JKK76

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JKK76 review

JKK76 specifications

Brand/modelJKK76
Flashlight categoryLumen monster / all-around
LED7*SFN55.2
Max. output33,000 Lumens
Max. beam distanceN/A
Max. beam intensityN/A
Battery config.3*21700
Onboard chargingUSB-C
Modes5
BlinkiesStrobe, SOS
WaterproofIPX6
Review dateDecember 2022

Introduction:

The flashlight for review was touted as the brightest flashlight below $100, so I got one. It’s supposed to be 33,000 lumens and for this price, must be on our list of ‘brightest flashlights’, but that really depends on our tests. It was bought at Kaidomain, a flashlight website with a large variety of bits and pieces, including drivers, lenses, springs, gaskets, drop-ins, o-rings, LEDs (and lots of them), etc. If you enjoy upgrading/modding flashlights, you really should have a look at Kaidomain.

Kaidomain has been around since 2006, so they have lots of experience with flashlights. They are also one of the few stores that sell good quality, yet affordable P60 hosts and dropins. Something not many new flashlight users ever heard of. Unfortunately, they aren’t very active (at the moment) in the flashlight communities. If they were, they would have been much more popular.

I’m not sure if the JKK76 is their own brand though. Also, is JKK76 the brand name, model name, or both?

Package quality.

Okay, what kind of packaging can you expect from a $100 flashlight with 33,000 lumens? Where did they cut corners? Is it the packaging?

The packaging is adequate, and for the price, you shouldn’t really expect anything more than a carton box with some accessories. And that’s precisely what you got. A brown cardboard box with the following:

  • The flashlight: JKK76
  • USB-A to USB-C cable
  • USB-C to USB-C cable
  • Lens cleaning cloth
  • Spare O-rings
  • Paper with product specifications

Flashlight in use

The JKK76 (is that the model number or the brand name?) is fairly short, with a wide battery tube, and likely falls in the soda-can lights category. It has a wide battery tube that is housing 3*21700 batteries, and a large head with a beautiful stainless steel bezel. Boy, that stainless steel bezel makes it look so much better than a black anodized aluminum bezel.

Even though the battery is relatively short, it’s not too short to hold it comfortably. And the switch is positioned in a relatively convenient place, where you can rest your thumb on. And on the opposite side you can find a USB-C charging port.

The tailcap is large and flat, with the following text printed on it. 15,000mAh*3.7V=55.5wH.

But because of the flat tailcap, you can make it tailstand easily, and very stable. But something I am a bit missing on these high-power flashlights is a tripod mount. That would make it even more useful, to light up a large area, while working or playing, without holding the flashlight.

It has an e-switch with 2 different UIs… which I will explain later. And because of the cutouts in the head, it helps to stay on a slightly inclined surface and doesn’t roll around. So that’s helpful.

This type of light can be used in many scenarios. From camping to doing some chores around the house. If it had a tripod mount, it could even be more useful.

Build Quality, and Warranty

The fit and finish of the JKK76 are pretty good. It has a nice black matte finish (anodization), and no sharp edges. You can open it up without any difficulty. There is no Loctite or glue on anything.

One thing that I didn’t understand was the way it is built. When you remove the tailcap, you can see a piece of aluminum. This can’t be moved, so I unscrewed the battery tube. Then I realized that the aluminum plate I saw was actually the rear end of the battery adapter.

And that brings me to the question: why is there a tailcap? If you can’t access anything from the rear, the tailcap is kind of useless?

Anyway, the battery adapter can not be removed, since it is attached to the head! That means there should be less resistance and result in a higher maximum output. We’ll find out if that is true.

The springs in the adapter are things and look gold-plated. Not sure how ‘good’ they are, though. I usually don’t care and just test the output and runtime to see how well everything is designed and put together.

If you break something by opening up the flashlight, it’s not very clear whether this is covered by warranty. Their website (Kaidomain.com) has a question in the ‘Returns’ section asking whether you opened up the flashlight. But there are no further details.

LED, Lens, Bezel, Beam, and Reflector

The JKK76 is claiming an output of 33,000 lumens with 7 LEDs. That means that each emitter should provide almost 5,000 lumens each.

