Fenix PD36R

Fenix PD36R flashlight review

Intro Fenix PD36R rechargeable

I’m excited to start this review! I haven’t owned many Fenix flashlights, and the PD36R has drawn my attention since the older PD35 TAC has been many people’s favorite tactical flashlight for the last 3 or 4 years. The PD36R sport a 1600 Lumen Luminus SST40 LED and includes a USB-C connector to charge the included 21700 battery. In my opinion, this flashlight has all the potential to be a great all-rounder. We’ll have to see how it performs.
If you look at all the accessories it came with, I’m positively surprised. This amount of high-quality accessories I like a lot. I bought this flashlight on Aliexpress, but you can get them anywhere you want.

What you’ll get:

• Fenix PD36R
• Lanyard
• Holster
• USB-C charging cable
• Fenix 21700 battery
• Spare O-rings
• Deep carry pocket clip
• Warranty card
• Brochure

Brand / Model	Fenix PD36R
LED	SST40
Lumens	1600
Beam intensity	19977cd
Battery config.	1*21700
Material	Aluminum
Modes	5
Blinkies	Strobe
Reflector	smooth
Waterproof	IP68
Review date	October 2019

Handling of the light

The PD36R is a 21700 battery-type flashlight. This means that the diameter of the body is wider than your typical 18650 flashlights. The 2-way deep carry pocket clip lets you carry it the way you want. This kind of clip is definitely one you usually only find on a high-end flashlight. And the PD36R is one of them.

If you rather want to carry it on your belt, they even included a nice holster.
With the knurling, it doesn’t feel slippery at all, and the pocket clip adds some extra grip.

The PD36R has a forward clicky switch, which is the typical Tactical switch you can find on this type of light. It is used for power, and the side switch is used to change modes. The main switch can be used for morse coding and won’t change the output. If you hold it in the way I pictured below, you can use your pinky to change modes if you need to. This is not the easiest way to do it, but it will do.

The pocket clip is spray painted, but I don’t want to test its toughness. Most of the time I just break it.. and I feel like that is a waste of my money. lol.

Tail standing:

• Nope. This is not meant to be tail-standing

Build Quality, knurling, threads, and anodization

The anodization of the PD36R is spotless. Nothing to complain about the quality. The thing I don’t like so much is the shininess. It looks a little cheap IMHO. This doesn’t mean that the quality is subpar, it just means that it doesn’t look as good as Jetbeam’s anodization. That’s all.

The flashlight body has some knurling to increase grip. It’s not slippery at all. For the rest, it looks like many other kinds of aluminum torches…. ahum flashlights.

The PD36R has 2 main parts, the head, and the body. There is no tail cap. The switch is attached to the battery tube, and can not be separated. This means there are only 1 set of threads. Very nicely shaped, and with just a bit of lubrication. A little on the conservative side though.

LED, Lens, Bezel, and Reflector

This starts to get a little more exciting. Fenix decided to add a Luminus SST40 with a maximum output of 1600 lumens. Later more about the lumen part.
The bezel is lightly crenelated and glued, so I can’t take it apart. The glass is said to be “toughened ultra-clear glass lens with an anti-reflective coating”. Behind the glass lens, you find a smooth reflector. The Luminus SST40 is well centered.

Fenix doesn’t let you choose the tint, unlike the smaller manufacturers who let you choose the LED tint you like. Without the proper equipment, I can’t really tell the exact color temperature (Kelvin). The beam is a little greenish though.

Dimensions:

• Length PD36R:  139mm (  5.47″)
• Head diameter: 26.7 mm (  1.049″)
• Body diameter: 25 mm ( 0.98 “)

Weight: 

• Empty:  90 g (  3.17oz)
• With battery:  162.9g (  5.75oz)
• Fenix 21700 Battery: 72.8 grams  (2.57oz)

Tactical flashlights

Some of the best tactical flashlights compared.

From left to right: Wuben E19, Fenix PD35 TAC, Fenix PD36R, Thrunite TN12 v4, Nitecore MH25GTS, Olight Warrior X Pro, Fenix TK22 v2, Fenix TK30, and Jetbeam Jet TH20.

