanyard. The battery was already in the light, protected with an insulation sheet.
Wuben sent me the black version, which seems to be the only color existing. The anodization is perfect, the light overall flawless.
The rubber covered button is special: It has a click and if you press deeper, another click. Different to e.g. Olight, not only to stages, but two definite clicks. Very interesting concept, never experienced something like that before.
The button is a bit recessed, it won’t be easy to press it by accident. The light easily tailstands. That makes especially the second stage of the button a bit hard to click, though.
The LED sits in a smooth but shallow reflector and is nicely centered. It’s covered by glass, which I believe to be AR coated.
Next to the bezel there is a collar, which can be loosened to reveal the USB-C-Port. Interesting design there: It’s not only the knurled Ring, that slides up, the recessed, smooth area between the knurled ring and the bezel slides under the bezel.
There is also a battery/charging indicator next to it on the body of the light. Charging works perfectly fine, but the light refused to communicate with one of my 100W-cables and kept blinking red. All other cables worked fine though. Seems to be exactly this combination, but I never experienced this before, so i wanted to mention it.
Overall, the light feels a bit slippery and I wish it had some kind of tactical ring. Maybe Wuben can implement this in further iterations, a small, rubber lip like the olight warrior X4 would be perfect!
Size
My scale states 183g with battery and i measured 183mm length, 29,1mm diameter and 36mm on the widest part including the clip.
Convoy M1, Wuben L3, Sofirn SC13 Copper
Carrying Options
- Lanyard:
a basic lanyard is included. Nothing fancy, but the quality is good. It can be attached to the tailcap, there are two wholes so the light will tailstand with the lanyard attached.
- Clip:
The clip is a one of those that clip to the body. It comes premounted and is hard to remove, so it won’t come loose on its own. It’s a good clip. The sweep up at the opening side is just the right angle, the contact area to the tube is flat and wide. There is enough to fit belts or thick webbing.
- Magnet:
As this is a tail switch light, there is no magnet.
UI
The UI is like the switch, it’s a bit special.
From off:
- The first stage of the switch gives a momentary activation of the memorized mode.
- The second stage activates it permanently.
From on
- A click of the first stages changes modes through eco - low - medium - high - medium - low - eco.
- A press and hold of the first stage gives momentary turbo.
- A press of the second stage turns the light off.
Strobe is activated by a double press of the first stage in any state of the light.
Wuben definitely had some good ideas for the UI and it works just fine. I would have preferred the modes in the order E-L-M-H-E-L-M-H, as it is easier to predict which mode you get next and e.g. the way from Low to Eco is way shorter.
What i found myself trying over and over is a press and hold of the second stage.
Maybe Wuben can implement that as shortcut in a future iteration. I can imagine, that from off, a press and hold of the first stage gives you momentary memory, pressing and holding the second stages upgrades that to turbo.
Beam profile and measurements
Measurements are done in a 30cm integrated sphere with a TSL2591 lux sensor. I didn’t have the chance to use a calibration light until now, but it is dialed in quite good and matches the values of other reviewers very closely. Keep in mind this is hobby equipment and measurements can be flawed. Additional Measurements are done with an Opple Light Master III.
All tests were done with the included battery, fully charged in the light before each test.
The beam consists of a big spot with soft corona and a wide flood, I didn’t find any artefacts.
Turbo is only momentary, so no full runtime diagram for this, but turbo steps down to the sustained level quite fast anyways. In the following diagram, I let run down the first activation of turbo, then repeatedly activated it after a short time. The light gets very hot doing this, my temperature sensor saw 60° and i am sure it wasn’t on the hottest spot. For a momentary turbo, i like this behaviour, but your opinion might be different.
On high, the light gives you about 7 minutes of 1500 Lumen, then going down to 1200 for over half an hour. After that, it slowly drops below 1000 lumen - a very good sustain for a light that size in my opinion. After around 2 hours, the light goes down to around 270 lumen for half an hour before shutting down.
On all other levels, the light is regulated flat - I didn’t test the lowest mode though.
Runtimes look good.
The battery reads about 2,9 volts after the light shuts off and measured a capacity of 4941mAh on my charger.
Wuben chose a Luminus SST70 and we all know, what a SST70 means: Maximum output at the cost of a nice tint - and this is a prime example. While output and sustain are great, the tint is not. It’s, of course, cold white and low CRI, but not only that, it is green.
CCT ranges from 5100K on low to 5500K on turbo
CRI ranges from 62 on low to 68 on turbo
DUV ranges from 0,019 on low to 0,012 on turbo
Flicker is always in the green range, but close to yellow on low.
I couldn’t visually detect any PWM, neither did my camera.
Summary
The L3 is a special light in every way. Its a tube style light, but it got that special futuristic Wuben ECL style. It is operated by a tail switch, but it is a two click tailswitch. Wuben really tried to take the tube style one step forward. As always with innovation, it’s not easy and a process. While the UI could need some refinement, it is a good start for that very cool and innovative button.
The tube misses a bit of grip as there is no knurling, but I like the overall style and its waist very much. And that USB port cover is almost overengineered, in a good way.
The LED choice was not my favourite. The beam is fine, but it is one of the greenest tints i ever experienced.
The L3 is not perfect. But it is very innovative, it tries new things and I hope wuben keeps evolving it. There is so much potential in this light, especially in the switch, that it would be a shame if there wouldn’t be a L3 v2 with some little changes (UI, LED).