Tag: everyday carry

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Fenix TK20R V2.0 Review (3000 Lumens, SFT70 LED, 21700, USB-C)

Today I have one I am excited to bring you, it’s from a New brand on the Channel with Fenix and the TK20R V2. Through the years I have gotten a lot of questions on Fenix and what I thought of specific models and I and I just didn’t have the experience to answer, so I was excited when Fenix reached out to start working together. This is the first of 2 reviews for Fenix you will see in the coming weeks. 

 

The TK20R V2 is an updated light that’s using a Luminis SFT70 LED, producing 3000 lumens, has onboard USB-C charging of the 21700 battery. You can check out more at https://www.fenixlighting.com/ The light I was sent is preproduction, and actually has a Luminus SST70 LED, however that has been changed in the production light to a Luminis SFT70 LED. 

 

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Here is a link to the USB-C Cable I used in the video https://amzn.to/3Dwt0rA

 

Packaging & Accessories

I received a preproduction light, and final packaging was not ready at this time. Accessories that came with mine included a USB-A to C charging cable, the light, and the branded button top protected 21700 battery (ARB-L21-5000). Mine came with a velcro patch as well, not sure if this is normal or not. Other things that are expected to come with the production model include a lanyard, holster, 2 spare orings, user manual and warranty card.

 

Construction & Design

I am only going to hit the high points here, and let the photos and video do the rest of the talking. The light is made from T6061 aluminum and nicely anodized black. At the tail cap you have 2 protruding buttons, a larger round mechanical switch that takes a good amount of force to push, and then a smaller rectangle mode button. The light does not tail stand as a result.

The pocket clip only mounts on the rear of the light. The body tube has concentric ring knurling like texture on the body, this provides a good amount of grip and looks nice I think. 

The recharging port cover is worth noting here, instead of using silicone rubber covers like many manufactures do to seal the USB-C ports, Fenix’s solution on the TK20R V2 is to have a retained aluminum cover that twists one full revolution to reveal the port. It has orings at the top and bottom and lots of anodized threads, so it’s silky smooth. Also under this port cover is the battery level indicator and recharging status LED. This just makes sense to me and has nothing to catch, or get in the way like the silicone covers sometimes do. 

 

Internally there is a stiff spring at the front of the light as well as in the tail, threads are smooth, square cut and a bit dry. Up front the head is glued in place but the bezel is removable. There is a crenulated bezel made of aluminum protecting the AR glass lens, deep smooth reflector and nicely centered LED. 

 

Retention

Since this is a pre production prototype I don’t have the lanyard or holster that the light will ship with in it’s final form. What I can talk about is the pocket clip. It only attaches at the rear of the light and is relatively narrow for the lights size. It’s stiff and does a good job of retaining the light in my front pocket, with about 1” of the light sticking out. 

 

 

Size & Weight

I measured the length at 152mm, maximum diameter at the head at 34.1mm, minimum diameter in the body at 26mm. I measured the weight here with the battery and clip at 203.2g or 7.17oz so a little on the heavy side. The light is IPX8 water rated and drop resistant to 1.5M.

LED & Beam

The Fenix TK20R V2 is using the Luminis SFT70 LED in cool white. The light I was sent is preproduction, and actually has a Luminus SST70 LED, however that has been changed in the production light to a Luminis SFT70 LED. My Opple meter shows it as 6035k and 67 CRI when on in turbo. In lower lumen modes it warms up slightly to around 5600k and has a notably green tinge to the beam to my eye. The beam has a pronounced hot spot in the center and minimal spill with some tint shift noted. Parasitic Drain was measured at a very low 1.8uA. There was very minimal PWM here, it’s basically constant current. 

 

Below are the official outputs from Fenix. I will note the mode spacing is pretty good to the eye here. 

Official Total Outputs for the SFT70 verison

  • Turbo – 3000 Lumens
  • High – 1000 Lumens
  • Medium – 350 Lumens
  • Low – 150 Lumens
  • Eco – 30 Lumens
  • Strobe – 3000 Lumens

 

Heat & Runtime

For all of my runtime tests I used the included 5000mAh battery and measured the % of relative output change, not total output (lumens). Starting with Turbo it lasts for about 2:20 before reaching equilibrium. During this time the light peaks at about 45C. It runs at this equilibrium very steadily out to the 3 hour mark.

I ran the same test and compared turbo to high and to medium modes for total runtime. You can see in the graph that High in green had a few more stepdowns but ended up at a very similar total runtime as turbo. Medium is a very flat output curve out to 7:40:00 mark where it begins stepping down several times, eventually shutting off at 9:18:00 when LVP on the battery kicks in at 2.89v.

