Lumintop GT3 Pro

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Lumintop GT3 Pro specifications

Brand/model	Lumintop GT3 Pro
LED	3*SFH55
Max. Lumens	n/a
Max. Beam intensity / distance	n/a
Battery config.	3*21700
Onboard charging	USB-C
Modes	Anduril (many)
Blinkies	Anduril (many)
Reflector	OP
Waterproof	n/a
Review date	May 2022

Lumintop has a pretty deep line-up, especially when they notice that a particular product is catching on. They picked up production of the now-famous FW3A and it sold like hotcakes. So what do we have now? About 100 (ok, maybe not but close) iterations of the FW3A in different sizes, materials, emitter choices, and battery configurations. The BLF GT is no different. If it works, make several variations and see what sticks, right? Ok, so Lumintop has us flashlight enthusiasts figured out. Yes, some of us will buy every version of a product. So when the Lumintop GT3 has been out for a while, you know what that means – yes, there’s now a “Pro” version!

Like the original Lumintop GT3, the GT3 Pro is a triple-emitter, high-lumen, soda-can style of light. So where the GT3 put out “only” 18,000 lumens using the “old school” 18650 batteries, the GT3 Pro ups the ante with new-fangled SFH55 emitters that can make a crazy amount of lumens, paired now with 3x 21700 batteries. All of that makes for an immense amount of light in something not too much larger than your (American) 12 oz. soda can. Intrigued yet? Me too.

Package quality.

This GT3 appears to be a pre-production sample, so the packaging isn’t what it would ship with. It arrived in cardboard box from a different flashlight and contained:

• Lumintop GT3 Pro

Yup, that’s it. No manual, no lanyard, nothing. But it’s a sample, so I am not going to complain. I’m sure the production packaging will contain all of the usual goodies.

Being a soda-can style light utilizing three 21700, the Lumintop GT3 Pro is definitely a chunker. It’s big, it’s bold. It’s very grippable, but certainly fills up my medium-sized hand. There is a single e-switch on the side of the head and resting my thumb on it feels pretty natural. The switch sits in a recess that might help discourage accidental activations.

The tailcap is very flat and it tail-stands perfectly and is really stable. Opposite the button is a tripod mounting spot which comes with a stainless lanyard attachment stud in the hole. There’s also a lanyard attachment hole built into the light head itself right below the tripod hole.

So… what would you use a Lumintop GT3 Pro for? Well, It’s really good at providing temporary blindness for one – it should go without saying, but don’t look at the end of this thing while it’s on! In that vein, I suppose blinding a would-be attacker could be a legitimate use. Or lighting up an entire sports field. Outdoors security checks. Impressing your friends. Annoying your neighbors. Being a soda-can light, it’s certainly not EDC material. I suppose you could take it to walk your dog with, especially if running into trouble is a distinct possibility.

The Lumintop GT3 Pro is machined out of aluminum and then hard-anodized. Without a manual, I don’t really have specs about the exact anodizing process, but it seems to be well executed – very clean, smooth, and even.  

The body tube and tailcap don’t have knurling, per se. There is a pattern cut into them that is big and beefy, just like the rest of the light. It actually reminds me a bit of tire tread. The machining is really well done. The GT3 Pro seems purposefully chunky and yet refined.

Lumintop’s warranty policy is as follows (as copied from their website):

• 30 days free replacement: Lumintop will replace or repair products with manufacturing defects within 30 days of purchase.
• 5 years free repair: Lumintop will repair the products free of charge within 5 years (accessories 1 year, products with built-in battery 2 years)of purchase if problems develop with normal use.
• Lifetime warranty: If repair is required after the guaranty period, we’ll charge for parts accordingly.
• This warranty does not cover normal wear or tear, abuse, force majeure damage, or defaults by human factors.

Again, without a manual or online product page being made available yet, I had to do a bit of digging to identify exactly what we’re dealing with here. As best as I can tell, the Lumintop GT3 Pro is running three of the new-fangled Chinese LEDs called SFH55. These are big, domeless 11 x 10 mm LEDs with 16 individual dies crammed together on each substrate. It’s ridiculously high-power especially considering that it’s a 3V LED; like an even nuttier SBT90.2. On paper, the SFH55 is claimed to be able to hit 14,200 lumens at 62 amps. And that’s just for a single LED; the GT3 Pro has 3 of them!

