Lumintop EDC AA

I hadn’t watched the specifications before I opened up the head. The LED looked a little unfamiliar, and not without a reason. According to the specifications, we are talking about an Osram GW PUSRA1.PM LED with a temperature of 6500K.

The bezel is made of the same materials as the flashlight itself, namely aluminum. There is no reflector but it uses a TIR optic with a flower-shaped pattern. You won’t notice this in the beam because it has a very uniform beam without any real artifacts.

• Length:  91.3 mm / 3.59”
• Head + body diameter:  17 mm /  0.67”

Weight: 

• Empty:  23.7 g /  0.84 oz
• With Eneloop AA battery: 50.1 g / 1.77 oz

EDC flashlights

Size compared to other EDC flashlights and other small flashlights:
Image 1: From left to right: Lumintop EDC AA, Lumintop Tool AA 2.0

Image 2: Eneloop AA battery, Enogear AA, Lumintop EDC AA, Lumintop Tool AA 2.0, Lumintop EDC05

Available modes:

• Low, Medium, High, Turbo
• Strobe

The switch is a forward clicky, which is a little uncommon in this size and type of flashlight. Tapping the switch will change modes, while a full click will lock the mode.

From OFF:

• Half-press: momentary light (quick half-pressing for changing modes)
• 6 half presses: strobe
• Single-click:  On (last used mode)

From ON:

• Half-press: Cycle through the menu from Low to High
• Single-click:  Off

Mode memory:

• Yes

Blinky modes menu:

• It has only 1 blinky mode, namely strobe. To enter strobe mode is not easy. It requires 6 quick taps, and that’s the difficulty. One side I like that strobe is difficult to reach. At the same time, for people liking to use strobe, it’s not very easy to enter.

Low battery warning:

• When the battery is really low, the light starts blinking. It continues blinking till the very last bit of energy. The problem however is the lack of a low voltage protection, at least for NiMH batteries.

The Lumintop EDC AA has no built in charge system, so you need to use your own if you use NiMH batteries. Alkaline batteries will fit and can run for a very very long time on the lowest output, but I don’t recommend using Alkaline batteries, except for emergencies. There are just too many instances where Alkaline batteries leaked and damaged the flashlight.

Running on a 14500 is also doable, but it will only work with button top batteries. Flat tops won’t work because there is a physical reverse polarity safety feature.

There is no Low Voltage Protection for NiMH batteries, which is an issue. When left unattended, the battery just keep getting drained. At a certain voltage, the flashlight starts turning on and off. The lower the voltage, the longer the time is in between. This can take up to many seconds of no light and a few seconds of light.

After I did the runtime tests with an Eneloop battery, I measured between 0.8 V and 0.84V. That is pretty low for a NiMH battery, and some chargers will not start charging this battery. The Duracell alkaline battery I used was down to 0.68V. The Duracell battery kept running at an extremely low output for 3 nights in a row. (I switched the light off during the day, and used it as a night light for the kids). But those kinds of runtimes are not interesting to watch.

Lumen measurements:

All output numbers are relative to my homemade Integrating Sphere. It is set up with an Extech SDL400 Lux Meter for measurements including a Kenko PRO1D ND-16 filter. The base measurement is done with a Convoy S2+ that has been tested at 255 lumens.

I measured amps with a Fluke 77III at the tailcap.

The battery used is the Eneloop AA standard, 1900mAh.

Lumen output on a Duracell Alkaline battery: measured vs manufacturers rating.

The battery used is the Olight 14500

Runtime:

The runtime test was done with the 50cm integrating sphere, including the Kenko Pro1D ND-16 filter and Extech SDL400 data logging Lux Meter. I measure the following runtime graphs with an Eneloop 1900mAh.

From the runtime graph, we can see that Turbo has a sudden drop within the first minute and then lasts for about 1 hour and 48 minutes when it drops instantly to 3 lumens. The runtime tests are stopped when the flashlight starts to blink (turning on and off every X seconds)

Here is a close up of the runtime graph in the first 1 minute

Next up is the runtime graph with an Eneloop battery compared to a Duracell Alkaline battery. Both didn’t finish the runtime completely. You can see that the Eneloop battery has a much longer runtime in Turbo but started at roughly the same output. This shows that Eneloops can maintain a higher Voltage and Amperage for a more extended period of time.

The Duracell battery worked for three more nights at a very low output, and turning on and off as part of the low voltage protection? Unfortunately, there isn’t a real low voltage protection, so you will damage your NiMH batteries when left unattended for a few days turned on. The NiMH Eneloop battery was roughly between 0.8V and 0.84V after the runtimes, while the Duracell was at 0.68V after 3 nights of use. This means that there is a Low Voltage Warning (blinking) but not a Low Voltage Protection that stops the light from running. This could be a good thing in some circumstances since you get every slight drop of energy out of the battery but at the cost of reduced cycle life.

I also tested it with a 14500 Olight battery, with 750mAh.

Turbo drops rapidly, but its output isn’t bad at all. The runtime is roughly 47 minutes. It then drops to about 2 lumens and continues to glow for more than 2 hours. I stopped the runtime test at that point and the remaining voltage was 2.88V.

Throw Measurement

Measurements were taken indoors with a professional Hagner E4-X Lux Meter at 2 meters and 5 meters.

For the following beamshots, I used a Canon EOS 5D Mk2 and a 50mm lens. manual settings: ISO1600, 0.25sec , F4, 5000K. The wall is about 4 meters away from the flashlights.