 

UI 

UI here is very simple. The light has 2 buttons on the rear tailcap of the light. There is the larger power button which Fenix is calling the Tactical switch, it’s a forward clicky switch with momentary, and then the smaller button which they are calling the function switch. You can half press the tactical switch to turn the light on in the last mode used before locking fully on. Once on you use the function switch to cycle through the 5 modes in a linear manner. The light does have memory mode. At anytime you can press and hold the function switch to get to strobe mode. 


Recharging

I already talked about how the recharging port works on the TK20R V2, it’s under the aluminum nut that unscrews from the base of the head. It’s nice robust design. Also inside that port is your LED battery status indicator and charge indicator. When recharging it starts as red, and goes green when charged. The light is not capable of being used when charged. It does support C to C charging but has no PD charging support.  

The light is powered by a Fenix branded button top, protected 21700 battery (ARB-L21-5000) with a capacity of 5000mAh. I tested the capacity with my Vapcell S4 Plus charger and came away with 4863mAh. I tried the light with an unprotected button top battery and had no issues. 

Charging itself using the onboard USB-C port and included battery from LVP at 2.89v to full at 4.226v took 2:38:00. The light has a soft start charging when the battery is low before it jumps up to about 3A at the very beginning, and it falls as the battery charges. So a bit of a different curve then what I typically see.

 

Final Thoughts

I am excited to see Fenix on the channel. It’s a brand that I can find locally at two different sporting goods stores, and a LGS, which I think can be appealing to many people if you need something of quality and don’t have the time to wait for an online order. Of course they can be found online as well. 

As for the Fenix TK20R V2, It’s a pretty nice semi tactical light. The controls are easy to use, and strobe is easy to access if you want it. It has a useful beam that’s a good combination of flood and throw without making too many compromises. That said it is still cool white, and at lower tints the LED does have a pretty strong green tinge neither are my personal preference but at the higher end of the consumer market where this light is aimed won’t care like enthusiasts do. The USB Port cover design here is really nice, and I am surprised more lights don’t do something like this.

You can pickup this new release and other Fenix products at https://www.fenixlighting.com/ I will have a link in the description.

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Folomov EDC C2 Review (2022 Version, Cree XT-E, 14300)

Folomov is back on the channel after a few years break with their new EDC C2. It’s a very small “EDC” style light running a 14300 battery, and a Cree XT-E LED producing 525 lumens. I am going to try and keep this one short but still through. Thanks to Folomov for sending this to me to take a look at. 

 

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Pick up the Folomov EDC C2 (2022 Version) at  Amazon: https://amzn.to/36y3fdP 

 

Packaging & Accessories

The name of this light is confusing. So to understand this you have to understand that in 2019 Folmov released a small light called the EDC C2. The new light is has printed on it “EDC” however the marketing material and manual say it’s the C2. I asked Folmov about this and they said it’s the same name as the old but a different design, LED, UI, with a similar battery. A real head scratcher why they would call the two the same when they are similar but quite different. So prepare for confusion in the market place for the purposes of this review I am going to call it the EDC.

 

Packaging is a small retail box in orange and gray will all the relevant info on the outside. Included accessories are the pocket clip, the 520mA 14300 battery, 2 extra orings, manual and USB-A  to MicroUSB charging cable.

 

Construction and Design

The light is made from aluminum, anodized black, with no construction or anodizing issues. The overall design is basic, the tail is flat and non magnetic. There is no knurling on the light and all the surfaces are smooth. Only the rear tail cap is removable and it’s not interchangeable with the previous model. Internally only the rear has a short spring, the front is a brass post. 

The button is an eswitch, with a silicone/plastic cover, with no LED under. The front bezel is brass, very flat and holds in the diffused TIR style optic. 

 

Retention

Your main retention is the pocket clip on this light. It’s a captured snap on style clip, and is in a tip up configuration only. The clip has plenty of room for pocket material. Mine is secure however its slightly away from the body. The very end of the clip is flared out and this makes it easier to snag on things like a seat belt.

The you could attach a lanyard (Not included), although there isn’t a dedicated mounting place on the light itself, I think the idea is to attach via the hold in the clip. Not the most secure design. You could put a split ring here to attach as a keychain light but again not the most secure option.

 

Size & Weight

Length is 42.4mm, minimum diameter on the body is 16.1g, maximum diameter is 17mm at the head. Weight with battery and clip is 24.2g. The light is IPX 8 water rated and drop rated to 2 meters.

 

LED & Beam

The LED being used here is a Cree XT-E LED in a very cool white behind a TIR style reflector to diffuse the light. My Opple meter measured between 5400 and 6100k with a 77 CRI but to my eye it’s cooler then that, probably closer to 6500k. The beam coming out of the TIR reflector is fairly diffused with a huge hot spot creating the flood and minors spill. A good beam for EDC. PWM is very minimal on all modes and fast.