The LEDs are centered in a clover-shaped orange-peel reflector. That is protected by a thick piece of glass and held in place by a stainless bezel ring which has a cool looking swirl pattern machined into it.

While I’m thoroughly impressed with just how much light these SFH55 LEDs can produce, I’m not too enthused about the color temperature: an icy ~8400K.

Measurements from Opple Light Master:

• CCT: 8392K
• CRI: 73.6
• DUV: -0.0078

Dimensions: 

Dimension	Millimeters	Inches
Length	159	6.3
Head diameter	68	2.7
Body diameter	51	2.0

Weight: 

Weight	Grams	Oz.
Without battery:	618	21.8
With battery (3x Samsung 40T)	827	29.2

Flashlight size comparison with its competition

Soda-can triples, left to right: ThruNite TN36 Limited, Lumintop GT3 Pro, Convoy 3x21A

“Soda cans”, left to right: actual soda can, Lumintop GT3 Pro

The firmware used in this light is known as Anduril. Here is our default description:

Check out the full Anduril UI manual here.

From OFF:

• Single-click: ON
• Double click: High
• 3 clicks: Battery check
• 4 clicks: Lock Out
• 5 clicks: Momentary On
• 6 clicks: Muggle mode

Enter Special/Fun modes from OFF:

• 2 clicks + hold: Strobe modes (Click, Click, Click and hold)
• 4 clicks: Lock Out mode (momentary on: dim)
• 5 clicks: momentary mode (Bright) ( you can only deactivate by breaking electrical contact between the batteries and the driver by unscrewing the body from the head.
• 6 clicks: Muggle mode

From ON:

• Single-click: Off
• Double click: Turbo
• 3 clicks: change ramping mode. Instead of a smooth increase, it has 6 little steps between Low and Max.
• 4 clicks: ramping configuration mode (Problematic if you make some changes here by accident)
• Press and hold: brightness ramps up.. release and press and hold again to ramp down.

SPECIAL AND FUN MODES: 

Read the full manual on how to access and customize these modes. Also, see the firmware picture.

• Blinky Utility mode: 
  • Battery check
  • Sunset Mode
  • Beacon mode
  • Temperature check
• Strobe / Mood modes:
  • Candle
  • Bike flasher
  • Party strobe
  • Tactical Strobe
  • Lightning mode
• Lockout mode (can’t use the light) (activate by 4 clicks)
• Momentary mode (signaling/morse coding)
• Muggle mode: (safer for children)
• Configuration mode
• Ramp config mode

LOCK OUT FEATURE:

• From OFF: 4 clicks. To deactivate click another 4 times.

When I first removed the battery tube from the Lumintop GT3 Pro, I had a bit of an “ohh no!” moment. It was clear that the GT3 Pro needed 3 button-top 21700 batteries. And I knew they had to be very high-drain. I didn’t have anything that quite fit the bill.  I initially tried putting neodymium magnets on the ends of some flat-top batteries, but the rotation of reassembling the GT3 Pro made the magnets slip out of place. I ended up getting three Samsung 40T flat-top batteries and adding solder blobs. That worked out perfectly.

If you remove the tailcap of the GT3 Pro, you don’t get access to the batteries. Rather, it reveals two ports: a USB-C and a full-sized USB-A port. There is also an LCD display for showing the charging/discharging voltage and current. This appears to be similar (or the same?) setup as what Marco saw in the Lumintop Thor Pro. I used the USB-C (PD 3.0) port to charge the batteries with a 33-watt USB-C charger. It began charging at 12.0 volts and 1.2 amps, so about 15 watts. It took around 3 hours and 15 minutes to charge the batteries.

I tried charging my phone (a Pixel 6) using the USB-C port. It started out at 5.2 V and 2.0 A, then after a minute it switched up to 9.2 V and 1.5 A, so around 15 watts. Having this power bank functionality, especially with the built-in LCD screen, is a nice plus.

