First impression of Predator Pro V3 Warm.

eh4

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Got Predator Pro V3 Warm today, wow it's nice.
I wish I'd gotten this light a few years ago at the end of the V2.5 runs.
But V3 is beautiful and functional. I like the exterior head shape better than the 2.5, fits the hand nicely.
Tint is great, a little warmer than my H600w, which is itself almost almost impreceivably warmer than my little AA Nichia 219 light.
I wish my H600w had this tint,
so glad I went for warm instead of the 1000+ lumen limited edition, though I will probably go for something like that if I ever spring for a Baracudda.

With the levels:
510 lm (1h 40min), 290 lm (3h 30min), 140 lm (8h 30min), 28 lm (48h), 1.8 lm (18d), 0.2 (100d), Strobe
I'm probably almost never going to use 290, or strobe, 290 not much different than the max, might use it on the rare occurrence when I'm inclined to run it "full strength" for as long as possible, meh.
Anyhow, mode spacing is Good, - .2, 1.8, 28, 140, 510 lumen, those seem pretty well balanced to my eye.
I'd love to be able to program it and pick the levels but they did a nice job.
.2 lumen is really usable, 1.8 lumen is bright enough for most night adjusted utility stuff, plenty bright for comfortable trail walking.
28 lumen is as bright or brighter than the best lights I had back when I was a youth running around in the woods at night. -that's the sweet spot on this light to me, especially with this nice hotspot.
I'm glad for the head tighten High mode too of course, neat trick is to loosen slightly to second line but just far enough that squeezing the light flexes it to activate High as a momentary.
I also like that the tail cap works well as a twisty. ..

There is definitely a memory, and no way to spoof it. I like having memory for the head loose mode, better than no memory, but I'd kind of hoped that if I locked out the tail cap, that I could get back to low or firefly. Nope, it remembers, the pro model does anyways.

Beautiful beam, I never realized how much I needed a pocket thrower.
I got ridoff the cigar ring, added the clip, put three rings of black electrical tape over all the garish white lettering, now it's beautiful and bite grippable.
Next to fabricate a ring to make the button recessed, rig up a functional lanyard system, and get a diffuser.
Wonderful light.
 
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eh4

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... and later that night Strobe was gone, just like that.
In its place is a dark/dead mode on the six mode line.
Everything else is fine, weird.
 

eh4

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Thank you for sharing your impressions with us!

You're quite welcome.
I'd love your insight into what specifically causes the strobe mode failure.
While returning a light with a failed strobe mode may be considered a solution, first understanding the typical cause of the problem and it's effect on the future reliability of the light would be best.

I love your lights, with a little bit of improvement in communication and quality control they could be highly competitive and recommendable.
 

eh4

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So far I'm getting right around 3 hours for the highest of the line 2 modes (head loose), and only around 30 minutes on line 1 (head tight).
That's with 3400 mAh Orbtronic protected cells btw.
I'm running a third test on high right now....
Yeah, third test was only on a 66% charge.
It went about 15 min to take the Orbtronic from 66% to 25%, when high cut out, but head-loosen brought it back.
I'm not seeing the head tight mode on this particular light being good for much more than burning through batteries. It's not appreciably brighter to the eye than the highest head-loose mode, and only runs about 1/6 the time.
That's not a winner there.
Gets hot, not much brighter than line 2 max, and only runs 30% as long as advertised.... hmmm...
 
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eh4

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I bought it and I'm keeping it.
Might just buy another to compare, so I can verify.
We're really close to an excellent product here, but there are some problems.
 

eh4

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Tonight with head tight for max output, turning the light off and on, off when it started to get hot by hand, back on when it cooled, by stopwatch it ran 45 min on a 3400 mAh Orbtronic, charged 99% at start and 23% when the light stepped down to low.
I'm looking for something more like 100 minutes here.
 
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scs

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Tonight with head tight for max output, turning the light off and on, off when it started to get hot by hand, back on when it cooled, by stopwatch it ran 45 min on a 3400 mAh Orbtronic, charged 99% at start and 23% when the light stepped down to low.
I'm looking for something more like 100 minutes here.