Driver & User Interface:

The Firmware is rather simple. The side-switch is used to change modes, going from Eco to Turbo. The tail switch is only used for power. The UI is rather simple.

Modes:

• Eco -Low – Med -High -Turbo
• Strobe

From OFF:

The side switch doesn’t do anything in the OFF position. The rear switch is a mechanical switch, so a double- or triple-click doesn’t do anything.

• Half-press rear switch: Momentarily turn on
• Full-click rear switch:  (to last used mode, mode memory)

From ON:

• Rear switch: Single-click:  OFF
• Side switch: Single-click: change mode
• Side switch: Double click: changes 2 modes
• Side switch: Press and Hold: STROBE

Blinky modes menu:

It only has a police strobe by pressing the side switch while the light is on.

Lock-out mode:

Fenix advises unscrewing the body from the head slightly to break the electrical contact. This will protect from any accidents that could happen.

PWM:

Yes, ECO mode has visible PWM when you swing the flashlight quickly. You don’t really notice it, except when there is a fast-moving object in the beam.

Firmware / UI Conclusion:

The UI is rather simple, and I would have liked to have a second switch on the rear end, just for direct-access to Strobe. You can definitely use it in 1 hand and still be able to access strobe, but you need to use your pinky. The other thing I kind of miss are shortcuts to Turbo and Eco mode.

Fenix PD36R charging

Fenix included a 21700 ARB-L21 lithium-ion battery. The only thing to keep in mind before using it is to take the plastic washer away. They even added a little notice, so you won’t forget this. See the picture below.

They added a protection board to the battery and therefore makes it too long for 99% of the battery chargers currently on the market. Thus you have to charge it inside the light, or get a 18650 charger with extra long bays! (Extra safety).

You should be able to use 18650 batteries when using a battery adapter. Fenix doesn’t provide one in the package, but some flashlight makers add one, just in case. But since this is supplied with a battery, I can totally understand they didn’t include an adapter.

On a side note: my Samsung 21700 40T (flat tops) don’t work because of the reverse polarity protection. The positive side doesn’t connect to the driver board because of this.

When you switch on the PD36R, the side switch LED will show the battery level by using 2 different colors. Red and Green.

• Solid green: 85%-100%
• Flashing green: 50%-85%
• Solid red: 25%-50%
• Flashing red: 1-25%

The manual states it can charge up to 3Amps. Be sure to have a high power USB charger. This will reduce charging times. 3A is really fast, but my USB charger can only supply 2 Amps. See the picture below.

When the battery finishes charging, the little LED indicator on the side of the head will turn green. The battery was at 4.23V after I took it out of the flashlight.

Performance:

All of my readings were taken from a fully charged Fenix 21700 ARV-L21. I recharged it between each test. I tested Amps with a Fluke 77III and original Fluke wires.

Amp measurement:

• Eco: 2mA
• Low:  21mA 
• Med:  55mA 
• High:   1.56A
• Turbo:  3.99A

Lumen measurements:

All output numbers are relative for my homemade integrated Sphere, set up with a Hagner E4-X Lux Meter for measurements. For extremely bright flashlights (above 5000 lumens) I am adding a Kenko PRO1D ND-16 filter. The base measurement is done with a Convoy S2+ that has been tested at 137 lumens.

		MFG	My measurements
Fenix PD36R	Eco	30	24,95 Lumens
Using the original 21700 Fenix battery	Low	150	150,76 Lumens
	Med	350	368,63 Lumens
	High	800	844,56 Lumens
	Turbo	1600	1760,64 Lumens

Runtime:

From the runtime graph, we can see that Turbo doesn’t last so long and drops to 1000 lumens at 5:45 minutes. From 20 minutes onwards it produces a constant output of about 800 lumens. This lasts till 2 hours and 30 minutes. The PD36R starts dropping to 300 lumens at about 2 hours and 33 minutes.  At 2.43 hours it drops to 100 lumens. 2:53 hours it drops… this lasts at least for another 1 hour.

