As I creep up on the big 50k subscriber mark, which in reality means nothing to most everyone
everywhere, I figured I’d put on the brakes a bit and review some flashlights.
Today’s video film is going to be for the Budget Light Forum/ The Light Forum designed
and Lumintop mass produced FW series.
What that means is that flashlight manufacturers by themselves can’t design a decent light
if their life depended on it… so some people got together, mostly a guy named Fritz, and
a women legally named Toykeeper collaborate on features and specs, and tell Lumintop what
makes a good flashlight.
If that sounds backwards it kind of is.
The models we are looking at specifically here are kind of all variants on the same
design.
They are small every day carry sized lights with electronic tailcap switches that have
a common operation, and a pocket clip.
You can choose many variations of tints, from warm to neutral to cool white, materials the
lights are made from, and pick a single or triple LED emitters.
The three lights reviewed are the standard aluminum FW3A which I bought in a warm emitter
early this year, then the bead blasted raw copper neutral white tinted FW3C variant released
this summer, and the single emitter cool white tinted FW1A.
The copper and FW1A were provided by Neal at Neals Gadgets for review.
The copper when new has a nice bead blasted texture, that slowly takes on the charm of
old pennies.
And one more time a big thanks to Neal for his patience because I’ve had these for
months now.
However I can call it long term testing instead of procrastination, and it makes it all seem
better.
If you don’t know shit about tint buying.
Know that a tint is described in temperatures Kelvin.
The warmer or the tint the lower the K number.
The cooler the Higher the K.
Now to confuse you, here are these other blank stare inducing numbers, which refers to the
emitter … the lower the number here the cooler.
The higher the number the warmer or lower the Kelvin.
1 is cool, 3 is neutral, 7 is the warmest.
And talking about either at parties or gatherings will guarantee you won’t get invited again
in the future.
Output levels… we’ll make this section easy for all three lights.
I have them all set to the smooth ramping, meaning they don’t use the individual levels.
Emitter options affect output levels.
On moon my original FW3A with the warm emitter has the lowest moonlight mode.
Then the smooth ramp up to high, gives you the following three levels.
And on turbo the obvious winner is the copper triple.
These are my tested figures.
They’re estimates only, I’m stupid, sloppy with testing methods, and not good at math,
so please treat them appropriately.
Ok user interface or as regular viewers know it- a reminder to use hand lotion.
First put in the battery, the positive goes toward the lens like normal except lumintop
recommends you unscrew the head instead of the tailcap.
The UI here programmed by Toykeeper is one of the most advanced in a light… however
she has made the basic operation simple.
So you can loan it to idiots.
I will not go into all the details, but I will cover the basics- how it comes out of
the box, etc, furthermore, and ergo to a fortnight.
It has a simple dimming scale.
To get to the lowest output from off the shortcut is press and hold.
Release when it gets to the brightness you want, or appropriate for the crime you’re
committing.
Press and it goes up the brightness, release whenever you want.
a quick release and press goes the opposite way.
A double click while on gets you to turbo.
From off if you want Turbo, turn it on then double click.
Or from off a double click gets you to high and double click to turbo.
15 clicks activates invisibility.
Since these lights have an electronic switch, that on some models is touchy… the lockout
is important.
Click 4 times from off and it locks out, that means it only has a low momentary on and won’t
burn a hole in your tactical purse.
Click 4 times to get back to regular operation.
Also something I’ve found is if the tail or head isn’t fully cranked down sometimes
the LEDs will rapidly flicker- and you think it’s broken but it aint.
A few other quick shortcuts.
When on 3 clicks gets you to stepped operation or smooth ramping.
I will not show you how to do any further programming.
However it has blinking modes that mimic candlelight.
Thermal configuration that will allow you to hold it’s high modes for longer- as long
as you can handle holding it.
The muggle mode which is six clicks from off that keeps it from getting over 300 lumens
or so… and with that I broke my promise about not getting into the bullshit any further.
Runtimes, which is appropriately named, for the amount of viewers I lose right now.
For this section we’re just doing the turbo on all three lights using a Sony VTC6 high
drain battery.
In the frame you see a clock denoting runtime and how you’ve wasted your time, and a lux
meter showing if the light dims or brightens.
Through some calculator heavy math, I estimate basic lumen and output levels over the course
of the time.
That could be wrong
First turbo on the copper.
Performs best in the first minute.
Sound familiar?
I measured 3471 lumens at startup, within 30 seconds we hit 880, 1 minute down to 516
lumens, and by 5 minutes we settle in at about 250 lumens.
Its fluctuates between 250 240 and 230 lumens until close to the 4 hour mark, in case your
wife or friend asked who was listening in very intently to your flashlight content.
Which is still a lot of light.
Anything over 1000 lumens in lights this small is overkill.
4 and a half hours it raises to about 330 lumens, before it starts dimming to about
11 lumens around 4 hours 50 minutes… then low light sub lumen until I kill the test
after 5 hours- Ending voltage on FW3A copper was 2.68v
Now the triple aluminum.
Startup I estimate is 2106.
30 seconds we hit 725 lumens.
1 minute 543.
5 minutes we are doing about about 292.
10 minutes we hit in the 120 lumens, and we fluctuate over the next few hours from a low
of 115, and up in the 140s for an hour or two.
