# Romisen RC-T5 4-Cree beamshots



## Glance2 (Jan 4, 2008)

I received the Romisen RC-T5 4-Cree from DX yesterday. It has 4 Q4 emitters. It is extremely bright.

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.10452

I took some beamshots at 1M against a white wall. I'm a relatively new to this, the only halfway equivalent light I have is the Lowe's Task Force 2 C cells to compare it with. Please forgive my crude review.

4 Cree Q4s AW 2x18650







Task Force Cree P4 emitter 2 Fresh C cells Energizer Alkaline






Task Force on the Left, 4 Cree on the Right






The 4 cree is so bright, it took about an hour for the afterimage to go away after looking at it. The spill is enormous. I can't wait to try it on my bike.

.


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## xevious (Jan 4, 2008)

Thanks for posting--looks like a very promising monster thrower, without going HID.


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## vinsanity286 (Jan 4, 2008)

I have one on order, can't wait to get it. Nice whitewall shots but we need outdoor shots!!!!! And a full review!


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## copperfox (Jan 4, 2008)

Perhaps you could take shots of it further from the wall, or perhaps less exposure time? Outdoor shots would be wonderful. Thanks for the effort so far.

Edit: Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the Task Force use a Q4 Cree?


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## nobita (Jan 4, 2008)

been waiting for this, thank you! Please post some outdoor pic once you have them.


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## Glance2 (Jan 4, 2008)

OK, I ventured out tonight in the wind and rain...

4 Cree Q4 AW 2x18650 protected at 47 feet






Task Force eneloops with 2xC adapters at 47 feet






Sorry the Task Force shot didn't come out that well, the wind and rain is not good for my below average photographic skills.


.


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## KRS1 (Jan 5, 2008)

whats the run time on full mode?

i heard some people said its about 1 hour but never own one of these bad boyz yet.

if this light will hold 2 hours run time on full mode i will definitely buy it


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## lightfet (Jan 5, 2008)

Does anyone know how bright or the throw power of Romisen T5 vs the Dereelight DBS Q5?


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## Izual73 (Jan 5, 2008)

Thanks for the photos. I ordered one too a few days ago. Unfortunately the status is still "Waiting for Supplier", I hope they will get them more soon...


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## nobita (Jan 5, 2008)

Thank you, but man it's green green :shakehead I hope it's just the camera or the weather. Going to wait for a review then I will decide ...


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## Glance2 (Jan 5, 2008)

nobita said:


> Thank you, but man it's green green :shakehead I hope it's just the camera or the weather.



I think it's more my iPhone camera than anything else.


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## nobita (Jan 5, 2008)

ahh, good to hear from the master himself. gald it's the camera's doing...


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## bigbore (Jan 6, 2008)

If i can shorten the battery tube would this light work with 2x rcr123
or 3x rcr123 or maybe 1x 18650 ?


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## 021411 (Jan 6, 2008)

What kind of clickie is it?


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## phantom23 (Jan 6, 2008)

bigbore said:


> If i can shorten the battery tube would this light work with 2x rcr123
> or 3x rcr123 or maybe 1x 18650 ?


 
Search.


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## kwarwick (Jan 6, 2008)

021411 said:


> What kind of clickie is it?



Reverse clickie.


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## RamboPower (Jan 6, 2008)

Hmm i dunno but the pictures of the beamshots look not much better as an UF C3 or something in this class!?
Somebody else have made some pics?


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## phantom23 (Jan 6, 2008)

Look at pictures again and imagine that Task Force is three times brighter than UF C3.


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## W-c.Scenario (Jan 7, 2008)

Heres a nice shot from Takebat
Controlshot




Romisen RC-T5 4xCree (Cree q4)


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## RamboPower (Jan 7, 2008)

Maybe somebody can compare the T5 to the MRV or to the UF WF500!?


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## swxb12 (Jan 7, 2008)

That's a crazy amount of spill for an LED. Thanks for the review, Glance2!


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## swxb12 (Jan 7, 2008)

RamboPower said:


> Maybe somebody can compare the T5 to the MRV or to the UF WF500!?



Is the WF500 a thrower? I would assume the MRV might throw the same distance or further than the T5, but have a much, much narrower spill of light.


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## Glance2 (Jan 7, 2008)

W-c.Scenario,

This looks like god light up that statue.


.


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## phantom23 (Jan 7, 2008)

swxb12 said:


> Is the WF500 a thrower? I would assume the MRV might throw the same distance or further than the T5, but have a much, much narrower spill of light.


