Crash testing flashlights

Convoy S2+ vs Xanes XT02 vs On The Road M900

The battle of the single 18650 flashlights

Table of contents

1. Intro
2. 1- Scratch test
3. 2- Freezing test
4. 3- Oven test
5. 4- Waterproofness test
6. 5- Impact resistance test
7. 6- River test
8. 7- Reverse polarity test
9. 8- Car drive-over test
10. 9- Hammer test
11. The winner announced

Brand / Model	On The Road M900	Xanes XT02	Convoy S2+
LED	XM-L2 U3	SST20 4000K	SST20 4000K
Lumens	940	900	900
Beam intensity	5600cd	–	–
Battery config.	1*18650	1*18650	1*18650
Material	Aluminum	Aluminum	Aluminum
Modes	4	3	5
Blinkies	1	2	3
Reflector	OP	OP	SMO
Waterproof	IPX8	not stated	not stated
Review date	March 2020	March 2020	March 2020

Introduction:

Hi everyone! Have you ever wondered how sturdy and durable your flashlight is? If not, no problem. I will check it for you anyway. I will be dropping them, sinking them in my fish tank, hammering them, and more. Enjoy!

Let’s see what they look like before all the tests.

The contenders are: On The Road M900, Xanes XT02, and Convoy S2+. All 3 are single-18650 flashlights.

Build Quality before the test

So we have 3 similarly looking flashlights:

On The Road M900

It came in a very nice cardboard box, well secured. The flashlight itself has an SS bezel and looks very premium. It costs twice as much as the other 2 competitors.

Convoy S2+

Came in a common (for Convoy), simple thin cardboard box and bubble wrap. The flashlight itself feels well-made and durable. It is the heaviest out of the bunch, and also the most durable?

Xanes XT02 

It came in the same box as the Convoy. Generally, it looks very similar to Convoy, with a bit deeper knurling.

I think it will be a close battle between Convoy and Xanes. OTR, although it is the most expensive, I think it will perform the worst. It is my guess, I don’t know the results yet. We’ll see.

Test 1: Flashlight scratch test

What scratches our flashlights the most? Keys, of course.

To be more realistic, we’ll use more keys

And other random stuff you may sometimes have in your pocket

I’ve built this scratching machine (spinning can). I will test flashlights one by one, 2 hours for each one.

Test 1 results:

In my opinion, Xanes looks the best. Convoy and OTR both look worse, but similarly, can’t announce the winner (Convoy is grey in color, so looks better, but was scratched at the same level…maybe OTR was scratched the most). Although OTR was scratched the most, it looks the coolest after scratching. As I expected, the SS bezel in OTR performed great, looks like new, and the head in OTR looks so much better than in Convoy and Xanes.

Now I will scratch the lenses with my pointy carbon steel Mora knife.

Well, this knife is very sharp and pointy, I was scratching with moderate force, but the lenses look almost untouched, with only small, hard-to-see scratches. All flashlight lenses performed the same. You can see some scratches on Convoy’s lens, but all flashlights have the same scratches.

Conclusion: You’d also look stupid when you asked for 40 redundant keys in your local shop.

Test 2: Frozen flashlight test

Have you ever been afraid of leaving your flashlight for a night in very cold conditions? I was. For this, I have a 14-hour, -25°C (-13°F) test in the refrigerator. All flashlights are in a closed plastic box, with some water (just 1-2 spoons, to imitate night moisture). With batteries, but turned off.

All flashlights are working fine, and the battery voltage remained the same.
*relief*
Now I know I can safely leave a flashlight outside during the night when sleeping in a forest (as I did before, but now at least I know it is safe)

Test 2 Conclusion: Frozen flashlight looks awesome!

Test 3: Oven test

Next step: leaving your flashlight in a hot car, on the hottest summer day. It could be even 70°C (158°F) inside. For this test, I’m gonna use my oven, set it to 70°C (due to lack of good equipment, the temperature varied from 65°C to 85°C so 149°F to 185°F), and leave all flashlights for 30 minutes. Without batteries.

All flashlights are working fine, but rubber switches in Convoy and Xanes make that creaking noise when pressing. Annoying. OTR doesn’t have this problem – good, because they advertise to have a good quality switch.

Conclusion: I need to control the temperature better.

Test 4: Waterproof test

Now it’s time for an obvious must-be: waterproof test. But I should call it “waterproof+ test”. 48 hours in my fish tank, at a depth of 25 cm. With the battery on, turned on. If not cold and hot, maybe just water will kill them. I’m guessing: Xanes will perform the best.
Let’s find out!