Although we’re using Sony VTC6 batteries, different types and tints of emitters, and
different heat dissipation properties of copper versus aluminum will affect runtimes and outputs.
Then we have a high of 183 lumens at 4 hours 3 minutes, before dropping to 12 lumens around
5 hours and hitting a sub lumen mode when I finish the test- ending voltage is about
2.90 volts on the battery, with light still coming out.
Finally the FW1A everyone exclaims.
I know this one is my favorite runtime too.
Startup is estimated at 1508 lumens.
30 seconds we hit 860 lumens, 1 minute 500 lumens, 5 minutes 292.
10 minutes we settle in at 250 lumens for a while.
You know the main difference in these light happens in under the first 30 seconds.
The thermal regulation kicks in because its so much heat to get rid of for a tiny light.
It kinda makes you wonder whats the point.
You know lumens wise- not universe wise.
3 hours 52 minutes we have creeped back up to 311 lumens.
However it’s emergency mode continues for a long time you get sub lumen modes until
I quit the test at over 10 hours.
Ending voltage was about 2.7 sexy volts.
Beamshot comparisons.
Zebralight, emisar, olight.
A mixture of tints and beam profiles.
Compared here at startup brightness with fresh batteries all around.
Two of the FW3as are floody because they have frosted optics.
Gives you a nice fade from the hotspot to the spill.
Good for closer stuff and not throw.
So a great EDC.
First the Copper FW3A triple.
Neutral White- good tint, great EDC.
Neutral white is probably most pleasing all around to people, in theory- if this wasn’t
a niche hobby.
Ok really no one cares.
Now the original aluminum triple.
This is a warm tinted light, this is close to older incandescent tints and I like it.
Does warm tint make anyone else think of pee.
Ok good I’m the only one.
Not as high a turbo- but who cares.
You can see it start to step down here, you can always double click to reset turbo for
a few more seconds of stupid brightness.
Now the single emitter throwier FW1a.
It’s small but it achieves its spottiness via a reflector and a HI emitter.
Cool White tint for maximum throw and output on a single.
Now back to the Neutral White FW3A copper.
Again you can see a bit further with the FW1A, but I prefer an EDC with a more dispersed
beam pattern for closer illumination.
Now a Zebralight It’s a throwier, warmier, tintier and spottier type light.
I’ve had this for years now, and I honestly prefer the recessed side switch of a zebra
light to the tail caps of the FW series from lumintop.
Now another old favorite the all copper Olight S2.
Cool Tint, wider spot, mellower high.
The S2 has been a pretty reliable beamshot comparison light over the years.
Back to the copper fw3a for a sec.
Now finally the Emisar D4.
A purer white, than the slightly rosy tint of the FW3A.
I believe this is a nichia.
I don’t have a super strong preference of white white I like better.
Perhaps you do, and perhaps I don’t care.
Now let’s look at the FW1A since it has a different beam profile.
Compared to the Zebralight here.
Both kinda spotty.
This Zebralight light has the older less programmable UI, and I like the simplicity of the Anduril
firmware.
Although I like the new Zebralights UI better.
Now versus the Light S2.
Not quite as throwy.
I think I like the Zebarlights tint profile better.
Finally the Emisar.
This is kind of dragging on isn’t it.
I mean what did we expect huh?
Imagine writing it.
Ok the warm tint.
And we’re going to scroll through this fast.
Lumintop.
Zebralight.
Lumintop.
Pause Emisar.
Lumintop.
Olight.
Is
that it, have we compared them all.
Who cares.
Wrapping it up.
Ok so the Emissars and the Lumintops are probably the closest competitors in the compared flashlights.
If I had to break it down it would be do you prefer tailcap switches or side ones.
The Emisars are about 40-50 and these are about 45-50 depending on emitter options for
the aluminum and about 70 for copper or titanium.
I have included a 20% off code down below.
Don’t know when it will expire.
Don’t care.
2 of these lights were provided by Neals Gadgets.
1 was provided by my own poor financial decisions.
Neal used to work at Banggood, now he has his own site.
I don’t even have my own site.
I found between the three lights here the copper had a very feather touch switch, the
original FW3a had a nicer click.
There’s some delay to off… and I’ll be honest, I have had quite few lumitop lights
over the years and several have had odd switch fitment.
Or click behaviors.
I tried adjusting the retaining ring to make it feel a bit clickier on the copper, and
now I’ve been talking about switches for a whole paragraph, so the jokes on my.
I mean also you too.
The machining on these lights is great, and the UI is awesome if you want to spend some
time with it.
There’s nothing that interests me less than setting the thermal regulation to prolong
the turbo a few seconds longer.
The emissars and now this are the two budget lights I’d recommend, depending on which
you can get cheaper.
Personally if I were to pick one out, I’d take a triple in Titanium in a warm tint because
it’s a little lighter than aluminum.
Or aluminum if you don’t have other flashlight nerds to impress.
Nothing wrong with Zebralights- my favorite EDC lights, which often have uglier tints…
or lights which are more expensive and have my least favorite UI.
Anyway if you like the sort of video where a guy speaks 2100 words about a flashlight,
congratulations.
Make sure you like, subscribe, follow me on Instagram, buy through links below… comment…
you can even buy a tee shirt- I already have one.
These all help support whatever this 15 minutes of content can be best described as.
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Thanks for watching.