 
WF-500 is not a thrower but both 3xCree and incandescent versions outthrows T5. Why? Xenon - 450lm + big reflector. 3xCree - smooth reflectors and harder driven LEDs (and overheating, I hope they fixed it in WF-600 3xCree).
Current draw with 2x18650 is 0,67A it means about 0,3A for each emitter! With 4xRCR123 it's about 0,5A. I'm really disappointed with these results, especially with 18650:thumbsdow.


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## W-c.Scenario (Jan 8, 2008)

Heres a nice comparison between MX Power, Ultrafire 3xCree and Romisen 4xCree, cred for the shots goes to this site alteisen.blog

Note: Romisen runs on 18650 batteries in this comparison (would be brighter with 4 x 3,7v rcr123)






Conntrolshot


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## RamboPower (Jan 8, 2008)

swxb12 said:


> Is the WF500 a thrower? I would assume the MRV might throw the same distance or further than the T5, but have a much, much narrower spill of light.


 
My Xenon WF500 throws more than my MRV so...
It will be interesting to know if the throw and spill of the T5 better than from the WF500 is.
When not so i don`t need to buy it.


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## ledebuhr1 (Jan 8, 2008)

the MX Power actually looks brighter than the Romisen 4 Cree


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## phantom23 (Jan 8, 2008)

RamboPower said:


> My Xenon WF500 throws more than my MRV so...
> It will be interesting to know if the throw and spill of the T5 better than from the WF500 is.
> When not so i don`t need to buy it.


 
Throw - no, spill - yes.



ledebuhr1 said:


> the MX Power actually looks brighter than the Romisen 4 Cree


 
Smooth reflectors=more throw. 3 LEDs with higher current > 4 at low current (on 2x18650).


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## lightfet (Jan 9, 2008)

I'm glad that the spill is very bright, this is what I'm looking for lighting up the whole patch. My Dereelight DBS will handle the throw department.

Can't wait for it to arrive.


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## dulridge (Jan 9, 2008)

nobita said:


> Thank you, but man it's green green :shakehead I hope it's just the camera or the weather. Going to wait for a review then I will decide ...



Mine is greener than some of my other lights, but nothing close to older Luxeon lights. It is far less green than one of my 3AA MagLEDs, or my Golston. I would not notice the tint if I'd not compared it with other lights.

Given how much light it pumps out, I'd find it hard to photograph it in such a way as to bring out the minor colour differences. What follows are some attempts at it - all are taken at about 2.5m distance, the Romisen is always on the left. The ceiling used to be white, but I am a smoker and the room desperately needs a lick of paint so call the ceiling beige. What we are looking at here is differences, not the absolute colour as the automatic white balance kept turning itself back on. Must do some more reading of the camera's manual.

Here is the light on its own. As you can see, at 8 feet my lens isn't enough of a wide angle to cover all of the spill.





The black blob at the bottom is the head of the torch - these shots were taken in a blacked out room lying flat on my back and I didn't notice the head intruding on the field of view.

Here it is with a Golston on the right.



The Golston is considerably greener to my eyes though this shot hardly shows it.

This next one is a bit silly, it is compared to an Ultrafire C3 which is mildly warm tinted.






And with what was within reach as I lay flat on my back on the floor.
Next to an ROP High which needs its batteries charged.






And finally, next to an Elektrolumens triple K2 light that doubles as a hand burner after 15 minutes. Pulls silly amps from 4 C cells and must get some newer, higher efficiency K2's in it some time.





Can add other lights if I have them and anyone's interested.

By the way, Photobucket's auto copy of the IMG tags does not work on 64-bit Ubuntu Linux and Firefox.


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## dulridge (Jan 9, 2008)

RamboPower said:


> My Xenon WF500 throws more than my MRV so...
> It will be interesting to know if the throw and spill of the T5 better than from the WF500 is.
> When not so i don`t need to buy it.



From some quick tests last night - in 80mph winds and freezing rain so they were VERY quick tests, the T5 looks brighter (But when measured on a light meter is about 30% less bright) and has a larger hotspot. The WF-500 lit up my chimney pot at the full length of my garden - say 30 metres as a guess, so to the chimney pot would be between 30 and 40 metres away. The T5 hotspot lit up the chimney pot and a fair chunk of roof at the same distance. Then I went inside to dry out and thaw out.


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## dulridge (Jan 9, 2008)

Here's the T5 on the left and the WF-500 on the right at 2.5m from a beige ceiling. Same exposure as the pics in other post above.