Parasitic Drain was measured at 135uA which is pretty significant. This was a problem with the previous model and this light actually has a slightly higher drain rate. That said Folomov says this light is still good for 166 days of standby, but my recommendation would be to mechanically lock out the light instead to avoid the drain issue. There is a pretty big jump between high and turbo here, other then that mode spacing is good. 

 

Official Output numbers

  • Turbo – 525 Lumens
  • High – 150 Lumens
  • Medium – 50 Lumens
  • Low – 10 Lumens
  • Moon – 1 Lumen

 

Heat & Runtime

For my Runtime tests I did my usual tests of comparing the percentage of relative output of the light while measuring runtimes here. Starting in Turbo it lasts a good 3 minutes before it starts dropping all while heat climes to 45C  out at the 4ish minute mark. Turbo steps down considerably and then starts a very linear decline starting at about 30 minutes. Runtime out to FL1 at 10% is roughly 1:20:00 however the light still produces light out to 5 hours, just very very little between 0-1% of relative output. LVP Kicks in at 2.806v.

I did the same comparison test but with Turbo compared to high output. High on this light is only 150 lumens so it was able to sustain this for longer, the output here is very linear so possibly not regulated or it didn’t make enough heat to actually regulate itself. FL1 is out to 3:20:00, but again it keeps running just making very little light out to 7 hours. 

 

UI

The light has a low, medium, high, turbo mode progression. It has a memorized mode feature as well. Double click unfortunately takes you to strobe instead of turbo. Once in strobe you can double click again to cycle between Strobe, SOS, and beacon modes. Personally I find these blinking modes unnecessary on a light this small and would have preferred a shortcut to turbo. 

 

Moonlight mode can be activated by long pressing when the light is off. To turn the light off from any mode you have hold the button for half a second. 


Recharging

The light runs off of a 14300 battery with a capacity of 525mAh. It has onboard microUSB charging built into the battery. 14300 batteries are not common, a quick google search doesn’t bring up any listings for them and Folomov doesn’t sell replacements direct but mentions their resellers may in the future.

Charging is slow here which is what you want. It took 1:53:00 to charge from LVP at 2.806v to full at 4.128v. Max changing speed I saw was about 0.26A. No problems detected with the charging curve. 

 

Final Thoughts

My final thoughts on the EDC C2 (2022 Version) is that it’s an interesting space to be in due to it’s size. It’s small enough yet functional that this would make a great keychain light, but it doesn’t have a solid keychain attachment point.

 

Unfortunately what I loved about the older Folomov EDC C2 was the warm (3000k)  high CRI (98 CRI) Nichia 21A LED. The new light however uses a far inferior LED in my opinion, as it’s low CRI and very cool white. It’s user interface is less useful for a light this size, with a double click going to strobe instead of turbo. This is a small enough light your not going to use it to blind someone and practically I don’t know anyone that actually uses strobe for signaling. 

 

The new light is smaller, has a better pocket clip, and a nice TIR reflector, while not giving up any battery capacity. It’s still plagued by the high parasitic drain though that the older model had. So I have mixed feelings on the new EDC C2, it’s not bad but I don’t think the sum of the parts are an improvement for me over the outgoing model, mainly due to the LED being used here. However I am a tint snob and prefer warmer tinted lights to cooler tint lights and that’s a personal preference and your opinion may vary. 

Pick up the Folomov EDC C2 (2022 Version) at  Amazon: https://amzn.to/36y3fdP 

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Olight I3T Plus & Obuddy Review (Black Friday Deals Start Tonight)

Today I have 2 reviews to show you of some of the new Olight products for the month of November, and tell you about this month’s flash sale. First I have the i3T Plus, a new Penlight from Olight, then the Obuddy, an accessory for your Obulb, the next video in a few days will be of the Parrot, a new knife design from Olight. 

 

I will remind you now the flash sale starts November 24th at 8pm EST so you can shop before Thanksgiving and Black Friday. My link which helps support the channel will be in the description below if you’re interested. Everything I am looking at here and several other things like the new Baldr Pro R, Javelot Pro 2 and others are on sale, at the best prices, along with extras, new customer bonuses etc. Make sure you do log in to your account to get a free i1R pro and take part in the daily drawings. 

 

If I have any other black Friday and Cyber Monday sales from various flashlight brands I will post them on Social media and on my YouTube page too, so make sure you give all of that a follow. 

 

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Pickup the I3T Plus, OBuddy and all the other models at https://bit.ly/OlightLQ the flash sale starts Nov 24th at 8pm EST. 