5,000 lumens per LED is a lot in a flashlight, but not unheard of. The CREE XHP70.2 is able to do that, as well as the Luminus SBT90.2. But besides those, there aren’t that many options available for flashlights until recently. About 1 or 2 years ago, an unknown Chinese LED manufacturer started producing high power LEDs. They included the SF, SFN, and SFQ LEDs, and some are able to produce more than 5,000 lumens. Some even much more than just 5,000.

The only problem with them is: Who is the manufacturer, and why don’t these LEDs perform the same consistently? There are no data sheets available for these LEDs.

At the moment, you get 2 LED options for the JKK76. 1 is the Luminus SFT-40’s (which has a lower output, but throws far), and one with the SFN55’s (which is more powerful, but doesn’t throw as far).

The one I am reviewing is the 7*SFN55 version with 6500K (cold white).

All 7 LEDs are perfectly centered in semi-deep reflectors. These reflectors have an orange-peel finish to smoothen out any strange artifacts or rainbow colors.

In front of the reflector sits a glass lens with purple AR coating, and a stainless steel bezel for maximum safety.

I used the Opple Light Master to measure the beam temperature as well as the CRI Ra, and calculated the DUV. These are just averages. They can be a few percent higher/lower depending on the several factors.

This is what I got for the Low setting:

  • CCT:5604K
  • CRI Ra: 65.1
  • DUV: -0.0025

And for Turbo mode:

  • CCT: 6002K
  • CRI Ra: 67.7
  • DUV: 0.0032

This means that the beam is pretty cold, but not too cool, and that there is an average (low) CRI.

The reflectors do a pretty good job in making the beam look pretty smooth. There is definitely a hotspot in the beam, but the transition from hotspot to spill is nice and smooth.

And on top of that, the mid-deep reflectors and domeless LEDs also produce a nice throw! But I will share all those details in the performance section below.

Dimensions and size comparison

Dimensions: 

JKK76MillimetersInches
Length133 mm5.2 in
Head diameter76 mm3 in
Tailcap diameter53 mm2.1 in

Dimensions are rounded to the nearest millimeter, and to the nearest tenth of an Inch.

Weight

JKK76Weight in gramsWeight in oz.
Without battery:499 g17.6 oz
With battery704 g24.8 oz

Kaidomain says it is weighing 690 grams without batteries, that’s totally incorrect.

Weight is rounded to the nearest gram, and to the nearest tenth of an Oz.

JKK76 flashlight comparison

Size compared to other high-power flashlights

Group 1, from left to right: Emisar D18, Acebeam X80 GT2, Acebeam X50, JKK76, Olight Marauder 2, Imalent MS12 Mini

Driver & User Interface:

The JKK76 uses 2 user interfaces. 1 with clicks and the other with ramping. To change modes in the stepped menu, you do clicks. But to change the brightness in the ramping mode is a long press. The mix of these types of actions can be confusing.

Available main modes:

  • Low, Medium, High, Ultra High, Turbo

Available special modes (blinkies):

  • Strobe
  • SOS
ClickOFF stepped mode menu:OFF ramping mode menu:
Single click:turn on (another click runs through the menu)turn on (another click turns the light off)
Double clickTurbo (1 more click to go back to last used mode)activates strobe (but doesn’t turn on the strobe yet… strange…. have to longpress to change to other blinky, and another long press back to normal modes)
3-clicksswitching UI menus.. (ramping and stepped UI)switching UI menus.. (ramping and stepped UI)
4-clicksLockout modeLockout mode
Long pressnothingnothing
ClickON stepped mode menu:ON ramping mode menu:
Single clickrunning through the mode from Low to Highturns off
Double clickTurboStrobe
3-clicksStrobenothing
4-clicksnothingnothing
Long pressturns offramping up or down, depending on how fast you clicks between them 2. Blinks at lowest and highest output.

Shortcuts:

  • To Turbo: double click from Off in Stepped mode
  • To Low: not that I know
  • To Strobe: double click from ON in ramping mode

Mode memory:

  • Yes, even strobe.

Blinky modes menu:

  • Yes. (very strange).. Ramping mode: when activated you have to long-press to change to SOS, and another to get back to Normal ramping again.. If you just do a single click, the flashlight turns off, and another click will go back to strobe again… quite unusual, and not very well thought through.