As you can see, aiming in the dark is not my forte. The "rings" around the hotspot are not visible to my eyes and are probably the camera's sensor not coping with the grossly overexposed hotspots.


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## copperfox (Jan 9, 2008)

I'm surprised how well defined the hotspot is - don't multiple emitter lights usually have a floody beam?


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## phantom23 (Jan 9, 2008)

'dulridge', what batteries do you use in T5?


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## Glance2 (Jan 9, 2008)

copperfox said:


> I'm surprised how well defined the hotspot is - don't multiple emitter lights usually have a floody beam?



I was surprised at how well the emmiters were aimed at the same spot, with such a nice circular hotspot. The spill is enormous, perfect for lighting the path in front of you. I think the best combination would be the T5 on the bars and a thrower (on the helmet) on a bike. 

Right now, I have a Fenix Q5 L2D on the helmet. I'm looking for a lightweight thrower to replace it. 

Any suggestions appreciated.



PS. I am thankful that others have taken the time to share their beamshots.


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## dulridge (Jan 9, 2008)

phantom23 said:


> 'dulridge', what batteries do you use in T5?



RCR123s - just had it a day so no idea how long they'll run for. Pulls 500mA on high and 200 on low. 

I will be experimenting with 17670's as I have quite a lot of those, but thus far it's been RCR123s only. I had to mess around with small disc magnets to get my cheapo protected 18650s to work as they are flat-tops. Likewise with the 17670s as they are ex-laptop battery pack. Thus far the 18650s have just been in the light to play with the thing while the 123s charged up.


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## Bandgap (Jan 10, 2008)

Glance2 said:


> The spill is enormous, perfect for lighting the path in front of you.



I too am thinking of this as a bike light. I was going to make my own head, but this is tempting as it will save me a lot of work. 

Can any one measure the beam width of the hot spot - maybe just point the flashlight at a tape emasure from a measure distance. 

My existing bike light has a +/-4deg beam which is slightly narrow for the roads I now live on. 

And, am I right in thinking there is about half an amp flowing in the emitters - has any one measured the output intensity in this condition?

Thanks

Steve


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## dulridge (Jan 10, 2008)

Bandgap said:


> Can any one measure the beam width of the hot spot - maybe just point the flashlight at a tape emasure from a measure distance.
> 
> My existing bike light has a +/-4deg beam which is slightly narrow for the roads I now live on.
> 
> And, am I right in thinking there is about half an amp flowing in the emitters - has any one measured the output intensity in this condition?



Remember, there's a driver circuit in there - half an amp out of the batteries (Which is what I measured with 4xRCR123) does not mean half an amp through the emitters. Apart from anything else, if it were so, that would mean about 17 volts were going through the emitters, and I've smoked a Cree at 7.2V. I do not intend to blind myself trying to desolder wires in the head in order to measure the actual current to the emitters. Someone who owns darker sunglasses than I do will have to do that. Likewise for measuring the actual voltage across the emitters

Measured hotspot at 4.07m (13'4") as 735mm (29") This is NOT a point source so the angle is less than (for the hotspot) calculated from here. 

This measurement gives us two right-angled triangles of base length 367.5mm (Half of 735mm) and the other two sides 4086.56mm. Hence the angle is calculated as (Arctan(367.5/4086.6))x2 10.28 degrees. Or +/- a little over 5 degrees

It is a very long time since I last did any trigonometry so this calculation may be in error but I think this is how I remember doing it thirty years ago.

So the beam is roughly 9-10 degrees for the hotspot. The spill is very much wider, by eyeball with a protractor built into a spirit level I'd say 80-odd degrees beam width in total. The spill beam might, or might not, be bright enough to be useful. 

As for peak hotspot intensity, I don't own a luxmeter, but it is about 30% less than for an Ultrafire WF-500 according to my photographic light meter. The WF-500 does not work well against my test target (the bathroom door which is mahogany coloured) but seems to have a pretty similar hotspot.


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## Bandgap (Jan 10, 2008)

dulridge said:


> Remember, there's a driver circuit in there - half an amp out of the batteries (Which is what I measured with 4xRCR123) does not mean half an amp through the emitters.



Indeed. I think someone else has measured the curent though, but I can't find the source. 



dulridge said:


> Measured hotspot at 4.07m (13'4") as 735mm (29") This is NOT a point source so the angle is less than (for the hotspot) calculated from here.
> 
> This measurement gives us two right-angled triangles of base length 367.5mm (Half of 735mm) and the other two sides 4086.56mm. Hence the angle is calculated as (Arctan(367.5/4086.6))x2 10.28 degrees. Or +/- a little over 5 degrees.



