Tag: flashlight reviews

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Wurkkos FC13 Review (2000 Lumens, $32, Anduril 2, USB-C)

Today I am taking a quick look at the Wurkkos FC13 a 18650 light running an SFT40 LED and Anduril 2 firmware. It features a colored bezel and RGB button on the side as well as onboard USB-C charging. Thanks to Wurkkos for sending this to me to look at and review.

 

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Get the Wurkkos FC13 at Amazon at https://amzn.to/3zloXwQ

Use code 6ZXGKK9W to save 20% off either the SFT40 or XHP50 version. Valid until April 10 2023

 

Packaging & Accessories

Much like Sofirn, Wurkkos has recently gone through a packaging quality upgrade. Now you have a nice white magnetic fold-out box with a full-color photo of the light on the front, a description and spec chart on the back and the specs of the exact model you ordered on the end cap.  Inside you have an Olight-style yellow card with first-time startup instructions telling you to remove the insulator inside the battery compartment. 

Accessories that are included are the light itself, a 3000mAh button top 18650 (Standard), USB-A to C charging cable, Pocket clip, Lanyard, bag of extra orings, and a manual. 

 

Construction

A few notes on construction, the light is made from aluminum and hard anodized in black. At the current time that’s the only color that’s being offered. The light comes into 3 pieces, the tail is flat and nonmagnetic. The tail cap has minimal milling, the clip is designed to attach at one point, and the body tube has some milling for style and weight reduction over anything else. Threads are anodized, square cut and nicely greased. 

The head features a large relief cut for the silicone button that stands slightly proud. The button is smooth in texture and has areas where it’s thinner to allow the LED underneath to shine through and display it’s many colors. The USB port cover stays out of the way. The bezel is flat, and there is an orange aluminum accent piece holding the glass lens and a heavy orange peel reflector in place. 

 

UI

The light is running Anduril 2 which I won’t go into depth about as I have covered it in the past and it’s pretty complicated. If you don’t know the firmware you will want the diagram to help you learn. It does have ramping UI by default or you can switch it into a 7 step stepped UI. 

The only thing I can say is I have had quite a bit of difficulty getting the standby LED color to change, but I can replicate what that should look like by locking out the light and showing you what that looks like. 

For more info and the firmware diagram check out https://ivanthinking.net/thoughts/anduril2-manual/

 

Retention

The pocket clip appears to be nearly the same model as what was on the TS21, with the only difference being mainly where the hole is for a lanyard attachment. On the FC13, I would call this a good clip, it’s fairly deep carry, dual direction and didn’t hang up on my jeans pocket in any way. I do recommend you use mechanical lockout though so there are no accidents. You can attach a lanyard on the flat nonmagnetic tail cap or on the clip itself. 

 

Size & Weight

I measured the length at 114mm, the minimum diameter on the body at 22mm, and the maximum diameter at the head at 27mm. Weight with the clip and battery came in at 121.9g or 4.3oz. When I compare it to a few other Wurkkos lights I have the FC13 is right in the middle length-wise between the TS21, and the FC11. The head is more on the size of the TS21 though. 

 

LED & Beam

The FC13 is available with Two LED currently, a Cree XHP50.2 at 5000k and a SFT40 at 6000k which is what I have. On my Opple meter I measured the tint on a medium output power at 5783k, and 66CRI. Tint was just ever so slightly green very hard to notice in my eyes. There is PWM here as it’s an Anduril 2 light. The beam here is a small hotspot with minimal spill. This is what we would expect from the flat-top SFT40 LED in my example.

I measured the parasitic drain when the LED is on in high mode at 5.50mA, (Milliamps) and on low the button pulled 156uA (microAmps) and with the button off 46.2uA (Microamps). So as cool as the RGB button LED is, on it’s brightest mode it will drain the light in less than a month, so I would recommend turning it to low or off (or mechanical lockout by unscrewing the head or tail a ¼ turn). 