Results? I am a bit surprised because none of the flashlights leaked. Not even a tiny bit. The reason is probably that they were submerged in shallow water, even they were submerged for a very long time. Maybe they need more water pressure? Let’s move to Waterproof test stage 2: touchless car wash and a pressure washer. 30 sec. spraying from a close (10cm) distance.

I found no water inside. However,  after approximately 2 hours I decided to turn them on and noticed some moisture behind the lens of the OTR M900’s lens. The OTR was the only flashlight that leaked. I am not sure when that actually happened: after the 48h immersion or during the pressure washer test. Anyway, this amount of water is not a big deal for these flashlights at all, considering all the tests I’ve done.

Conclusion Test 4: You can use any of these flashlights to lighten your fish tank for at least 48 hours.

Test 5: Flashlight impact resistance test (drop test)

Drop test, extended versions – I will drop every flashlight on a street 45 times:

30 from usual using height (1m):

• 10 on a head, bezel
• 10 on a side
• 10 on a tailcap 15 from a raised hand height (2m)
• 5 on a head, bezel
• 5 on a side
• 5 on a tailcap

With battery inside, turned on.

Before the test:

Flashlights don’t look good after 30 drops from 1m height, especially a bezel and a tailcap.

After a total of 45 drops, they look even worse.

The OTR M900 turned off at the 7th drop from 2 meters. This was the second side drop from the drop test. Unscrewing and screwing the head back on helped, but it was still a single-brightness flashlight. The lanyard holes in OTR were annihilated as well. The Xanes XT02 started to show a problem with its threads. The Convoy flashlight was still screwing pretty well, as usual.
Apart from the obvious UI problems of the OTR, it still looked the best of all 3. The front of the flashlight looks almost untouched, thanks to the stainless steel bezel. A SS bezel really helps, as you can see. The tailcap doesn’t look that bad either, much better than the other 2.

Conclusion: If you need a single-mode OTR M900, simply drop it several times.

Test 6: River drop test

A river drop test. I remembered from a while back that I once walked near a river and dropped my flashlight. That was a $70 flashlight with IPX8 waterproofness. It stopped working after this happened because water got inside and damaged the light. For this test I’d like to do the following: turn the flashlight on at max brightness and drop it into the river from about a ~ 3 m height. A nice hot flashlight into a cold river (10°C or 50°F). What could possibly go wrong?

Well, nothing really happened at all. None of them leaked or stopped working.

Conclusion: The $70 IPX8 “military” flashlight I once dropped in the river really was a waste of money.

Test 7: Reverse Polarity test

With this test, I will see if the flashlights keep working when I insert the battery the wrong way. Let’s see what happens if I turn them on and leave it for a few minutes. We’ll see what happens.

Conclusion: Nothing bad happened to either of them! Fail!

Test 8: Car drive over test

Just for fun/science. We’ll see which one is the toughest and the most crush resistant. I will do this test without a battery to see exactly how tough the host is.

Nothing happened as well…it seems a car is not a big deal for flashlights. It just means that most of these crash-test YouTube videos have no meaning. Even a $10 has no problem surviving.

Conclusion: Better avoid flashlights when driving.

Test 9: Final, hammer test

The final test. Well, if you had this size of a hammer, you’d probably want to do it too, right?
It’s about 5KG (11 pounds)

The flashlight will be set vertically, on the tailcap, and I will drop this hammer from exactly 150cm height.

To show you its weight and impact, I will drop it from a 30cm height on this little rock.

The rock was completely crushed. Let’s see what it does to a flashlight.

Results after 1 drop:

I think the lens of the OTR M900 broke because there is an SS bezel that touches the lens. It probably transferred the force directly onto the glass lens. The SS bezel is really sturdy by the way, after our initial 45 drops and even after the hammer drop test it still looks pretty good.

I’ve done some calculations on the impact, and this level of damage to the flashlights could be achieved by dropping a flashlight (with battery inside) from a height of about 61 meters/ 200 feet.

Conclusion: If you are looking for a right-angle Convoy S2+, use a sledgehammer.

PS. all 3 lights are still working. The only problem is inserting a 18650 battery.. LOL

The Winner

Before:

After:

Winner: Xanes XT02

So I have to announce the winner? I think the Xanes flashlight performed the best overall. It is cheap, has been least scratched, looks bad after the drop test, but so do all the flashlights, and looks the best after the hammer drop test.
The second place is for Convoy – cheap as well, performed similarly to Xanes, but a bit better in my opinion.
The last place goes to the OTR M900 – it is twice as expensive, and overall performed the worst. The stainless steel bezel was the key to not looking completely terrible. The User Interface doesn’t work properly anymore after the drop test, and it also leaked. Thank you for being here, I hope you enjoyed it. If so, we are planning to make another destruction review.