Maglite 2AA (incan) replacement. Hate ugly LED colour!

[a16]

It finally arrived!
Fit and finish is nice. Unscrewing the head to take out the included (stickered) Duracells showed a pretty nicely done thread without excessive grinding, there was a little friction, but nothing I would complain about.
I shoved in a couple of supermarket own alkalines to try it out. Nice smooth spot as I expecting. Clicky switch feels nice, clicks home well, and mode changing seems quite stable at the moment. Time will tell how that fares with switch wear, but for now a positive half-press is needed.
Unscrewing the head a little prevents the switch from activating - nice. There is plenty of friction from the silicon ring, so the head wont unscrew any more by itself.

The Mini Maglite 2AA looks quite awful comparatively. Massively over warm yellow cast. Pooh. However, the mini-mag does put out a bit more light on its focus spot than the Lumintop on medium power, and is about the same on high. To be honest, though, I won't be surprised when I check this tonight and in the dark streets and woodland, to find the much more uniform and smooth fall off of the Lumintop to destroy the Maglite's increased brightness in the focused ring portion. The Maglite is already looking unusable in its illumination pattern comparatively, and it is far from dark here at the moment - just kinda grey and overcast.

The Nichia 219BT loaded Lumintop IYP365 is definitely not giving me a bad colour. Stuff looks right, even though the light is cooler than the Maglite, it is just showing how far off the Maglite is in terms of over warmth.

A fuller review/test and my findings shall follow later. I intend to compare again the USB Xiaomi Mi light as well, even though that is no torch, but a computer accessory lamp.
Canon 7D battery charging, wide lens mounted, tripod out of the bag and waiting.

 

[a16]

Just a quick and dirty video test against the Mini Maglite and a Xiaomi USB desk light.



A really nice little light.

Thanks to all for the help on this thread and also for all of those who I checked out their resources online, far too many to list!


The problem is now that I am fancying a more throwing light...I can see how people can become flashlight collectors and have many many of the things.

 

[LightObsession]

If you like the 2AAA form factor, try the Nitcore MT06, it has way more throw than the IYP365. I have both lights. I prefer the switch on the MT06, as well.

 

[a16]

If you like the 2AAA form factor, try the Nitcore MT06, it has way more throw than the IYP365. I have both lights. I prefer the switch on the MT06, as well.

I would have liked 2AA better I think, a bit fatter in the hand. Blimey the IYP365 is tiny! I can imagine the Tool and Worm are fiddly with my fat long fingers.

I've looked around for comparisons but can't see any images as yet. That's probably because it's not been out long. £35 on Nitecore UK distributer's site, £26 on GB.
The run time seems significantly lower in medium mode than the Lumintop, but puts out probably 2x more lm.

I was thinking more along the lines of a more focused optic to extend the range rather than dumping more power. The Lumintop has wonderful spill for close up, and it's pretty nice for walking with too. If they disregarded all spill and built a lens to concentrate as much light as possible, maybe that could work? I wonder if the Nichia 219x just doesn't lend itself to being focused tightly. I have a feeling that the Nitecore, even though more powerful, would be a bit samey.

I saw some video and images of the LED Lenser P3BM "blue moon". Blimey, I don't like that blue halo...not for me at all.

With the seemingly quite large popularity of warmer tone and higher colour rendering, I can only image more manufacturers will start to take on the challenge of zoom focused throw with nice light quality.

 

[LightObsession]

I'm suggesting the MT06, not the MT06MD, to get more throw from the 2aaa form factor. It has a different, smaller, lower CRI LED than the IYP365 and MT06MD. Much longer throw than the IYP365.

