Tag: Cree

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Lumintop ODF30 (26650 Flood, XPH 70.2, 3500 Lumens)

It’s been a long time since I have tested a Lumintop Light. Today I have the Lumintop ODF30 to take a look at. It’s a palm sized flood light that runs off of a 26650 battery using a Cree XHP 70.2 LED for an impressive 3500 lumens in Turbo. Thanks to Banggood for sending this to me, let’s take a closer look.

Full Image Gallery: https://imgur.com/a/jcyMafN

YouTube Version of this Review: (How do you like my new background?)

Packaging
The Lumintop packaging is very nice. The ODF30 comes in a nicely refind brown box with some details on the rear, the accessories including extra orings, orange lanyard, and holster are in a small separate box. The light itself is in a custom fit foam insert with a piece of clear plastic covering the lense. A 26650 battery is not included.






Construction
This light is made from aluminum and is finished with a dry flat black anodizing. Starting at the tail cap, It is flat and non magnetic. The light does tail stand well. Grip on the tail cap and body is blocky. It’s large milled squares in what I would call medium grip. It’s a unique look that I have not seen many other lights. The light doesn’t have any anitroll features built in.The light does come into two pieces, as it’s glued to the head.


The button is a positive click, covered by a rubber button. The head itself has quite a bit of groves for heat dissipation around it. On top the light has a polished steel bezel that’s smooth. The lens is a clear fairly thick mineral glass that’s not anti reflective coated. There is the signature Lumintop Red Oring that’s visible too.The reflector itself is pretty deep and has a nice orange peel on it. The LED below is nicely centered with a large dome on it.


Threads are square cut and anodized. My orings were greased but the threads were not. There is only one spring in the light connected to the driver board. The tail cap has a proud brass contact. Batteries are installed with the positive side facing the front of the light. I was using a KeepPower Protected 26650 and it’s a bit too long and dented the positive end slightly.

Length, Width, Weights, IPX
Maximum Length lenght is 119.5mm, maximum diameter at the head is 42mm, minimum diameter is 29.32mm on the body. Weight with the KeepPower 4500mAh battery I was running is 236 Grams or 133 Grames without battery. The light is rated for IPX8.

LED + Temps + Runtime
This light uses a Cree XHP 70.2 LED in cool white. It has a large dome on the LED. The LED didn’t have a Cree Rainbow as other XHP 70’s I have had have. Edges on the beam shots were fairly well controlled and it’s mostly a flood beam.

Runtimes were impressive for the ODF30. Turbo is timed to 3 minutes during which time it heats up. High lasted quite a while at about 20 minutes. Output did sag a little (still above 90% relative output) but before it stepped down to middle output. Middle output was about 140 minutes at about 65% output. At the end instead of stepping down and running on low the light seems to do a flashing a few times and shutting off. When it shut off it was still pretty warm to the touch, borderline uncomfortable. I used a KeepPower 26650 battery with this light that was rated for 4500mah.
 (Forget the slight dip upfront I had a problem with my sphere)

I ran another test 30 minutes from Turbo and generated an output curve for that shows that 3 minutes more in depth. You get a drop off pretty quickly but then it slows down the output drops taking slow steps. After about 8 minutes the light is pretty stedy for the remaining 35 minutes. At the end here the light was hot. I measured it at 124F uncooled which is uncomfortable to hold onto. If I was holding this I would have turned it down well before it got this hot. Parasitic Drain was measured at 3.2uA

UI
Ui is overly simple on this light. Low, medium, high in that order. When in high, double click to go to turbo. Eco mode (Still too high for my taste) is accessed when the light is off by long pressing the button till the light comes on. To shut it off while on requires a long press (2 seconds). Tho light also has Strobe but it can only be accessed from Eco Mode by double clicking to reach strobe. I like that strobe isn’t a part of the main group but this is a little awkward.

Lockout mode is also available. When the light is off long press for 4 seconds and the light will flash to enter lockout. To unlock requires unscrewing the tail cap. That’s certainly a different way to unlock and it’s not my favorite. Unscrewing the tail cap to mechanically lock it out seems more intuitive to me.

The light has low voltage reminder by flashing the LED under the button. This is a little hard to see if you don’t notice it. It comes on under 3V.