 

Outputs

Since the light runs Anduril 2, you don’t have normal stepped modes like most other lights have, instead you have ramping and 7 different stepped modes plus Turbo, so for output testing, I only tested a few. For the SFT40 version of the light which I have on my Texas Ace Lumen tube, I came up with 1640 Lumens on Turbo and 640 on what I will call high. On it’s lowest output it’s sub lumen.

 

Heat & Runtime

Turbo on my light ran for about 3 minutes before stabilizing with a few steps to get there from the nearly 1800 peak starting lumens. During this time heat peaked at about 46C on an uncalibrated light at the 90 second mark. With the longer runtime graph you can see as heat dissipates the light does increase in brightness too. Total effective runtime is around 3 hours. With a runtime comparison of Turbo with lower modes we can see running at about half power gives far greater runtime lengths out to 13 hours or so. 

 

Recharging

The light features onboard USB-C recharging. I found the port to be recessed a little deeper and access to be slightly tighter than average. The result was the light was pickier about the cable being used to charge it. Charging from LVP at 2.834v to Full at 4.150v came in at 2:11:00 with max charging speed being 1.2A. It’s a very flat charging curve that tapers down at the end. The LED in default mode starts orange and blinks when charging and goes solid when charged but remains orange. You can use the light when it’s charging, but you will only be able to use it in it’s lower modes.

The light also works as a powerbank for your USB-C Devices. I didn’t test any runtimes on this other than to verify it worked with my Samsung S22 Ultra smartphone. 

 

Conclusion

I wouldn’t call the Wurkkos FC13 a successor to the well respected and often recommended FC11 for a few reasons. While the price is very favorable, and the performance is good, the Anduril 2 UI isn’t as easy to use for a lot of people as the FC11’s more standard UI. What I would say the FC13 is, is a good choice for enthusiasts who want Anduril 2, and more throw than the FC11 has in situations where a high CRI isn’t important. The RGB LED in the button is fun, despite being a bit difficult to change in my example. Overall a good light for the right application, but maybe not quite a universal across the board recommendation like the FC11.

Get the Wurkkos FC13 at Amazon at https://amzn.to/3zloXwQ

Use code 6ZXGKK9W to save 20% off either the SFT40 or XHP50 version. Valid until April 10 2023

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Wowtac W1 Review ($26, 562 Lumen, 16340, EDC Budget Flashlight)

Wowtac has released a new small form factor EDC style light with the W1. It features a 16340 battery, onboard micro USB charging, deep carry pocket clip and tail magnet all for a very affordable price. Thanks to WowTac for sending this to me to review. 

 

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Packaging & Accessories

Packaging for the W1 is much like other Wowtac models, with a brown cardboard box with minimal information. The box does suggest there may be a neutral tint version of this light eventually but it also might just be production flexibility. The included accessories is a Wowtac branded 650mAh 16340 battery, deep carry pocket clip, extra o’ring and recharging port cover, and microUSB cable as well as the manual. 

 

Construction

Construction of the W1 is pretty standard. The tail is magnetic and flat so the light tail stands well. It’s threaded for a lanyard (not included), and the 2 way deep carry pocket clip that snaps in place but can rotate. The body of the light is heavily diamond knurled. It feels nice in the hand for a small light. 

Inside the threads are square cut and anodized, the spring is relatively long in the tail cap. Inside the head there is a solid post instead of a spring. The diameter of the head is a 3.2mm larger in diameter then the body and 6 sided. It features an electronic button that requires a solid click with LED’s underneath to indicate charge status. On the back is the micro USB port and silicone cover that stays out of the way when in use. 

 

The front bezel is a bit thick and silver colored, it’s nearly flat with the glass lens with AR coatings. The optic underneath is wide and shallow with a light orange peel. The LED is nicely centered but seems small for the reflector.

Sizes, Weight, & Competition

I measured the Wowtac W1 at 68mm in length, 20mm in diameter at the body, and 24mm on the head. Weight with the battery and clip was 56.3g. The light is rated for IPX8 for 1.5 meters, so it will easily survive the bucket test here.