 

10% OFF Coupon code: LQ10 Coupon Code will work during sales on non-sale listings only.

 

I3T Plus

Olight has listened to it’s fans and has made a pen light! It’s based of the i3T and called the i3T Plus. It uses 2 AAA batteries in series and sees a bump in output. For the flash sale it’s available in black which I have here and blue.

 

Watch this review on YouTube: 

Packaging & Accessories

Since I know some of you guys want to see the packaging I will insert some photos, it’s pretty what you expect from the i3T/i5T families of lights. The light does ship with 2x Alkaline AAA batteries. Long timer viewers will know my opinion about these, just toss them in your remotes and throw in some rechargeables NIMH so you don’t ever have to deal with leaking cells.

 

Construction & Retention

The light is made from aluminum and nicely anodized. It comes in at 2.19oz with batteries so pretty light but heavier than some of the competition, and it’s 5.24 inches long. I will throw in a few photos compared with other pen lights I have like the Thrunite Ti4, Lumintop IYP365, and Royvon Aurora A33 I reviewed earlier in the year. You can see length wise it sits in the middle here. 

As far as physical features it’s basically an i3T with a longer battery tube, same nicely textured raised tail switch, same deep spiral in the body, same plastic optic and lens. It’s solid feeling in the hand and pocket. The clip here is the same as the i3T, and not captured. It’s reasonably deep carry and works well as an EDC in a front pants pocket or shirt pocket. 

 

LED & Beam & Runtime

No specific LED is mentioned here, it’s a cool white, but more neutral, and I don’t have any green tint like I do with my copper and aluminum i3T’s. It has a plastic TIR type optic here, same as the i3T. The candela is listed as 1240, and it is ipx8 water rated. 

I know it’s popular to put 10440 batteries into the i3T. I didn’t do that here, because I am concerned running the LED at around 8.4V vs the designed 3V will blow cause problems with the LED or Driver circuit and I don’t want to ruin my light. The light is designed to run on Alkaline, NiMH rechargeables and Lithium Iron batteries.

 

Runtimes here are pretty substantial. On high it runs for 1 minute at 250 lumens before stepping down to 100 lumens for 8 hours. At the end it will flash on and off slowly to let you know the batteries are low. In low mode it will run at 15 lumens for 28 hours. I ran my tests off 2 Amazon Basics NiMH cells and got similar numbers. One thing that’s a bit disappointing is that timed step down of the 250 lumens. Heat isn’t an issue, I wish it was longer. 

 

UI

UI here is the same as the smaller i3T, with 2 modes, allowing for a half press or full press to switch between them. The light starts out in low always, and there is a nice slow ramp up when going to high and then stepping down. When the light is running out of the power it will flash to let you know power levels are getting low. 

 

Conclusion

If you like the i3T but want more runtime this is your light, it’s basically just a stretch i3T. Most everything else here is the same. This is a good answer to those that have been asking for a Penlight from Olight, but it’s not exactly creative in terms of design, emitters, or power source. I am sure it will be popular though and I have no issues with it but I do have a wishlist for future versions. 

 

Personally I would have liked them to go more the route of  the Royvon Aurora A33 with liion battery and emitter choices (Neutral or warm tints please) but maybe we can save that for an i4T R or something like that. It would be great to see a high CRI option here too, since any hit in output is ok since this is  a close range light and good color rendering is really useful in many pen light situations. 

 

This one will be 25% off during the black Friday flash sale and available in black and blue colors. It’s also part of a few different bundles that you can see on OlightStore.com

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OBuddy

I think the OBuddy might be my favorite non flashlight thing Olight has come out. It’s an accessory to any of the  3 generations of OBulb. The OBuddy is a soft silicone white and blue spaceman model, and the OBulb goes where his head is. I think it looks kind of like the Reddit spaceman logo if you know what that’s like. 

The OBulb magnetically drops into place for his head, and that’s because on the back where his backpack is, it is designed to connect your MCC charger to charge up your OBulb. If you have the new OBulb MCS then you can use this to plug in your light and activate the motion sensor. I am demoing it with the sapphire blue OBulb MC, which has RGB LED’s inside to to do multicolor, and it comes with googly eyes in the package too which is a great addition to give your spaceman so me character. The OBuddy also works with other lights like the Baton 3 if you wanted. 

If you have kids, especially kids who love the OBulb like many do, this one is a no brainer to pick up during the flash sale, it’s only $7.96. I plan to pick up another for a stocking stuffer for sure. Even if you don’t have kids I could see a lot of people putting this on a shelf, desk or even car dashboard. It’s so simple but it’s a hit for me, I really like it. For me this might be the best item of this flash sale, it’s creative and was totally unexpected. I could totally see Olight brining out some special editions in different colors, and maybe we will get a larger version with a internal battery to give the OBulb some extra life. 