Compared to the Thrunite TC20
Size wise this is pretty similar to my Thrunite TC20 I reviewed. Both are floods with similar beam patterns. The Thrunite is a bit more expensive but it includes a 26650 battery, has onboard charging and is available with a Neutral white LED. Size wise they are very similar, I would give a slight advantage in build feel to the Lumintop. For me the Thrunite wins by a hair due to the neutral white LED which I prefer. Brightness wise to the eyes they are very similar.

Conclusion
This is a nicely built handheld flood. I like the 26650 format. It fits nicely in the hand while providing a large amount of light for whatever task you need. This makes a great handheld hiking/camping light with it’s long runtime or around the house work light/emergency light too. It’s not something most people will EDC in a pocket due to its size but it would work on the included holster for this. The XHP 70.2 LED in this is largely free of artifacts and color abnormalities I have seen with other similar lights.

For me lack of onboard charging isn’t a big deal because I have a few chargers that can accomodate 26650 cells. I would prefer the light to be slightly longer and use springs on both ends so that it doesn’t dent a protected battery that’s are a little longer. I would also like to see polarity markings. None of these are deal breakers nor do they detract much from a nice light. I do like that the 26650 battery format is starting to gain wider use in more and more lights.

Thanks to Banggod for sending this light for me to review. They have offered me some coupons if if you are interested in this light be sure to check them out.

Get $13 off the Lumintop ODF30 with coupon code: b3131d at https://goo.gl/cN2WBH

Get $2 off the KeepPower 26650 battery with coupon code: 6e5463 at https://goo.gl/rsf2Wx

8% off universal coupon for flashlight @ Banggood using code? Forolinternas

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Thrunite TC20 Review (XHP70.2 NW, 26650)

Thrunite gets a lot of positive attention with their flashlight models. I previously didn’t have one to review until recently with the TC20. The TC20 is one of the more recent designs from Thrunite(link is external) and I am glad they were able to send it to me for review. This is a 26650 based light, in neutral white capable of producing 3800 lumens and is microUSB rechargeable at 2 amps. Let’s take a closer look at it.

Full Image Gallery for this Review: https://imgur.com/a/BXRHr(link is external)
Youtube Version of this Review:

Construction
The TC20 is made from aluminum that’s been semi gloss black hard anodized. Machining is good with no sharp edges and everything lines up like it should with any printing, and flats on the body. The tail is non magnetic and slightly recessed. There is a small milled out area to attach the included lanyard as well. The tail cap and about ? of the body tube have a diamond knurling pattern that’s more on the aggressive side without being too aggressive to damage pockets. The head is milled from what looks like a solid piece of aluminum. It has 5 flats milled into the ring around the power button which helps control roll.

The button itself has a positive feel to it and makes an audible click. I believe it’s a metal top, with an LED in the center to indicate battery power level and charge status while charging. The reflector is deep and and has a nice orange peel to it. The glass lens is anti reflective coated. The silver colored bezel is removable and is used to contain the lens and reflector. Threads are large and square cut and unanodized. The spring in the tail cap is a double spring design.

!{width:80%}https://i.imgur.com/LgymZtP.jpg!https://i.imgur.com/LgymZtP.jpg(link is external)

Size and Weight
Length of the TC20 was 118.4mm, Maximum diameter was 42mm, minimum diameter was 33.55mm and weight was 238.7 grams. Compared to my Olight R50, it’s length was 132.4mm, it’s maximum diameter was 42mm, the minimum diameter was 33mm and weight was 258.8 grams.

The TC20 is IPX8 water rated which is great for a microUSB rechargeable light. Parasitic Drain was measured at a low 2.0uA.

LED + Runtimes
This light uses Cree XHP70.2 in neutral white as its emitter. I have tested a couple of other lights with the XHP70.2 and found the color rainbow effect where the tint of the beam is to be uneven. It was most noticeable on the eddges of the beam. However on the Thrunite TC20 this was much less noticeable, at distance outside I didn’t notice it at all. The LED is nicely centered in the reflector as well.

Outputs are good for a neutral white XHP70.2. I don’t have a way to independently verify Thrunites claims but in reading other reviews they appear to be accurate. Turbo is rated at 3800 lumens, High at 1800 Lumens, Medium at 320 lumens, low at 38 lumens and firefly at .5 lumens. Interestingly strobe is rated at 2280 lumens. Throw is rated at an impressive 320 meters.