 

[a16]

So, I've tested it out walking home in the dark, and it blows the Mini Maglite away. Because the Maglite focus is soo naff, it has to be made to a tight hotspot, and then it needs to be aimed further ahead to spill across the path. The Maglight spill is very low comparatively to it'shot spot, which just makes it tough to see by. On comparison the Lumintop IYP365 is just great.
Medium power is just fine for lighting the path a short distance in front, great for not walking in something...not too far, not to short. Colour is much cooler than Sodium street lights, but matches the more modern whiter shade, as the old street lights get replaced in this slow-to-spend country, it'll become less an issue. Stuff doesn't look flat, it's easy to discern depth, even of stuff directly on the ground in front - perfect for walking by. Passing traffic headlights don't massively overpower medium mode, and so when the vehicle has passed you don't go blind.
High mode is fab for chucking some light at a distance. Across 2 lanes of a wide-ish road, and a good 20ft up a tree, clearly discernible details. I tried it in the garden and light my whole garden up, lots of spill, lots of light!
Low mode can be used to walk by, but only really when there is no street lighting or traffic because the output is much lower, and ambient light will cause your eyes to close down, so much so that the low power just doesn't resolve enough. It works fantastically well indoors in the middle of the night though, or in the dark woods. Bucketloads of light, but it's got a non-aggressive glow to it.

So far the switch feels solid and a positive click is needed to activate. Just undoing the head a little will prevent the switch turning on, so the lock out works perfectly.

A few things that might not be to everyone's need or taste.
• The M>L>H modes, I don't mind this as Medium is my goto, but I can understand Low beying a preference for starting on too.
• It's quite spilly - having more focus could be more useful to throw the light a bit more, trading some area coverage. Perhaps a focus lens may help?
• The light is small. A 2xAA version could provide more power (as long as it doesn't overheat/overstress the LED), and/or a longer run time. It's be bigger in the hand and more grippy. However the fact that it's 2xAAA means that it's light and pocket friendly.
• Some may want even warmer colour tone...I'm coming from a Maglite incandescent and I am not moaning but some maybe even more picky than me!

I feel strange saying that I am 'enjoying' this light. But it's true, it's nice. I might buy another to leave with some LSD batteries closeby....getting the flashlight bug


As LightObsession mentions above the Nitecore MT06 (Cree) is less spilly/more throwy. It looks like it's reflector is not textured, but smooth, so it would make sense that the MD (Nichia) version maybe similar, even if the MD is less throwy than it's Cree counterpart by nature of the type of LED.

 

[iamlucky13]

I was pretty sure you'd like it. Glad it is proving its merits.

I might buy another to leave with some LSD batteries closeby....getting the flashlight bug

Or explore more of the flashlight world and get yourself something suited for a slightly different purpose.

If you're still pining for warm, Armytek has a couple that should be a bit warmer in 1xAA and 2xAA versions, but they are a bit more expensive.

 

[Timothybil]

Did you get the Cree version or the Nichia version of the IYP365? The Nichia version will definitely be warmer than the Cree version. I believe the Nichia is somewhere between 4500K & 5000K, while the Cree is around 6000K.

If you have the Cree and like the way it adds detail and depth, you will like the Nichia version even better. Yes, the Nichia is a little less output, but remember that the eye's perception is not linear, but logarithmic. It takes for times as much light to appear twice as bright to the eye. Given that, even a ten to twenty percent decrease in output is not really noticeable in real life. I have Tools in both Cree and Nichia, and there really isn't much difference to my eye.

 

[LightObsession]

I didn't know they had a low CRI Cree option. What is the CRI? They didn't list it on the Lumintop website.

 

[Timothybil]

I didn't know they had a low CRI Cree option. What is the CRI? They didn't list it on the Lumintop website.

If the CRI is not mentioned for a Cree LED, it usually is around 70 or so, possibly up to 80. CRI is Color Rendition Index, a measure of how well a given emitter renders colors, with afternoon northern sunlight being 100 CRI. At least in the Cree datasheets for their emitters, there is a graph of the relative spectral power distribution. There is usually a large spike in the blue part of the spectrum, then another hump further towards the red end of the spectrum. For all intents and purposes, the higher the CRI of an emitter the wider and more level the graph, especially in the lower wavelengths, showing a more even distribution of light across the visible spectrum.

One of our more technical reviewers, whose name escapes me right now, always includes several charts/graphs showing the relative distribution of the various wavelengths among other useful info.

 

[a16]

The IYP 365 I received is around 5000K (as seen in the video), colour rendering is great, the reds are the big area that it's noticeable compared to other LEDs. I compared against what I believed to be a 'neutral' (5400K or 6500K) Xiaomi Mi USB light, and it's pretty clear the Xiaomi which might use Osram LEDs, is much greener, and the reds looks washed out in comparison.
I looked at images of people's Nichia and Cree IYP's and mine looks like the Nichia for sure.