———————————–

 

My next video in a few days will be of the Olight Parrot, a new knife design from Olight and Kizer.

Don’t forget all the many models of lights available for sale during this flash sale which starts November 24th at 8pm EST. There is the Baton 3 4 seasons editions with special materials, designs and colors, Warrior x 3 in OD Green, Baldr Pro R, the new Javelot Pro 2, The Parrot and Begal knives, as well as tons of bundle deals with many existing models, in new colors too. Links to the sale will be in the description below, and if your watching this after the flash sale don’t forget my code LQ10 will save you 10% off any regularly priced item. 

 

Pickup the I3T Plus, OBuddy and all the other models at https://bit.ly/OlightLQ the flash sale starts Nov 24th at 8pm EST. 

 

10% OFF Coupon code: LQ10 Coupon Code will work during sales on non-sale listings only.

 

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Olight Drever Review (Olight’s First Knife Design, N690, Made by Kizer, 20% Off Coupon)

So Olight made a knife, well they released a knife, and no it doesn’t contain a flashlight inside. You might have seen I made a post about this here on my Youtube community and Facebook channel page when it was announced. I have had one now for about a week and have been carrying it pretty much exclusively so here are my quick thoughts. Thanks to Olight for sending this to me to share with you. 

 

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Save 20% on the Olight Drever by using the code LQ20 at checkout at https://bit.ly/OlightLQ 

Background Info

A few things you should know, Olight didn’t actually design or manufacture this knife, it’s a collaboration with Kizer knives, a well known Chinese knife manufacturer, and it was designed by Yue Don a Kizer knife designer. This should help ease the concerns of some of the Olight faithful on Facebook who were concerned that Olight should stick to making flashlights, etc.

 

Full disclosure I know Yue, and he has provided me a bit of inside info to share. Kizer is the only folding knife manufacturer in China to have ISO14001 (Environmental Standard), ISO9000 (Quality Standard) certified. The coatings used on the Drever are FDA certified so it’s safe to use with food. 

 

Packaging & Accessories

Olight does packaging well, and the knife is no different. You have a nice true to size color photo of the light on the front slip cover and a full set of details on the back. Inside you a nice nylon and velcro slip with Oknife embroidered on it and felt inside. Inside you have a sleeve for the copper colored challenge coin. It has heft to it, but I don’t think it’s actual copper. Olight seems to be getting into the challenge coin with a few models recently. The other accessories include a gray microfiber cloth and the manual with some care directions. 

 

Stats & Versions & Size Comparison

The knife itself weights 3.42oz, thanks to skeletonized scales, and comes in at 4.5” in length with a 3.49” blade, so just under my city/states legal limit. I measure it as 0.52” thick so not the thinnest knife in the world but I haven’t had an issue with the smoother contoured G10 scales in my pocket or hand. So it’s a large knife blade wise, but not too bad in the pocket.

The knife is using Bohler’s N690 with a full flat grind, which is a new steel for me, I have read up on it online and for a conventionally produced steel (Not powered metallurgy) people seem to like it. It will take a very fine edge, and hold it reasonably well, some suggest slightly better then 154CM or VG10, while being very stainless, so it should make a decent food prep steel. 

Out of the box it came pretty sharp, and I have no need to sharpen it currently, but I am excited to sharpen and put a mirror edge on it with my TS Prof Kadet sharpening system. For the price range here, I think it’s a solid choice and should be easy to sharpen. It’s a liner lock, made of 3CR13 Stainless with the scales being G10. 

There are two versions, available currently, a Blackwash blade, with blue pivot and clip, or the limited edition blue scales, pivot, clip and stonewashed satin blade that I have here. Each knife is serialized on the blade on the show side. 

Here are a few photos of how it compares to other knives in this price range/size that I have. 

 

How it feels in my hands and pocket

Ergonomically I like how it fits in my medium sized hands when open and closed. I have no obvious hotspots when gripped firmly. When open you can choke up easily with the large finger choil on the blade, or hold entirely on the handle. I could see if you had large hands, it might be a little small.

 

In my pocket 

As far as how it carries, I really like they went with a deep carry clip, it’s right side, tip up carry only on this model. The flipper tab hasn’t grabbed my hand or other stuff in my pocket. I wouldn’t mind a bit more tension on the clip or texture on the G10 to make it just slightly more secure in my pocket. 

Action

The knife is running on bearings, and has 2 main deployment methods, you have the short flipper tab with jimping on the tab or thumb studs on both sides. I found the initial detent to be very positive, and it taking a decent amount of force to get going with the flipper, that said it’s still easy to open, just more force than normal. Hopefully this will break in more. 

