Zebralight C3 4x18650, 9000 lumens!

[CelticCross74]

this light is just TO bright. Many will die for want of darkness..

 

[noboneshotdog]

this light is just TO bright. Many will die for want of darkness..

This light is just too bright...............
. SAID NOBODY EVER!!! :naughty: hahahaha

 

[treejohnny]

''The C3 will be less than $200. It will come with four 18650s built-in and a USB charging port. Its overall dimension/volume is roughly two thirds of a typical four cell soda can on the market, with similar beam profiles. Preorder date is not set yet.''

I love my zebralights and I am hoping that since they have their own 18650s to sell that they will come with their own batteries, be replaceable by us and it will have built in USB charging port?

 

[emarkd]

I may have to eat my words but I don't see any way in hell that zebra adds onboard charging. They're almost singularly focused on making their lights as small as possible and onboard charging takes up space. I just can't see them ditching springs but then adding charging circuits and ports. Not gonna happen.

 

[oKtosiTe]

A huge lumen # that steps down in a couple minutes, has zero practical value. Usually you end up with a light that can really only maintain medium mode or lower for any useful time period. Unfortunately the flashlight market is like the digital camera market was 10 years ago, when all consumers looked at was the number of megapixels without understanding that more wasn't always better. Light regulation, while a great addition to flashlights is now being used to simply manipulate marketing specs. The other day I saw a series of new lights, from a well known manufacturer where the high mode runtime was listed as 90% of the medium runtime, but medium was 1/5 of the brightness of high.

As a result we now get expensive, huge lights that have a 3000+ lumen Turbo but only for a couple minutes, then step down to 1000 lumens(high) for the rest of it, and medium mode is 300 lumens or less, so you end up with huge gaps in brightness levels with actual usefulness. I would much rather see 1500 lumens for 30 minute runtime on turbo then a 1000-750 high and 300 lumen medium, 50 lumen low etc.

Thankfully some arenas have not accepted this trend of misleading marketing by gaming the ANSI spec system. I can only imagine how annoyed cyclists, caving, scuba people would be if their bike lights only stayed near the lumen rating for a few minutes before dropping to 30% of that level for the rest of the stated runtime. Seems like what ANSI really needs to do is change the spec for runtime to be 90% of original brightness, not 10% when calculating light runtimes.

Perhaps 90% is a bit aggressive, but I agree that 10% of original output isn't a useful metric at all. To account for battery regulation and heat dispersion under different circumstances 75% or 50% would still be a lot more useful than 10%. It would a allow manufacturers a little leeway while still preventing a lot of the cheating that's happening now.

 

[ToddM]

Perhaps 90% is a bit too much, but I'd say not less than 80%. The whole point of regulated lights was so that users could get constant output over the life of the batteries at various levels, that's what everyone was excited about when the technology first started getting put into lights. All it's become now in flashlights is a way to game the system to show ridiculous run times for output levels that the light is really only holding for a few minutes. What we have now isn't much different than what everyone complained about with non-regulated lights that you only get stated brightness for a fraction of the stated runtime.

There are still industries where the light builders integrity and/or their customers refuse to accept that this type of misleading marketing. Take cycling lights, while they do report in the ANSI standard, they are not gaming the system, most of them hold 90% rated output or better for 95% of the stated runtime even on high modes.

 

[Swedpat]

Perhaps 90% is a bit aggressive, but I agree that 10% of original output isn't a useful metric at all. To account for battery regulation and heat dispersion under different circumstances 75% or 50% would still be a lot more useful than 10%. It would a allow manufacturers a little leeway while still preventing a lot of the cheating that's happening now.

Absolutely agree with that! It would still be within the range of barely noticeable decrease and much more fair than 10%.

 

[JDodd]

This light is on my list. This will be my third ZebraLight (after H603c and SC600Fd Mk III). I wish we had a ballpark estimate for availability.

 

[lampeDépêche]

Weird thing about this: the spreadsheet gives its dimensions as "4.3x3.0x0.9".

That's not a pop-can or a cylinder of any kind. That's a flat rectangular box, like two packs of playing cards next to each other.

Notice also that they created a new column for this light--all of the earlier lights are described by two numbers: "Bezel Diameter" and "Length".

This is the only light that is described using the LxHxD column.

If they really do go with a flat array, that will be revolutionary! Slides right into the back pocket, for instance. Awkward to hold? I'm not sure.

And what to call this arrangement of batteries--pan-pipe arrangement? Single-stack clip?