Runtimes were close to what I expected with this light. Turbo starts to decline pretty rapidly which was a little disappointing, but high held for about 7-8 minutes. At that point the light was producing about 55% of its output and it saw one more decline where it held steady at about 40% of it’s output for about 90 minutes. This is still a significant amount of output for an extended period of time. At the tail end it was a pretty fast decline to zero where the low voltage protection kicked in and stopped output. Turbo to flat runtime was about 110 minutes.

One thing that’s interesting is in the manual it says not to use turbo for more then 10 minutes to protect the light, battery and it’s components. The light does get warm to the touch but never so hot that it feels dangerous to hold or like it could be damaging the light.

Beam Pattern
The beam pattern is pretty even, there isn’t a significant hotspot but there is a small less noticeable one. The beam is primarily flood but has a good amount of throw to it as well. In my outdoor shots you will see how well it really lights up a large area that’s approximately 100 yards in length. It’s a really useful beam in my opinion for general use especially when your looking to light up a large area at one time. See the video for more.

Charging
The light has built in USB charging via microUSB opposite the main mode button in the head of the light. To cover the port there is a beefier rubber cover that can be rotated out of the way. It can charge at a rate up go 2A which helps with charging speed greatly with the high capacity 5000mAh Thrunite button top 26650 battery that is included with this light. The light also works in Firefly, Low, and Medium mode. Thrunite includes a high quality USB cable with the light as well which I recommend using. If you see charging take over 2.5 hours make sure you look at your power source is providing a reliable, clean 2+ Amps.

UI
UI on the TC20 is basic and pretty logical. I like how they have chosen to keep strobe out of the main group of 3 modes (Low, Medium, and High). Turbo is accessible from any mode with a double click. Getting to strobe is slightly more difficult than other lights. You have to first be in turbo by double clicking and then double click again to go to strobe. I like this as I rarely have a use for strobe.

Moonlight mode is only accessible when the light is off by pressing the button and holding until it turns on. This light does have memory mode for the main 3 modes and you can return to it by just clicking the button once quickly. There is no software lockout mode.

The light also has a power capacity indicator in the main button. At 100% power it is a steady blue, at 11-20% power it’s red, at between 1 and 10% power remaining it flashes red.

Packaging
Thrunites packaging is a nicely executed and minimalistic. The light comes in a brown sturdy box with a line drawing of the TC20 and minimal info. It was held together with a clear rubber band. Inside is the lightself protected via foam with the battery preinstalled but using a contact protecting plastic disk that needs removed prior to first use. Under the foam is the USB cable, lanyard, holster, spare orings, side switch cap, and manual.






Comparisons
Compared with my Olight R50 which also has MicroUSB charging, and a 26650 battery the Thrunite TC20 is a shorter more compact design. It’s head is a bit smaller in diameter too. Knurling on the Olight is different, less aggressive. I do like the Thrunites more aggressive feel in the hand. Both fit well in my medium sized hand. The Olight has a beam that has a hotter spot and is designed for a bit more throw. It’s spill is less intense and has a harder cut off. The Thrunite TC20 beam is more even and seems to cover a wider angle. It’s neutral white LED really help bring out the natural color of things which I really prefer. Both are good lights lights, but for me the Thrunite TC20 wins out due to it’s slightly brighter, neutral white LED, and standard battery.


Pro

  • Relatively fast 2A charging on the included non proprietary 5000mah 26650 button top battery.
  • Neutral White Tint – but it does have some Cree Rainbow
  • Simple UI & Good mode spacing with Firefly
  • Nice fit in the hand and more compact than other similar lights.
  • I like that they include an extra side switch cap in the packaging.

Con

  • Cree XHP70.2 has some noticeable color shift across the beam, this has been similar across all of the XHP70.2 lights that I have reviewed, this is less noticeable at a distance.
  • No software lockout mode, but mechanical lockout works.
  • The holster is pretty basic, but functional.

Conclusion
I like this form factor for a light, it’s a good general purpose size for non pocket EDC uses. It would make for a great camping light or day/night hiking due to it’s runtime and good mix of throw and flood. For me it fits in the hand well without being too big or to small. I really like that Thrunite offers neutral white tints on many of their lights. I quite like this size of light, how well it tail stands and how much light it produces for a good amount of time without getting too hot. Thrunite has a presale running right now where you can save 20% off the cost of the TC20 by buying from their store http://www.thrunite.com/thrunite-tc20-3800-lumen-flashlight/(link is external) (Non affiliate).