I am able to deploy the thumb studs easily. Thumb studs are not my favorite way to deploy most knives but it works here very well. It floats nicely  when opening, and after some use is easily drops shut without any wrist action, hard to film with the angle I have here. Centering when closed is spot on, and there is no blade play when open. I found the lockbar easy to get to with the G10 contouring as well as the texture on the lock bar. 

Conclusion

I think Olight was smart here to partner with Kizer to produce and design a really nice knife from day 1. This allows Olight to keep up their reputation for making quality products and designs. The experience with production and design here are obvious in my opinion. As competitive as the knife world is, especially at this price point, it was a good business decision. Quality is quite good, centering was spot on and the knife is solid when deployed. Hopefully it’s a partnership that will continue and we see other designs in the future. 

 

I won’t lie, I like this knife, this price range has a lot of competition but this is a serious contender. For me it fits well in the hand and pocket, the full flat ground sheepsfoot blade, performs well too. This should be a blade shape that’s easy for anyone to sharpen on any system or stone too. 

I don’t have much to say here in terms of negatives for the MSRP price of $69.95 with a sale price of $52.46. The detent is pretty strong when using the flipper tab. The pocket clip is tip up, right hand carry only, which some people may not like. The blue scales make for a lot of blue on the knife, and I wish they were a bit darker in color. 

 

The good news is the Black Drever is in stock currently. Hopefully the success here means we will get some special edition colors (Orange scales?), and maybe other knife designs in the future.

 

If you do decide to pick one up make sure you use my code LQ20 to save 20% off the regular price. That code is good anytime on regularly priced flashlights and accessories too. https://bit.ly/OlightLQ

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Lumintop Gift G1 Review (A flashlight made from TurboGlow?)

What would happen if you took an AA Lumintop Tool and made the body out of TurboGlow instead of metal? Well that’s what we basically have here with the Lumintop Gift-G1 a flashlight where most of the light is made out of TurboGlow and copper. It’s available in a number of colors and has both Cree and Nichia emitter options too. Thanks to Lumintop for sending this to me to review. It’s a fun light so let’s take a closer look.

 

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Get 20% off the Gift G2 by using the coupon code 20G1GiftOFF at https://www.lumintoponline.com/lumintop-gift-g1-turbo-glow-600-lumens-edc-tactical-flashlight-p3430046.html

 

Packaging & Accessories

The Gift-G1 comes in a small cardboard box with minimal information on it, on the back you have the emitter chosen and the body color of the light. Inside accessories include the light itself, yellow lanyard, 2 spare orings. A glow ring and 14500 battery are both optional. No pocket clip is included with the light, more on that in a minute. 

Construction

The Gift-G1 is made from TuboGlow with an internal aluminum sleeve for electrical conductivity, and at the head, the pill is made from raw copper. TurboGlow if you don’t know is the premium solid glow in the dark material. It has a much longer glow life then normal glow in the dark material. While there are several color choices available, especially with the Gift-G1 such as Lava, Red, Rainbow, Pink, Purple, Blue, and Green, I went with green because it’s the brightest color that lasts the longest. 

 

The tail cap has a semi translucent black button inside and it has RGB LED’s underneath. These LED’s come on when you have a liion battery (14500) in the light, so you get a neat effect on the sides of the LED’s slowly fading between Red, Blue, and Green. 

Internally the parts are the same as the AA Tool, and interchangeable if you have both lights. There is an aluminum tube under the TurboGlow for conductivity. At the head of the light there is a exposed raw copper pill with light engraving of the Lumintop name, and model number. It’s a nice functional heat emitter too.

 

Lastly at the front the front bezel is TurboGlow and easily unscrews to expose the TIR style optic. This exposes the MCPCB. This makes the light very easily modded if you wanted to do an emitter swap. 

Size & Weight

I measured the length at 88mm, minimum width on the body at 19.21mm, diameter at the head at 21mm. Diameter of the glow ring is 30mm. Weight with the light, 800mAh Keeppower 14500, and Reylight Lan/Pineapple clip is 70g. The light is IP68 rated. 

 

Retention

The Gift-G1 comes with a yellow lanyard as the only factory supplied retention option, that can be attached via an optional anti roll ring/cigar grip ring. This works if that’s how you want to carry the light like this, but for me if I am going to EDC a light I need a pocket clip, so I went through my lights to see what I had that might work, and I found that the clip from my Reylight Lan/Pineapples V3+ work decently well here, You basically get the entire cap section sticking up out of your pocket (20.5mm) which is a bit much for me, especially when running a 14500 and having the tail cap light up but it’s still better than no pocket clip. 

I should note, with a clip like I had, I had more then one person stop me and said the light in my pocket was on when in fact it was just the tail cap LED’s or TurboGlow glowing. So it did draw some attention to itself.