ETA: whoops! Sorry--I see that people are already discussing this over in the "Official Zebralight" thread. Okay--carry on over there.

 

[eraursls1984]

I love the side by side idea for two cells, not so sure about four though.

 

[markr6]

I love the side by side idea for two cells, not so sure about four though.

It does sound awkward. I wonder if it's just a typo, maybe 2.9 instead of 0.9". That would make it nearly round. But wider than it needs to be considering the competition, so I guess the 0.9 is right.

 

[Connor]

Not only awkward: imagine a slim (well, as slim as possible) 4x18650 flat pack with three XHP70 LEDs. Where's the heat supposed to go? 9000 lumens ... for 20 seconds, perhaps.

 

[emarkd]

I'm having a really hard time visualizing this light, so I made a wooden model. Its made of 1/2" plywood scrap, which is slightly under 1/2" as most of you probably know. The overall thickness is really close to 0.9". Width and height were easy:

Honestly, its better than I expected, if you round the corners a bit and "dress it up". And I like out-of-the-box thinking. So maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all -- if it can handle the heat. This would be much easier to pocket than something like a Meteor, for sure.

I should've done a comparison photo with my Meteor. I can do that later if anyone wants to see.

 

[eraursls1984]

Nice and flat. Perfect to clip to your hat for a headlamp. You just need a brick on the back to balance it out.

Before I finished reading your comment Mark, I was going to tell you to hit the sides with a router. While you're at it paint it gray. And then put a recess in it for the switch, but where does it go?

 

[emarkd]

Nice and flat. Perfect to clip to your hat for a headlamp. You just need a brick on the back to balance it out.

Before I finished reading your comment Mark, I was going to tell you to hit the sides with a router. While you're at it paint it gray. And then put a recess in it for the switch, but where does it go?

You sound a bit more thorough and motivated than I am . I just wanted a general idea about size/shape.

And my hope is that the switch is on a short side near the emitters, right where my thumb falls.

 

[lampeDépêche]

Mark, I'm guessing that the batteries will be inserted into the longest side. So for comparing to your SC600 and SC63, you should rotate your model 90 degrees. I think?? Of course I'm just making this up.

My real hope is that they have figured out a clean way to attach 4 SC63s together like 7.62 cartridges in a linked ammo belt. This way you can keep them all flat when you want to slide it in your back pocket, or fold them into a rough square when you want to wrap your hand around it. The trick is designing the pivots so that the four beams stay collimated no matter what angle they are at.

However, this pretty clearly is *not* what they are doing, given that the light has only 3 emitters instead of 4.

I am at a loss--I have no idea what they are up to. Show us the plans, please!

 

[emarkd]

Mark, I'm guessing that the batteries will be inserted into the longest side. So for comparing to your SC600 and SC63, you should rotate your model 90 degrees. I think?? Of course I'm just making this up.

I think you're probably right, because this is really the only way the batteries will fit:

However I think the emitters would still have to be at the short side, so that the whole light is still longer than it is wide. The batteries are just in it sideways. Very odd...

 

[lampeDépêche]

Huh. Yeah, that's a stumper.

Right: if the emitters were in line with the long-axis of the battery, i.e. on the long dimension of the box, then the reflectors would have to be so shallow that it would be a mule. No spot + spill beam at all. So in that case, it looks like the emitters are on the shorter dimension of the box.

Unless they are on the long side, but staggered in between cells? 4 cells, 3 emitters--is there enough room between the cells for a reflector of some depth?

 

[emarkd]

Right: if the emitters were in line with the long-axis of the battery, i.e. on the long dimension of the box, then the reflectors would have to be so shallow that it would be a mule. No spot + spill beam at all. So in that case, it looks like the emitters are on the shorter dimension of the box.

Unless they are on the long side, but staggered in between cells? 4 cells, 3 emitters--is there enough room between the cells for a reflector of some depth?

You mean like this?

Not really. Those are Convoy S2+ reflectors, so pretty small. Plus it would be pretty awkward to hold like that.

I think it'll have to be like this:

 

[lampeDépêche]

Yup, you've convinced me. Given what we know, the emitters must be on the short side.

Battery hatch on the long side? I worry that if it were on the short side (i.e. opposite to the emitters) then in rolling the cells in sideways there would be no way to assure good connections on each end. Springs would get bent out of shape; pogo pins might not retract. Too many possibilities for unintentional shorting, as well. I think the cell-insertion has to work as normal, i.e. pushing them in lengthwise from a hatch on the long dimension.

Wow. I kinda hope we are totally wrong and they have something radically different in mind.