Thanks for taking the time to review this light and share the results with us! I was very curious about the KC1 and your review just clarified all my doubts.
And it’s an impressive debut for your review site, I can see it easily matching the current top ones in the near future (look out @tactical_grizzly@zeroair@1Lumen, Wolfgirl has entered the game! )
Excellent! That is the best write up I have seen in my short time at this hobby.
Very detailed, actual lumen test instead of reading off the box. Best part is your score card at the end.
Well done- Look forward to what is next
Quite disappointing that the KC1 doesn’t have at least different selectable brightness levels, my iTP EOS A3 all the way back from 2010 had them already (came on at medium, then with a quick untwist/twist switched to moonlight, and then another one set it to high which was quite impressive at the time – like people at the fully lighted office turning heads in my direction and asking “What was THAT?!”, and then refusing to believe it has been the tiny little thing in my hand until I demonstrated by literally dazzling them with it ).
Also, disappointing that a light that can get so hot (perhaps even dangerously so) doesn’t have any kind of thermal regulation/step down. My aforementioned iTP did get reasonably warm when on high, but not nearly uncomfortable to hold. And it was 2 untwists/twists away, so not much chance of turning on accidentally in a pocket or pouch or anything.
And just 120lm with the Eneloop sounds anemic – again my iTP from 13 years ago matched that (at least theoretically as per the manufacturer’s specs, I haven’t checked). LED technology supposedly evolved a lot in the meantime – but perhaps in the sense of better CRI/DUV, which the ancient Cree on my iTP decidedly wasn’t good at.
Maybe this is just a “beta version” or something, let’s hope “version 1.0” (ie, the ones Hank will put out when they show up officially in his own web shop) will be better in one or more of the above points
Sorry for the slow pace, I’ve had several family emergencies plus an injury, in general I am aiming to post at least one per week. M44 review is being worked on as well as two others, biggest restriction at the moment is free time.
I agree that domed 519a makes the best beam in the V11R.
Nice review.
Side note: the V11R isn’t actually that hard to mod:
The star is accessed by unscrewing the top of the head above the control ring. There is some glue, but with strap wrenches or Talon grip tape it is possible to break through it. They didn’t use a ridiculous amount of glue like Jetbeam. With the star removed it is easy to swap emitters.
With the top of the bezel removed the ring can be pulled out. A common mod with the V11r is to adjust the resistance of the ring to user taste using Nyogel 767a.
The tailcap guts are held in via a retaining ring surrounding the switch boot. Remove using needle nose pliers in the cutouts. This allows swapping to the alternate metal switchboot. It also allows the user to replace the forward clicky with a reverse clicky switch.
The driver is very easy to remove. Use a small phillips head screwdriver to unscrew the retaining ring visible in the bottom of the head. With that removed, the driver cover plate and driver pull right out (once you desolder the driver wires from the star of course).
Another note: I haven’t tested it with the V11r, but I had this happen with an earlier model, the very similar V10r, which appears to use the same driver:
One time I accidentally put the cell in the wrong way and turned the light on for just a second. This was enough to cause permanent damage to the driver. Instead of its previous nice smooth ramp from min to max, turning the ring would cause a very gradual ramp to around 5% brightness, then it would reach a point where continuing to turn it would sharply ramp up to 100%. This final turn took the light from around 5% to 100% with just 1 or 2mm of turn, making the variable brightness function unusable.
Turns out the driver had no reverse polarity protection, and that one time of putting the battery in the wrong way permanently damaged the light.
Next time I order an Emisar/Noctigon, I’ll have to pick up one of these. I wish it had multiple modes, though. Start on moon, then low - med - high. Or without moon. Still, Hank is the only one providing this kind of AAA flashlight with bespoke options (color AND led combinations). My first instinct would be to select the 519A 5700k dedome (a Toykeeper favorite), but it looks like it’s rather underdriven here. I think you’re right that the now venerable SST-20 might be a better choice. Since this is a near-field flashlight, I’d stay away from W1. The tint would be awful. If SFT-40 was supported, I wonder how it would work out with the driver (I’d probably go with 4000k).
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