 

LED & Beam Shots

The Gift G1 here is available with a Cree XP-G3 LED in cool white, or a Nichia 219C LED in Neutral white which is what I choose. It can be powered off of a AA or 14500 battery. I will include a chat here showing the claimed outputs for each emitter and battery combination. 

I found the beam pattern to be nice for EDC, It’s got a medium large hot center with a large dim spill, good for general shorter range and medium range tasks good for maybe 200ft max. One quick note about TurboGlow is it really lasts a lot longer than your traditional GITD material. With this light when you use it, you get light leakage around the front of the light so it continuously charges it. It makes for a lot of fun, kids love it. I found no visible PWM here to the eye or camera. 

 

Heat & Runtime

As mentioned before the light will run from 2 different power sources, either a AA 1.5v battery or a 14500 3.7V battery. You get the best performance and tail cap LED’s only if you run with the Liion 14500 but I did test both battery types.

 

With the 14500 the light stepped down from 100% relative output after 2 minutes and then ran at 55% relative output and declined in a slow manner. To me the curve looks unregulated. Total runtime was 1:10:00 but after this the light staid on in it’s firefly mode for about 2.5 additional hours. Maximum heat I saw was 48C at the 20 minute mark. The exposed copper does a nice job here with heat dissipation and adds some style points too. The light does have LVP. 

I did my AA test with a Amazon Basics High Capacity NiMH battery. These have proven to be good performance in the past, and here we saw a very flat output curve maintaining 98% relative output for 2:12 minutes. Heat here was minimal and I saw the peak being 36C at the end of the runtime. 

 

UI

The UI here is simple, it’s a 4 mode light, starting at the lowest mode. Once on, you can half press the mechanical button to go up in modes. There is a strobe mode, to access that, once the light is on, click give it a half press  6 times to get to strobe. 

 

There is memory when the light is off for 3 seconds this will memorize the setting and the light will come back on to that desired setting. That said my light has a firmware bug, and this only works with a 1.5v battery, if I use the 14500 Liion, memory mode doens’t work. Lumintop confirmed that they are aware and plan to fix it on the next batch of lights.

 

Pro’s

  • Fun
  • Choice of Body colors and Emitter options
  • Good beam profile for EDC

 

Con’s

  • No clip is included, but there are options on the market that fit.
  • The glow ring isn’t included and without it or a clip it leaves a gap on the body of the light.
  • Memory mode firmware bug.

 

Conclusion

The fun with the Gift-G1 is the TurboGlow body, it’s availability in several colors, and the LED’s in the tail cap that change color when using a 14500 battery. Inside it’s basically a Lumintop Tool which is a good EDC style light. For me the let down was no pocket clip, a must on a light this size if I am going to EDC it but luckily the clip from my Reylight Pineapple fit to make it more usable on a daily basis for me. 

I think this would make a great gift, a nice addition to a flasaholics collection since there are very few lights made from so much TurboGlow or a gift for a child (kind of expensive) to get a kid into the hobby if you like. 

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Olight Freyr Review (1750 Lumens + RGB LEDs, 21700)

Today I have a newer light from Olight, the Freyr, a do it all light with RGB LED’s from Olight. It comes with a traffic wand diffuser to help utilize that RGB LED feature. Thanks to Skyben for sending this to me, I will have a link to where you can pick it up from them in the description below. Now let’s get into the review.

 

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Packaging & Accessories

No surprises here, Olight again has one of best high quality packaging jobs in the production flashlight world. Here you have a nice magnetic closure box, with a detailed picture and stats on the back as well. 

 

Accessories include the Freyr, Customized Olight 21700 battery, MCC3A (Red inside) charger, Dual Direction pocket clip, Traffic cone, Belt Holster, and manual.

 

Construction

The Freyr take the rear tail cap and body tube from the Olight M2R Pro, and sticks a new larger head to allow for RGB LED’s and proximity sensor. The tail cap is magnetic with the tri-lug design and the tactical 2 stage button. This also servers as your attachment point for the MCC charger. The body features the rectangular shaped pyramids for a good amount of aggressive texture. It feels good in the bare hand or with gloves. The clip will attach at either end if you wish, although with the larger diameter head I am not sure you will want to use the clip much here.

The head is glued to the body tube here, and features the typical Olight electronic switch. It has a raised point in the center with a power level indicator in the middle. It has some very attractive twisted milling for style and heat dissipation too. There is a ring milled in to lock in the diffuser too which is nice. The blue anodized bezel is crenulated allowing light to leak out the front if on it’s face and turned on. The front optic/lens is one piece and plastic. More on the proxy sensor up front here later on. 