Take a look at the runtime plot of the Predator Pro V3 with XB-H here: http://www.taschenlampen-forum.de/threads/review-armytek-predator-pro-v3.42830/

Gone is the flat regulation typical of the V2.5 Pros. Could be the case with the Pro V3 with XPL HD and Pro V3 LE with XPL HI as well.
One of the strengths that used to distinguish the 1x18650 Pro line, now gone.
 

scs

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By the way ANSI runtime is runtime until 10% of initial output after 30s, IIRC. Not requirement for flat regulation.
 

eh4

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Thing is that XB-H is supposed to run 5W max...
Max burned through roughly 75% of a 12 watt battery in 45 min.

Thanks for the link scs, maybe my very gently used 3400mAh Orbtronic is to blame. Seems doubtful.
 
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scs

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Have you tried to loosen/tighten 5 times when it's turned on?

Regardless of 3 or 5 times, once removed, there should not be a dead mode in the sequence as the OP previously described.
 

eh4

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Oh it's faulty alright.
I've doubled down and ordered the warm XP-L version as well.
I like the light well enough that if it's reliable I'll be happy to have two, and until iit's reliable I'll be satisfied to have one while the other is sent off for repair/replacement.
 
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CelticCross74

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I freaking love my warm XB-H Predator! The tint is unlike any other warm or neutral I have seen. I also use 2x18350 sources and I swear I got a huge bump in output at max with it. I have 4 Predators love them all but the XB-H is truly unique!
 

Lumencrazy

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I freaking love my warm XB-H Predator! The tint is unlike any other warm or neutral I have seen. I also use 2x18350 sources and I swear I got a huge bump in output at max with it. I have 4 Predators love them all but the XB-H is truly unique!

Anyone have any comments regarding the XP-L hi warm tint?
The flashlight community is waking up to the word of warm tints and the benefits of higher CRI. How does you XH-B compare with the older Predator Pro v2.5 warm?
 

clemence

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It's lovely! The tint is somewhat better than my greenish Wizard3 (XP-L). But it's not as bright as my CW Predator XPL-HI. AT says it's 7% dimmer but the pleasant colour and better CRI makes up for the dimmer output.
If you're a throw freak/security guard then go with the CW, more blinding power. Otherwise NW/WW should be better.
 

CelticCross74

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XP-L HI Pred Pro is very well done neutral. It does not have as much red in the tint as the XB-H. If you are familiar with say the NW Eagletac TX25C2 that is pretty darn close to it.
 

oeL

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Gone is the flat regulation typical of the V2.5 Pros. Could be the case with the Pro V3 with XPL HD and Pro V3 LE with XPL HI as well.
One of the strengths that used to distinguish the 1x18650 Pro line, now gone.

That's true for Turbo2 (boost) and a single cell.
You could get, however, have Turbo2 flat with two cells. But this would require protected 18350 cells with at least 3A and would reduce the runtime to about 10-15 minutes, roughly calculated.
On the other hand, you could have Turbo1 with (nearly?) flat runtime. That's still a lot more lumen than the XP-G2 models.

However, I'm sure that most of us are waiting for a return of "fully flat runtime" with a single 18650 over the whole capacity, on the max brightness level. And I'm hoping that Armytek is having this already on the todo list. Do you? :)
 

ArmyTek

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That's true for Turbo2 (boost) and a single cell.
You could get, however, have Turbo2 flat with two cells. But this would require protected 18350 cells with at least 3A and would reduce the runtime to about 10-15 minutes, roughly calculated.
On the other hand, you could have Turbo1 with (nearly?) flat runtime. That's still a lot more lumen than the XP-G2 models.

However, I'm sure that most of us are waiting for a return of "fully flat runtime" with a single 18650 over the whole capacity, on the max brightness level. And I'm hoping that Armytek is having this already on the todo list. Do you? :)
Thank you for the idea! It was sent to our engineers.
 
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