Thanks, it’s good to be back. 
I agree the auto-lock is annoying, but they are apparently working on a fix. Waiting to hear more …
The performance on this light’s boost circuit is really impressive. I hope Wurkkos will upgrade some of their FET+1 lights to use similar regulated power designs.
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Any progress on auto lock? Also, I don’t know what the real performance of the TS22 is. In one test it stabilized above 1000 lm, which surprised me a lot, but in another it was around 600 lm.
I don’t know if they have revised the auto-lock or not yet (I know Sofirn did on the SC33). Would need to let someone with a more recent sample comment.
As for the “real” performance, my runtimes give you an accurate assessment as to run time. Absolute calibration of the output scale is a different matter. Outside of a fully calibrated integrating sphere (in the tens of thousands of dollars), you are going to have to rely on someone’s relative calibration standard for comparison purposes. I know mine is more generous than most out there, but that reflects the earlier standard I calibrated against.
I think it’s been stated but with the switch light on in one of the modes, there is no auto-lock. I can manually lock it if I wish.
Thanks for the report. Of course, I understand that output is not easy to measure, especially not precisely. I just didn’t know what to compare it to, but everything came together like that. I’ve only been lighting for a few years, I’m aware of a couple of things, of course far from everything. Sorry if I was a bit blunt. I’m sorry that my search engine didn’t find your reviews until now, when I see you haven’t started recently. Anyway, thanks again. I’ll check out your other reviews as well.
I am aware that the light button turns off the automatic lock. Just a few posts above it was said that the program is being developed. I thought I’d ask how it’s going. Sometimes I don’t want the switch to light up. If I don’t carry it in a bag, I don’t want to twist the tail.
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Yes, but to get consistency you would need the ambient temp to always remain the same across all tests. Can you confirm it’s always the same? Otherwise it’s not consistent. Zeroair stopped using a fan because that’s not how it’s tested in the labs to meet ANSI standards.
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No, I meant consistency in another sense.
Of course, ANSI doesn’t use fan cooling - that would add an extra variable that would require them to detail the specifics for airflow in the standard. Given the two limited runtimes measures in FL-1 (i.e., 30 secs after ignition and time to 10% output), it hardly matters for them.
The point is I can’t control ambient temperature and humidity the way a laboratory could. Because of the vagaries of force air home heating and cooling, there can very variable airflow in my home office (as my furnace attempts to keep temp in a reasonable range). Like many enthusiasts, I keep my lightbox under my desk to limit ambient light exposure. But that means it’s exposed to very variable airflow from my rooms vents (i.e., in the worst of winter there is a lot heat blowing, in the peak of summer a lot of cold air blowing, and an open window during the shoulder seasons). Airflow is about the only thing I can control for - by using a small fan, I’m insuring the most consistent degree of airflow in my office over the lights.
I also meant consistency in another sense - I have been using fan cooling from the beginning, and I know my runtimes would look different if I didn’t use a fan. So there’s no point in changing things now and not have my runtimes consistent with the last >650 lights I’ve tested.
I realize a lot of people feel that no cooling is more representative of real-world conditions. But I have a more overwhelming concern - safety. I have had MANY light circuits fail during testing due to overheating (i.e., the “magic smoke” exiting the too-hot-to-handle body tubes). Twice now I’ve actually had high-powered lights begin to ignite my home-made lightbox (!), even with cooling. I smelt and then saw the burning of the adhesive tape that I used to attach the entrance baffle.
Given the length of some of the runtimes I do, I can’t be guaranteed to be supervising it at all times. As this is my family home, safety trumps any other concern - I feel a lot more comfortable with the fan running.
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I don’t use a fan either, just natural circulation per the ANSI testing. Fan cooling introduces a variable that can skew test results, especially with active thermal limits.
The temperatures in my test room hover between 18 and 19 C in the winter/fall and spring and higher in the summer (22 C). I close the drapes to keep the sun off the test room. Some flashlights don’t have thermal control and just timed stepdowns, but some do.
I review on the YouTube channel “Piercing The Darkness” and here’s the following reasons why I stopped using a fan.
- Can’t test runtime and compare it to specs
- Alerting buyers/viewers to heat issues, thermal regulation not working etc (this is super important)
- Unable to compare sustainable output to other reviewers
As a flashlight store owner, reviews using a fan are useless for trying to see what holds a decent brightness after stepdown or trying to find how long turbo lasts. I can’t compare to other reviewer’s graphs on previous versions or models that you haven’t tested. It’s extremely hard to try work out how the fan affects the thermals, as in what does the temp drop to from the stated ambient. Far easier to have a stated ambient with no cooling. Not always do you have a breeze or outside so it’s great to know, okay, this is what I get stationary as the lowest sustainable output, if I use it outside or in the cool, maybe winter, I’m going to get a higher output.
It’s sometimes great to see a cooled turbo test being included as well as uncooled.
You do what you feel comfortable doing though. I appreciate the response.
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That’s why I usually max out the (or set it to 65 C) thermal limit on Anduril lights when I test them, to minimize thermal throttling as a variable and test the limits of the electronics and LED and the lights thermal characteristics. I only recently started logging temperatures and it shows another side of flashlight performance.
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I just purchased a Lutron LX1128SD Light Meter with Data Logging and it now makes runtime graphs extremely quick. I calibrated my PVC Tube to it so the lumens are shown as lux, record once and I’m done. Before I was using a phone app for data logging and then a separate test with a light meter to record the lumens, then use both with a formula on Google Sheets, just super time consuming.
I have been taking temp measurements with an IR Gun, but that’s annoying so may fork out another $170 for a Data Logging Thermometer with Type K Thermocouple. It’s getting expensive haha.
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Yah that’s extremely time consuming. I used the light box with the ceiling bounce app twice and never again (bought a logger luxmeter after that). I just got the thermocouple logger 2 years later and it’s nice, but it doesn’t always log for the full runtime. I use Digi-Sense instruments. The 20250-00 for the luxmeter and 20250-92 for the thermocouple. Fairly cheap when bought used on eBay.
What version of the 70.3 is used in the TS22 - 6V or 12V ?
It is wired as 6v in my TS22
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So, without purchasing a unit, do we know if the auto-lockout was removed and the parasitic drain fixed? Being the owner of the FC11C, I really want the larger sibling TS22 .
There are no signs of the firmware has been modified. The user manual on the official site still says there is an auto lockout unless you turn on the button light.
Well that sucks, but thanks for the response.
Is this babe with XHP 70.2 still the king of the flood in the 21700 arena?
I’m looking for a second flashlight (just bought a FC11C) that could check the following boxes:
- Single 21700 battery
- Compact
- All in for floodiness (I will buy a good 21700 thrower later)
- close to 1800 lumens for 1.8 hour (can be flexible here, but no less than 1000 lm)
- Powerbank
- 50 usd or less
- High CRI (at least higher than TS22)
Any suggestions?