 

Retention

The light comes with a holster thats more rigid then what you typically see with most flashlights. It’s designed so  that the silicone diffuser/traffic wand sits point down in the holster and then the light inside it. If the light is put in the holster without the diffuser then it rattles and is not secure. The holster itself has a belt loop and dring behind. 

 

Size and Weight

I measured the length at 136.5mm, minimum diameter 26.72mm. Maximum diameter at 40.30mm. Weight of the light, and battery is 190.8g, and the traffic cone adds another 34.9g and 124mm in length. 

 

LED & Beam

Olight doesn’t specify exactly which LED is in this light, only that it’s 6500k. My guess by looking at it, that it’s a SST-40. Mine has a bit of green tinge on the lower outputs which isn’t uncommon. The white beam profile is a bit compromised by the 3 color emitters on the outside edge and the proximity sensor. The result for the white beam is a spill that’s more square then round. It’s noticeable at distances closer then 20ft. 

 

The RGB LED’s also produce beam profiles that are far from round, the bezel of the light shows in the beams as a hard cut off edge. I found this a bit annoying as it doesn’t point light where you expect it to, and that point of impact changes as you switch color. This is common with all lights that put colored LED’s around the edges. With the traffic cone diffuser installed you don’t notice it. In it’s default configuration the proximity sensor will trigger with the traffic wand installed in any of the white modes. Make sure to read my UI section for how to disable it since it’s pretty aggressive.

Official outputs for the white modes are 1750, 850, 300, 5  lumens. Red is rated for 30 lumens, Green for 60 lumens, 25 lumens for blue. In my opinion red is quite bright, it works great for the traffic wand but is too bright to preserve your night vision on it’s own. 

Heat & Runtime

I did my white runtime tests with the proximity sensor disabled. Turbo lasted for 2:30 seconds and the step down is to about 58% relative output. It maintains this fairly evenly for 2 hours before stepping down a few more times for a total output of 2:30:00. Max heat I saw during this was 50C and the light does appear to have active thermal regulation. I also tested the outputs of the 3 colored LED’s Blue ran for 12:06:00, Green for 13:35:00, and Red for an impressive 20:02:00. 

 

UI 

UI here is similar to other Olights but different with the addition of the RGB element of this light and the proximity sensor. First, the proximity sensor can be disabled via software, which I think you will want to do ASAP if you get this light.  If the light is on, click the front button 15 times quickly until the light shuts off. Don’t worry you can basically click away till it shuts off. This will disable the proxy sensor until you remove the battery. It’s just too active to use the light in it’s highest output.

You have the 2 stage tail switch from the M2R Pro, and other tactical Olights in this form factor. Quick press either in full or half will leave the light on, where as a long press in either mode will lock the light on in momentary. While the pressures switch from Other models of Olight fit and work here, this isn’t rated to mount on a weapon.

The front switch is used for the RGB modes and moonlight in for white. It has memory mode, if you long press from off you get moonlight mode, a quick press gives you the RGB options and if used recently it will start in the last color mode you used, if not it starts in red. Once on it will cycle through Red, Green, Blue stop on the one you want and begin using the light. 

 

Recharging

Recharging is other Olights with the MCC3A charging system, it’s very simple just plug the USB end into a 2A power source, and the other end will magnetically attach to the light to charge the 5000mAh 21700 customized Olight battery. Total charge time was 4:75:00. My graph isn’t complete due to the drops to zero that it does so I time these manually too. Max charge rate is 1.85A. 

 

Pro’s

  • I like the twist milling on the back of the head.
  • For me it’s a good size in the hand
  • Easy UI but a little different from Olights typical
  • You can disable the Proxy sensor via Software.

 

Con’s

  • RGB compromises the beam profile a bit
  • Proxy sensor is aggressive if left on.
  • No glass lens on top of the plastic
  • You must use the traffic cone in the holster if you want a secure fit.

 

Conclusion

The Olight Freyr was advertised as a do it all light, but I am not sure I agree. The RGB LED’s in the reflector kind of spoils the white beam’s profile for short range work, and it really compromises the colored outputs. You also don’t have many white modes here. For me it’s a bit of a compromised light in those regrades. While the traffic cone works well here, it’s an expensive light to get just for traffic use. If you were in law enforcement and needed that traffic cone, or a bright white light that  you didn’t need at lower powers this might fit that bill. 

 

But for general use, hunting/camping there are better options for a general purpose light. Red here is too bright to preserve night vision, green and blue could be useful for blood tracking though. White is cool white, not really surprising but overall the package is a little hard for me to recommend fully except for special use applications. That said I do like the look especially the milling on the head and I am thankful that proximity sensor can be disabled, and that is remembered as long as you leave the battery in the light.