[review] Wurkkos TD05 5000K dual-switch light

LED Flashlights – General Info 18650 Flashlights
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What a nice little surprise! I thought this would be similar to the great little FC13, and it is, but in quite a few ways it’s even better. This is an 18650 light just like the FC series (11, 12, 13) but has a 5000K SFT40 emitter.


[close-up of the light itself; photo: Wurkkos]

It came in the typische “creamsicle” orange and white box we’ve grown accustomed to, and is jam-packed (I like jam!) with the light and cell already preloaded (just open it up and remove the insulating tab), the microprinted manual, baggie with lanyard and extra O-rings, and usb charging cable. So it’s pretty much ready to go.

As usual (I could make this a macro, as it’s pretty consistent across Wurkkos lights), fit and finish is excellent. No sharp edges or corners anywhere, even on the cooling fins. Hard anodisation is the usual semigloss black, with no dings, voids, anything.

There’s a clip already installed, the bidirectional kind, that’s gloss black and not the usual chromey clip-as-afterthought slapped on, which is nice. I generally hate clips and this one’s coming off as soon as possible, but I have to admit this one “fits” the light nicely. It seems pretty stiff and with a wide-enough “mouth” to clip to a jeans pocket. It might not techncially be a deep-carry clip, but rides back far enough to probably qualify.

Knurling is nice and ridgey without cutting into the skin.

It definitely feels substantial, solid and heavy, so there’s definitely lots of meat to it.

The switches are a “tactical” rear switch to control off/on, a forward-clicky (ie, momentary-on) which is great to be able to flash’n’dash, as well as a backlit e-switch on the side to change modes. The rear switch does have those annoying thumb-guards which to me only really serve to dig into your thumb if you hold it at anything but the perfect angle, but having to hold it at said angle means you don’t have quick/intuitive access to the sideswitch without having to rotate the light. So chances are, you can hold the light to favor clicking on/off with the rear switch and have to fumble around to find the sideswitch, or favor the sideswitch to change modes quickly, but then have to cut into your thumb to turn the light on/off.

The microprint manual comes in about 17 languages (kidding, really like 5 or 6) and can be a bit confusing as far as wording, but it ends up being easy to work out. The UI is described there, and that’s where playing with the light helps to suss out the details.

The included cell is a 3000mAH 18650 which clocked in at 2944mAH at 1A up/down current on my pessimistic Opus. Not bad at all, and I’ve rarely had issues with Wurkkos-branded cells (the one for my FC13 just clocked in at 3019mAH).

Charging is simple: plug the charging cable into the light and a power source, and go. It will blink red on the sideswitch’s backlight as it’s charging, then go green when done. That same backlight also functions as a battery-status indicator for a few seconds after the light is turned on. Green for mostly charged, then yellow when at a lower charge, red at the lowest, and blinking-red for “charge me now!!!”.

Now the emitter. As much as I like the FC13, admittedly, the beam is a bit green. At its brightest, this emitter is a bright neutral white, no hint of green (or blue or yellow or “rosy” in fact). It’s like paper-white, which surprised me quite a bit. Did I win the tint lottery or is this standard, no idea, but I do appreciate the non-green-ness. It does seem a bit warmer at lower brightness, though. It’s just an all-around pleasant beam, and I’m surprised I like this vs my usual preference for warmer tints (3500K-4500K, usually, even down to 3000K or even 2700K for warm-white).


[modes’n’stuff!; photo: Wurkkos]

The UI. Ohhhh, the UI. I can hear the howls for The Usual UI other lights have, but this is simple enough and has some rather nice flourishes. Click on/off from the tailswitch. Half-press for momentary. Done, right? Not so fast. A quick double-press gets you to instant turbo without having to touch the sideswitch! So from off, a half-press gets you momentary-on in whatever memorised mode it was in previously, a full click gets you full-on in that memorised mode, but if you give a quick “pre-press” and then press again (momentary or full) it’ll turn on in turbo mode. Noice!

Once on, clicking the sideswitch cycles forward from “eco” (low, but not really “moonlight”) then low, medium, high, then back down. Doubleclick gets you turbo, and clicking again back to the memorised mode. Tripleclick gets you to strobe, and clicking again back to memorised mode. Done. Strobe is that 2-frequency stuff, so forget about light-painting (people often ask, so I’m tossing that in).

About the sideswitch, I thought there was a bit of… I believe it is called “schmootz”… behind the clear part along one edge, but in looking at literally all the pix I could find of the lit sideswitch, it’s part of the design, a little half-“starburst”. So it’s NOT a defect, but again, part of the design. I was a bit confused at first, but nope, nothing wrong with it at all.

About the beam, the SFT40 is behind a nice deep mild-orangepeel reflector, giving a pretty clean beam with no real rings or anything. The corona around the hotspot has a trace of yellow but nothing objectionable. The nice fuzzy hotspot is pretty throwy for a tubelight with a pretty smooth fade to the spill, so no “keyhole” effect either close-up or at a distance.

So, everything said, the TD05 makes for a pretty nice “tactical” light, given the throwy beam, momentary-on, and insta-turbo even from off. Even the color/tint is bright without being Angry Blue in any way. And it’s useful enough to be a great EDC light without having anything too “tacti-cool” getting in the way. A simple and intuitive UI makes it a breeze to just pick up and use instantly, and learning the insta-turbo from off is an incredibly nice touch. A clean throwy beam is a great plus, too.