Thanks a lot for taking the time - it sounds pretty good for my purpose. 

The spill also sounds useful. 
Too much spill and the trees either side of Surrey's narrow boarderless roads light up too bright to see past no matter how bright the central part is. 

Steve


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## dulridge (Jan 10, 2008)

Bandgap said:


> Thanks a lot for taking the time - it sounds pretty good for my purpose.
> 
> Too much spill and the trees either side of Surrey's narrow boarderless roads light up too bright to see past no matter how bright the central part is.



No bother - I was bored out of my skull as I'm off work just now due to not being able to stray too far from a toilet so it was fun to have something to do that didn't involve flushing or cleaning the sink. Those Norwalk viruses are a bore. 

If it stops raining I'll try to get some outdoors beamshots tonight - my camera likes freezing rain even less than I do. Now where did I put my tripod?

Hadn't thought of spill being a problem before - there's always something new to learn..


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## DM51 (Jan 10, 2008)

Glance2, your photos are too large - the CPF limit is 800 x 600 pixels.

W-c.Scenario, the same with yours in post #19. Your ones in post #25 are OK.

They are good photos, but please would both of you resize them.


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## rizky_p (Jan 10, 2008)

nice shots, i am still waiting for my RC-T5...


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## DM51 (Jan 10, 2008)

Thank you both for dealing with those pics.


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## eddielee70 (Jan 11, 2008)

lux reading I had from the mx-power 3-cree is 23, wf-500 was 24 which also burn out in 5 minutes(very bad design, smell burn circuit), the t-5 4 cree is 25.5lux on 2 18650 and 26lux on 4 rcr123. doing long term test now with battery run down voltage cut off and rerun for 10 hour with a fan blowing. see if the circuit blows like wf-500. MX power have been the most reliable and best botton to work so far. got a Kaidomain 3 cree that didn't work after 5 minute. switch was bad, so asking for a refund. We will see if Kaidomain have such a good respone and service as Dealextreme. Dealextreme was so much easier to work with with returns for WF-500. I would have expect the T-5 to have more lux then 26. expecting 32 or more lux. either it's not Q4 led or it's not driven very hard, so we see about long term test. I had to use magnets to use 18650, bc battery was too short and sometimes can't connect.


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## Fusion_m8 (Jan 12, 2008)

Anyone has any issues with the tailcap? Its a 3 mode tailcap which will suffer wear and tear in the long run and eventual failure. Is there a way to swap it to a single mode twistie?


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## fa__ (Jan 12, 2008)

I do not believe that mode changing is done in the tailcap, there is a daughter board plugged in the regulator module which i think is reponsible for modes changing


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## fa__ (Jan 12, 2008)

Tailcap was the only part i had not yet opened ... now it's OK


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## dulridge (Jan 12, 2008)

Fusion_m8 said:


> Anyone has any issues with the tailcap? Its a 3 mode tailcap which will suffer wear and tear in the long run and eventual failure. Is there a way to swap it to a single mode twistie?



My first thought was to try the tailcap from the incandescent WF-500 - it does not fit sadly.

Just put a pair of 18650s in it for experimenting - the RCR123 cells are smaller in diameter and rattle enough to cause mode changes with a shake. It is fractionally dimmer - not noticeable to anything other than a light meter. I think I'll roll up a paper tube for the RCR cells - with the 18650s it flickers on low which it does not do with the RCR cells.

Second thought, I wonder if the WF-500 extension piece is the same thread as the T5. Yep - sorta. It feels nasty but will work with the twisty/momentary switch from the WF-500 incan as long as you swap extension piece and switch together. Problem with a momentary switch is the mode changes though. I would not recommend this. The T5 tailcap and extension will not fit the WF-500 though. On a closer look, the threads are different. See pics below.


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## big beam (Jan 12, 2008)

How hot does this light get when you run it on high
THANKS DON


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## dulridge (Jan 13, 2008)

big beam said:


> How hot does this light get when you run it on high
> THANKS DON



Not as hot as I'd like - the heatsinking isn't great, the 4 LEDs are attached to a fairly light aluminium plate that screws into the head. See here https://www.candlepowerforums.com/posts/2299510&postcount=106 for pics of the light engine.

It drives the LEDs fairly gently, probably on thermal grounds. If the plate were a heavier lump of aluminium, or better still, copper, more current could go to the LEDs without cooking them.


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