Low battery warning:

  • The switch is backlit. Voltage <2.8V red flashing. Below 2.7V shuts down

Lock-out mode:

  • 4 clicks

PWM:

  • Not visible by eye

Firmware / UI Conclusion:

What I don’t like about the UI:

  1. Double click in Ramping menu will activate strobe
  2. When Strobe is activated in Ramping mode; a single click will just turn the light off. When you put it back on, it just returns to Strobe..
  3. Lockout mode is 4 clicks from off… But you can’t deactivate lockout mode with 4 clicks. Lol… A very long press is required to deactivate the lockout mode.
  4. You can’t just unscrew the battery to cut the connection and turn the light back on in ‘normal’ mode when you entered strobe mode by accident. You have to turn it on, have the strobe mode working, and long press to go to SOS, and another long press to go back to normal light mode.
  5. 3 clicks from off to change between menus is nice, but since it’s so easy, but the way both UIs differ makes it harder to
  6. When turned off in Ramping mode: a double click will secretly activate Strobe but won’t turn the light on. The next click it will turn on in Strobe.

Batteries & Charging

I figured out that the flashlight can function as a power bank as well, so that’s a nice surprise. Nothing is mentioned about the powerbank feature on the Kaidomain website.

Anyway, the flashlight was delivered with 2 USB charging cables. 1 is a USB-A to USB-C (likely for charging), and 1 is a USB-C to USB-C for (dis)charging (powerbank).

While charging, the voltage goes up to 9V and charging at 2A+, so that’s almost 19 watts. That’s not too bad. So, hats off to this. Also, while charging, the indicator LED in the switch switches between green and red until the battery/batteries are fully charged. The end voltage is about 4.22V, which is a bit high.

Discharging isn’t as fast, but I charged my phone (which was still 85%) at around 1.2A (max), but soon dropped to below 1A.

Even though there are 3 battery slots, you can also just use 1 because they are used in parallel. I know that’s not a very good idea with high-power lights, but it’s good to know, in case of an emergency, for example. The battery adapter is attached to the head/driver, so can’t be removed. (Never seen this before).

Keep in mind that only short, unprotected 21700 batteries will fit. Longer, protected, or ones with a USB port won’t fit!

Performance test

This is the gear I used for testing:

GearPurposeLink to buy
Hagner E4-XMeasuring beam intensity (throw)Inquire at Hagner.se
Extech SDL400Lumens and logging runtimesAmazon.com, Amazon.co.uk,
Leica Disto D2Distance for throw measurementsAmazon.com, Amazon.co.uk,
Asensetek Lighting Passport Pro StandardSpectrometer for LED measurements

Lumen measurements:

The output measurements in this review are based on my homemade integrating spheres, each equipped with an Extech SDL400 Lux Meter. For consistency and accuracy, a calibration light (Convoy S2+ with 249lm and a Convoy S2+ with 261lm) is measured prior to each set of lumen measurements.
For high-output lights, one of the lux meters uses an ND camera filter to prevent the lux meter to max out. This is either the Kenko PRO1D ND16 up till about 80,000 lumens or Gobe ND32 for anything above.

All of my readings were taken with 3 fully-charged Samsung 30T. And I also tested with 3*Samsung 50G’s and they didn’t perform as well as the 30T’s at turn on, but didn’t change that much after 30 seconds.

The measurements were taken manually at turn on and 30 seconds. The 10 minute numbers are taken from the runtime graph.

ModeSpecifiedturn on30 sec10 minutes
Low300 lm182 lm183 lm183 lm
Med1,000 lm575 lm576 lm572 lm
High2,800 lm1,915 lm1,909 lm1,860 lm
Ultra High5,500 lm4,645 lm4,595 lm1,351 lm
Turbo33,000 lm22,499 lm18,870 lm1,371 lm
Turbo with 3*50G batteries20,322 lm17,363 lm

This is not close to specs at all. I know many small manufacturers exaggerate their claims to sell more. And that’s exactly why 1Lumen exists. We test flashlights to see whether their claims are correct and trustworthy. But 33,000 lumens is just impossible. Even with one of the best high-discharge batteries on the market.