Comparing to Wowtac W1 to other similar lights, the two that are most similar are the Olight S1 mini Baton and Thrunite T1. The W1 look a lot like the T1 in design, with the body being knurled instead of milled and being overall smaller due to the different battery sizes in use. The Olight S1 Mini Baton uses the same sized battery as the W1 and is smaller overall. I will compare the beams between the two in my night shots. I do like that the W1 is head down for carry vs Olight’s head up design. 

Retention

The pocket clip is a push on style dual direction clip. It mounts only at the tail. It’s designed primarily for head down carry and does a nice job of being deep carry. However since the size of the head is larger I found myself needing to pull the pocket clip out a little to attach it to my jeans pocket easily.  Overall good but it takes an extra step to clip on to the pocket. 

LED & Beams Shots

The W1 features a Cree XP-G2 in cool white, while neutral white is mentioned on the package they are not available for purchase at the time of this review. The beam here is a little different. It has a small hot center, that throws decently well for a light this small. Then it has a wide, fairly weak spill. On lights this size I do generally enjoy a TIR style optic for EDC use because it does a good job of a blend of beam characteristics. There is Cree rainbow with this light in the beam with the center being warmer with some green tint and the outer spill being cooler.

There is some PWM in this light, its fairly minor and not noticeable to me by eye or by camera but I can see it via the scope. 

Wowtac lists the output specs of the W1 as the following.

  • Firefly 0.5 Lumens
  • Low 12 Lumens
  • Medium 60 Lumens
  • High 197 Lumens 
  • Turbo 562 Lumens with step down to 215 lumens after 1 min.

Heat and Runtime

Heat is well controlled on this light, after 1 minute I measured temperatures at 87F, at 5 minutes 95F, and at 10 minutes 98F. 

 

Runtime 

No big surprises were found in the runtime of this light. Turbo stepdown is large and occurs after 1 minute. From there the output fell as the battery depleted, We got another major step down at the 70 minute mark where the light faded into it’s lowest output of around 0.5 lumens till low voltage protection kicked in (2.88V) at 170 total minutes. Of this total runtime I would say about 70 minutes of that is useable light, not too bad for a 650mah 16340 sized battery. 

UI

The UI here is the same as many other Wowtac and Thrunite lights which is a good thing. When the light is off firefly mode can be accessed by long pressing on the power button. From off a single quick tap will turn the light on in the last mode it was in (not turbo or firefly). To change modes when the light is on long pressing will cycle through the modes in an increasing order, Low, Medium, High. To get to turbo, double click on the button from any mode. Triple click from any mode to get strobe. 

 

Recharging

Recharging the light is accomplished via the built in microUSB port on the head of the light. When charging the main button turns red, and then blue when charged. Charging from LVP at 2.88V to full at 4.142V took 1 hour and 50 minutes and the maximum charging speed I saw was 0.48A which is safe for this size of battery. 

Conclusion

The Wowtac W1 is another good budget light from Wowtac, especially if you’re interested in a new small EDC light. At the price point of around $25 for a complete kit, the W1 is a good value and pretty easy to recommend to people. I do wish they had a neutral white option, that and USB-C would set this light apart from the competition.

 

The beam pattern here isn’t my favorite with it being almost more of a thrower then a small area flood that is typically useful in EDC, at lower outputs the spill isn’t that useful. The light carries in the pocket pretty well, and also clips onto a hat easily for a quick access headlamp if needed. I wish the clip was slightly longer so it rested on the body and made getting it into the pocket just a little easier. All this said this is a high value light for the price and a nice inexpensive place to start if you want to start EDCing a flashlight in your pants pockets on a daily basis. 

 

Pickup the Wowtac W1 on Amazon at https://amzn.to/2UUwlMq

View the full Image gallery at https://imgur.com/a/JsOmc88

 

Wowtac is also looking for 100 volunteers to try the W1 flashlight on Facebook @wowtacflashlights and share their feelings and help WOWTAC improve. (follow us on Facebook and join our group, contact to get a free W1) There are also weekly flashlight GAW on WOWTAC Facebook page.