All in all, I’d say it’s got great bang for the buk.

Oh, as an added bonus, a discount from Judy!!

Quoting:

Total 40% OFF (30% Coupon +10% Promotion)
Deals Price: $27.59
Code: 7M9TLXMM
End Date: 2024-2-10 23:59PST

Enjoy!

1 Thank
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Great review. I’ll snag one of these. Many thanks.

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Thanks!

I forgot to mention that I’m pretty sure the output is regulated / constant-current, and not just a FET pass-element. I know a lot of people have that as a hard requirement, and, well, there ya go!

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aplos t02 runtime test (1hr) turbo-1002585258213
aplos t02 runtime test (1hr) turbo-10025852582131400×1050 11.7 KB

aplos t02 runtime test (2hr) high-28252936822606
aplos t02 runtime test (2hr) high-282529368226061400×1050 14.2 KB

Yes it is regulated - very well in fact. The Aplos T02 is identical to td05 except for using 6500k sft40. I got mine from AliExpress super deal it was $16 - a very good price for this level of regulation.

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Noice!

I only heard of Aplos in passing. Related?

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They’re under the same umbrella company Jinba Tech Shenzen. Jinba Tech is OEM for wurkkos, sofirn, aplos, and a few more.

2 Thanks
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Interesting!
And I erroneously thought that Sofirn was the parent company of Wurkkos. :+1:

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Yes it often feels like Sofirn is the parent company and that’s probably because Sofirn seems to be their oldest brand (from what I can tell). It used to be called thorfire (and possibly something else before that?) so even though there was a name change it’s one of their longest running brands.

1 Thank
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Does it have the shortcut to the lowest mode by holding the side button while clicking the tail switch like the FC12 has?

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Nice little light. It appeals to me but it appears that the protruding rear button would prevent using it in a tail-cap stand.

Edit: Just occurred to me. I don’t really have any so-called “tactical lights”, so I’m not really familiar with their characteristics but I’m guessing that a protruding rear button is useful with heavy gloves or in emergency situations. Probably more than tail-cap standing ability. My bad.

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I’m not sure if they updated this, hopefully OP @Lightbringer can confirm - but on the Aplos T02 it doesn’t work like that unfortunately.

If you hold side button and click rear tail button it will turn on in the low mode - but then immediately switch to the next mode (medium). So unless Sofirn changed the UI (possible but unlikely), there is no direct to moonlight mode. And honestly it can hardly be called a moonlight mode, it’s too bright to be called such.

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Thats a pretty fine review. Well written.

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Nice review. I’d be all over it if it had warmer tint and smooth reflector

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That’s a shame. Even if it’s not moonlight I still like the ability to bypass memory and start at whatever the lowest mode is.

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No mention of anything like that in the manual, so just tried it. Lights up in last-used mode, but jumps to the next mode once you let off the button.

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Those silly “thumb guards” that most lights seem to have are the problem, and are the worst of both worlds.

They usually don’t allow stable tailstanding, because they’re balancing the light on 2 short ledges vs a full circle. Sometimes the guards are even rounded vs squared-off. Sometimes they even let the button stick out enough that if you pushed it down on a table it would actually turn on. So in reality, they’re put in for useless æsthetic vs actual function.

Also, they do a great job of blocking your thumb when you want to light it up, digging into your thumb unless the light’s perfectly aligned. So they don’t work as intended against accidental activation, and do work but unintended when you actually want light.

Shave off the damned guards and leave the button sticking out, like the 2AA Pokomon or almost all classic Solarforce lights (L2M, etc.). Or have a full ring around it like the '502 has, even if it doesn’t “protect” the switch fully, as at least you’d be able to dig in and light it up, but without pinching a nerve in your thumb.

Unfortunately, that “feature” is a monkey-see-monkey-do that almost every mfr in creation copies from all others, as to have become a “standard”. Ugh.

1 Thank
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I was actually surprised I liked the “paper-white” beam, but I do.

And when I said it was mild OP, I meant it. I had to look hard to notice it was MOP vs SMO.

Problem is that most lights with SMO reflectors also have at least some artifacts unless the reflector is pretty much custom-designed for the emitter. I’d much rather have like 5% less throw if it gets rid of a bullseye beam. And MOP really doesn’t kill throw much at all.

All my Nitecores have that PDOT type reflector that’s mirror-smooth, and they generally have reeeeally nice beams, but they’re also custom designed for the emitter, and have exceptionally tight tolerances. I was just playing with my GTmini, and it’s got an incredibly tight beam, but even that has a fuzzy corona around the hotspot. Some lights even have that annoying “flower-petal” hotspot.

This puppy? Pretty nice beam, zero complaints.

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I believe that’s the wurkkos logo! And it’s a Yiddish/ old Germanic word from something akin to “dirty” or “soiled”, which you’re clearly aware of on some level, point is once you start transliterating exact spelling becomes a bit of a silly point as far as I’m concerned, but schmutz is the most common spelling that I’m aware of. I’m not sure if that was genuine uncertainty or just a stylistic choice (which I’m not knocking, that was very well written!), either way I think words are neat and wanted to share.

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Bugger! I just noticed that. It’s the ‘o’ in “Wurkkos”.

Orange-on-white, I just thought it was something Death-Star-ish, like the AT&T logo. Never looked closely enough…

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I tied to purchase today (2024-2-10) and the additional 10% promotion does not work.