The Samsung 21700 50G didn’t perform as good as the 30T’s, but it was only 10% less at turn on, and less after 30 seconds. Too less to notice a difference by eye.

I use rounded lumen numbers, except for maybe Low or Moonlight/Firefly modes.

JKK76 Battery life and runtime graphs

The runtime test was done with the 50cm home made integrating sphere, combined with the Extech SDL400 data logging Lux Meter.

Keep in mind I tested these with Samsung 30T, that only have 3,000mAh capacity. You should get better runtime with 5,000mAh batteries.

ModeSpecified runtimeMeasured runtime (ANSI FL1)Time till shut off
Low?18h 38min18h 38min
Med?6h 14min6h 14min
High?1h 55min2h 02min
Ultra High?2h 06min2h 13min
Turbo?1 minute2h 18min

Nor the website, nor the manual mentions anything about runtimes. So we shouldn’t expect anything extraordinary here. And I was correct. It’s a very powerful flashlight for $100, but don’t expect miracles.

Ultrahigh can do over 4,000 lumens for 8.5 minutes which is pretty nice. And High can do almost 2000 lumens for 2 hours.

ANSI FL1 standards: The runtime is measured until the light drops to 10% of its initial output (30 seconds after turning it on). This does not mean that the flashlight is not usable anymore. The last column shows how long the light actually works till it shuts off. If there is a + symbol, it means that the test was stopped at that particular point, but the light was actually still running. This happens on certain occasions, with certain drivers, firmware, or batteries.

JKK76 Peak beam intensity and beam distance measurements

Measurements were taken indoors at 5 meters with a Hagner E4-X Lux Meter. The measurements were done 30 seconds after turning on.

ModeSpecsMeasuredmetersyards
Low?1,200 cd69 m76 yd
Med?3,775 cd123 m134 yd
High?12,650 cd225 m246 yd
Ultra High?30,750 cd351 m384 yd
Turbo?125,250 cd708 m774 yd

Over 700 meters is not bad, but it’s only for a minute.

Extra info: Peak beam distance according to ANSI FL1 standards: The calculated value of distance in meters at which the flashlight produces a light intensity of 0.25 lux. (0.25 lux is about the brightness of a full moon shining on an object).

Beamshots

For the following beamshots, I used a Canon EOS 5D Mk2 with a 50mm lens. Manual settings: ISO1600, 1/4sec, F4, 5000K

The shed is about 65 meters / 71 yards away, and the reflective fence about 200 meters.

Compared to the following flashlights:

  • JKK76
  • Olight Marauder 2
  • Olight Marauder Mini
  • Lumintop GT3
  • Emisar D18

Disclaimer: I bought this flashlight with my own money. Nobody paid me to review this flashlight, nor have I been holding back on problems or defects. 

Final Verdict

Pros

  1. Only $100 for a 20K lumen flashlight
  2. Plenty bright at turn on
  3. 2 User interfaces: ramping and clicks/stepped
  4. Has a powerbank feature

Cons

  1. Lumen output exaggerated (but expected)
  2. No manual included
  3. Lockout activation and deactivation are 2 different actions. 4 clicks vs press and hold… confusing.
  4. Strobe is memorized.
  5. Double click in ramping menu activates strobe from off/on, and not Turbo as we would expect.

Explanation on star ratings:

1: Avoid: my phone flashlight would be a better choice – 2: Poor: significant defect or issues; almost unusable – 3: Average: some defects or issues; but still usable 4: Good: recommended (minor issues) – 5: Great: highly recommended

Reviewer Marco
Author: Marco

4 stars: ★★★★

If you just look at the price of the JKK76 in combination with the (actual) maximum output, this is pretty good. Performance wise, the JKK is not bad.

But there are a few things I don’t particularly enjoy. And just like a couple of my other recent reviews, it has to do with the UI. The user interface can make or break a flashlight. And the JKK has a few quircks. I would recommend reading the UI section before buying it, just so you know what is going on. You might be totally cool with this, and even prefer this type of UI. In that case, go and buy it.

Keeping in mind that it only costs $100, I will it give 4 stars, but with a different UI it would easily get 4.5 stars.

Buy JKK76 here

1lumen selects and reviews products personally. We may earn affiliate commissions through our links, which help support our testing.