I did read up a bit about colour rendering. The spectrum of wavelength vs. output distribution on most LEDs shoves the greatest energy in a sharp spike at the 440nm region (blue/violet) and then lumps up in the visible region, falling off rapidly over the orange to red transition. The higher CRI plots show a shallower 440nm spike relatively, with a less steep fall off in the orange/reds. The Nichia 219B looks considerably better than a high-CRI Cree that it was being compared to. The Nichia just gets the distribution over the entire visible area done well, cutting down power at 440nm. Red look great.

Something I read somewhere about one of the Cree (XP-G2 R5?) was that although it may look OK in isolation, comparing against the Nichia 219B showed it's flaws. Centre area hot spot looked fine, then transitioned to a more yellow tone then into more greenish hues towards the periphery. Nichia just stays the same tone/hue throughout, just gets brighter/darker.

Something to remember about CRI (Colour Rendering Index) is that there are numerous qualifiers. Some qualifiers just use a few colour patches to check rendering, whilst others use a larger palette that spans more harder to address shades. Some are also based around vibrant shades, so a it'd be fine for electrical wiring identification, whilst others focus more on pastel shades, which can look all the same under some lights that perform fine for other tasks.
Another issue is that the CRI score is based around the rending at it's temperature. A really cold light might render really well, have a high CRI, but be totally alien to use beings used to warmer light sources, such is also true for really warm lights.

Got itchy whilst on GearBest and ordered an SF-348 "BudgetLightForum" (is it taboo to mention a rival site?) branded flashlight. ~5000K Nichia 219BT, single-AAA Alk/NiMH or 10440 3.7v, stainless steel, tail clicky. From what I gather it's got a runtime of around 1hr and about 40lm outout on LSD NiMH, but can be driven 'hard' on 10440 Li-ion to throw out 100lm+ for thermal throttled runtimes.
It was £6.27 shipped, and hard to pass up at that price...I can buy that and a can of energy drink, and still have change out of one hours wage!

 

[bykfixer]

Unfortuneatly most CRI numbers come from an old method of measuring. One devised for the light bulb. There is a new chart under development that uses a lot more 'samples' of color, as the LED went and changed the way an illumination tool puts out light. It's still in it's infancy and most light meters still use the old way. Not much longer though (thank goodness).

CREE is not widely known for their super-great color renditions but they are getting better at it in stock platform.
Many light tweakers are able to squeeze better renditions from the CREE while still providing the brighter output vs that company that accels at better CRI. Nichia seems to be getting closer to real color renditions but at a cost of brightness to a degree.

We can post charts n graphs all day long in an attempt to prove one way or another. Yet it largely comes down to perception by the user and in many cases what they are used to. Most say that the light bulb was better, but as an experienced user I'll say although the light bulb is more pleasing in darkness... rather, less harsh... my camera likes some LED's (certain CREE 6200-6400k) over light bulbs in some instances where no other light is visible. Yet that can vary as well based on regulation of the output. The light bulb makes a 'golden' cast on the photos in some cases.
A light bulb driven light with fresh batteries that have not begun to dim puts out a much more "acurate" beam than the same one with depleting batteries.
Same goes for the unregulated beam of many of the mini mag drop in modules. As the fuel cell depletes those tend to change in tint as well.

In time the el-cheapo drop in's will get better, as in time production costs decrease and more acurate CRI becomes the norm.

 

[a16]

^ Exactly my experience with an incandescent Mini Maglite. Fresh Krypton bulb, fresh good quality Alkalines and the light looked great. Similar story with the newer Xeneon bulbs too, although a whiter and brighter light. It does not take long at all to start running the batteries down and the light goes warmer as a result. the other thing is that those little incandescent bulbs bung out a lot of heat and quickly start going silvery/dim inside the glass, which chops the light power down even more and goes even further into the territory of frankly-ugly Sodium street lights.