Throw measurement:

Measurements were taken indoors with the Skytronic LX-101 Lux meter. Unfortunately, the measured numbers were way over the stock numbers so I decided to do another test, using the professional Hagner EX-4 Lux meter, whose numbers were much closer to the Fenix numbers. I may return to using just the Hagner for Lumen en Throw measuring instead of using the Hagner just for Lumens and the Skytronic for measuring throw.  Measured with the Hagner EX-4
Turbo mode:

• Indoors (5m):  24500 cd = 313 meters / 0.195 miles
• Outdoors (10m): 21100 cd = 291 meters / 0.18 miles

Fenix claims 19,977 cd, so outdoors at 10 meters is relatively close to the claimed beam intensity. This shows that even measuring at 5 meters is unreliable.

21700 tactical flashlight comparison

Single 21700 tactical flashlights measured: These numbers are NOT from the specifications but measured by our team.

Flashlight	Battery	Max Output (lm)	@30sec (lm)	Candela (cd)	Distance (m)
Acebeam L18	Acebeam IMR21700NP-510A	1249	1051	215,500	928
Acebeam L19	Acebeam IMR21700NP-510A	1378	1242	430,300	1312
Acebeam L35	Acebeam 5100 mAh	6189	5609	57,000	477
Brinyte T18	Brinyte 5000	556	–	144,200	759
Cyanksy K3	Cyansky BL12150U	1456	–	95,100	617
Cyanksy P25	Cyansky 5000	4236	3300	11,275	212
Fenix PD36 Tac	Fenix ARB-L21-5000U	2590	2079	18,675	273
Fenix TK16 v2	Fenix ARB-L21-5000U	2657	2222	40,900	404
Fenix TK22 TAC	Fenix ARB-L21-5000U	2742	2234	72,250	538
Fenix TK22 v2	Fenix ARB-L21	1622	1592	53,000	460
Jetbeam PC20	Samsung 40T	1800	–	13,900	236
Nitecore MH12S	Nitecore NL2150	1770	–	30,400	349
Nitecore MH25S	Nitecore NL2150	1979	1850	68,400	523
Nitecore P10iX	Nitecore NL2150HPi	4223	566	8,700	187
Nitecore P20i	Nitecore NL2140i	1690	–	36,000	379
Nitecore P20i UV	Nitecore NL2140i	1785	1699	29,400	343
Nitecore P20iX	Nitecore NL2150HPi	4119	1342	16,000	253
Olight Warrior 3	Olight ORB-217C50	2598	2428	25,500	319
Olight Warrior M2R PRO	Olight ORB-217C50	2088	1985	28,000	335
Olight Odin	Olight ORB-217C50	1999	1884	25,750	321
Olight Warrior X Pro	Olight ORB-217C50	–	2334	101,000	636

Interactive runtime graph

Below are interactive comparison graphs of some of these tactical lights. Hover your mouse to see more details. If you use a mobile device, hold your phone horizontally.

In the following graph, we zoomed in to show the differences better. It shows a better picture of these lights within the first 10 minutes after turn on.

Beamshots

The camera was set manually for each set of shots. This includes Aperture, White Balance, Exposure and Focus.
The first set of shots are at a garage that is about 30 meters away (the exposure on the camera was set manually, and looks a bit dim. But the differences are better noticeable!

Final verdict

Pros:

1. A great number of accessories, including a high quality 21700 battery
2. Simple UI
3. Great runtime
4. Good output

Cons

1. No shortcuts to Turbo, Eco or Strobe

Overall Rating: Excellent ★★★★★

I am giving the Fenix PD36R is the full 5-stars, since it has all the right ingredients. The emitter choice is good, it has a lot of nice accessories including a 2-way pocket clip, 21700 battery, and it has a built-in USB-C fast charger. The whole set makes it a great flashlight to gift to someone because there is no need to buy a dedicated lithium-ion charger! This saves cost and trouble. Highly recommended.