I admitted at the start of this thread to be against LED in the past because of them being so typically off-colour and unnatural. Saying that, phone flash lights aren't soo bad and these have been LED for quite some time, though maybe in-camera trickery is used to bump the red component coming off of the CCD/CMOS sensors. All of the cheap RAC, Duracell, supermarket own brand etc LED flashlights easily available in shops are blue/purple or blue/green, they are wholly unusable in my opinion, only for effects. Call me what you like, but I just cannot use those to walk around at night by, they are just too wrong. I did try and it made me feel queasy.

One big factor in choosing light colour temperature and colour rending, and to some extent output, is whether or not the light is used in isolation. If I was walking in the woods away from street lights, garden lights or really much moonlight, I don't think I'd mind a cooler/neutral light. Up to maybe 6500K (daylight) would be fine, I think. The main thing is depth perception and how the light affects that. Our eyes do auto white balance, and the higher CRI factor helps to make sure all things appear 'correct' under the same light, so that once our brain adjusts a red item looks red, a blue one blue and a green one green. When the light starts to become less consistent across the visible spectrum, our brains tend to have a hard time working out just what colour something is. If we can determine colours fairly well, then I think it aids depth perception hugely.
If however, I am walking along the street and having overhead sodium lamps lighting the path poorly, then a flashlight needs to (a) overpower the ambient light (b) fall into a similar spectrum of temperature to not mess with my brain. When there are multiple light sources, traffic, sodium street lights, modern whiter street lights, moon light, it all becomes a mixed bag. As ambient light goes up, the eye closes down and more output from the light is needed to make a significant difference and to actually 'light' up the area you want to look at. If it's pitch black, in the middle of the jungle, even a freakin' luminous bug or a lit cigarette looks bright, so the low 1-2lm candle mode would look pretty damn bright indeed!

I am not knocking Cree or other manufacturers, they make products for a purpose. If output lumens and a shape designed to throw is what is required then why screw about with colour temperature and colour rendering if it'll hurt those goals or push price beyond what a client is willing to pay? Thankfully, for people like me, the demand for warmer tints and consistent, more accurate colour rendering is increasing. We are seeing Nichia utilised by most for this purpose, but the main drawback is efficiency lm vs. runtime. To get the visiable spectrum well presented, it costs overall effective light output...just the way it is. Cree do make some interesting cooler/neutral higher CRI LEDs, and these are quite well regarded, and beat out the warmer high CRI Nichia 219 (A)(B)(c)'s in output power and some will rather take that compromise. There are some LEDs being coated? to help improve the red/orange side of things, and that's an interesting way to go too.

Initially I was being conservative with my price requirement of ~£20. I think what I got in the Lumintop IYP 365 for £16.80 is really great value. Compared to a Mini Maglite incan. for £10 (when on offer), or 2 times that for a LED Mini Maglite, from what I have seen I'm happier with what I have.

 

[a16]

Update:
There was another special offer on GB, so I bought the Lumintop Tool / Black / Nichia 219 with standard clicky tail.
So much for me stating a budget and only wanting the one flashlight, eh?
I still don't have any NiMH AAAs or a charger, but that will follow.

It's a nice little light for sure.
I think the size is 'cute' for want of a better term. It's really small. Shorter and much lighter than the stainless steel BLF-348.
It is most definitely hang-bag, pocket, even key chain friendly if you don't mind a bit of chunk. The clip seems to hold well and it'd make for a great makeshift head torch with a simple baseball cap or any cap/hat with a stiff brim.
I think the IYP-365 fits my original criteria better than the Tool, but it was cheap and I wanted to try it anyway.

Colour seems a pinch whiter/cooler than the IYP-365, which seems just a little yellow by comparison. I am not talking rosy pinkish/purplish hints here, just an overall glow when viewed side-by-side.
The BLF-348 is whiter/cooler still, but does have a slight purple halo which isn't really noticeable except when scrutinising and purposefully hunting for flaws.

I am definitely a fan of the neutral/warm Nichia 219 emitter. I haven't seen the equivalent Cree (XP-2 R5?) that is the alternative emitter, in person but from the images I've seen I wouldn't want anything cooler than this.

No more flashlight purchases for me, unless I can find something Nichia 219 (or similar) based with flood/spot zoom and a decent build and preferably AA cells.
I am quite content with this little clutch.

Maglite? Pah!