If there’s one gripe that I tend to see come up about built-in charging, it’s the port covers. People complain that they’re obtrusive, don’t open or close easily enough, or that they decrease water resistance. Lumintop’s design here bypasses all of that by protecting the ports under the tailcap, which is sealed off with o-rings.

One odd thing I noticed is that the tailcap has brass contacts mounted in it. These appear to be a hold-over from another design and don’t add any functionality to the GT3 Pro. I’m guessing that’s just part of this being a pre-production light. I would doubt those end up in the final product.

Lux was measured by a UNI-T UT383 BT at 10 meters. Lumens were measured in a homemade lumen tube using a TSL2591 sensor, calibrated with a Maukka calibration light. The temperature was monitored with a MLX90614 IR temperature sensor. Three solder-blobbed Samsung 40T batteries were used.

Without having any provided information about the GT3 Pro, I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect for performance.  And that also means that I can’t compare against published specs at the moment since there aren’t any.

Lumen measurements (for each mode)

Mode	Specs	turn on	30 sec	10 minutes
Level 1	–	0.3	0.3
Level 2	–	6.8	6.8
Level 3	–	34	34
Level 4	–	204	203
Level 5	–	4,713	4,542	4,136
Level 6	–	10,520	10,040	1,080
Level 7	–	19,000	16,720	720
Turbo, non-cooled, 45°C thermal limit		28,028	23,347 lm	556
Turbo, fan cooled, 45°C thermal limit		27,767	15,502	2,723
Turbo, fan cooled, 60°C thermal limit		27,762	22,591	4,461
Turbo, fan cooled, 70°C thermal limit		28,089	22,832	5,650

Parasitic drain:

• 70 µA

Runtime graph

As I imagined when I saw three high-power SFH55 LEDs, this thing has the ability to put out a TON of light. Of course, the LEDs are also power hungry and generate an intense amount of heat. Pretty much no matter what you do, the GT3 Pro is going to start ramping down from Turbo within the first minute or so. I ran several tests, especially on Turbo, with and without a cooling fan and with Anduril’s thermal limit set to different points (the default 45°C and also at 60°C and 70°C). As many high-power lights get way hotter than 45°C, I didn’t think it was fair to just test that default setting and call it a day.

With setting the thermal limit higher and introducing a fan, the GT3 is pretty impressive. But with it’s stock 45°C setting and no fan, it drops down to a laughable 70 lumens for quite a while before stabilizing around 800 lumens. Not that 800 lumens is dim, but in comparison to the 28,000 lumens that this can make at turn-on, it’s a bit sad.

Mode	Specified	Measured runtime
Level 6	–	3 hr 41 min
Level 7	–	3 hr 41 min
Turbo, non-cooled, 45°C thermal limit	–	4 hr 46 min
Turbo, fan cooled, 45°C thermal limit	–	1 hr 17 min
Turbo, fan cooled, 60°C thermal limit	–	45 min
Turbo, fan cooled, 70°C thermal limit	–	34 min

These runtimes aren’t true ANSI “time to 10% of the output measured at 30 seconds” times.  Because of Anduril’s thermal regulation, that time would be less than 2 minutes for most of the runtimes.  So instead of that, I grabbed the time that a noticeable low-voltage drop happened towards the end of the run – not a thermal-induced drop-down.

Throw numbers: 

Throw was tested at 10 meters with my UNI-T UT383 BT

Mode	Specs	Candela measured	Meters	Yards
Level 6 @ 0 sec	–	63,700	505	552
Level 6 @ 30 sec	–	55,600	472	516
Level 7 @ 0 sec	–	115,400	679	743
Level 7 @ 30 sec	–	103,700	644	704
Turbo @ 0 sec	–	156,000 cd	790	864
Turbo @ 30 sec	–	128,000 cd	715	782

Post-review notes: after the review was complete, I tried dismantling the head a bit. The bezel on mine wasn’t glued, so it was really easy to get to the emitters. Lumintop went a bit overboard and you can see they doubled up the wires going to the MCPCB. I pulled the switch out and from what I can peek inside, it looks like the LED shelf is pretty thick. I removed the reverse threaded brass retaining ring and tried to see if the driver would drop out, but it didn’t want to unless I removed the LED wires. At the moment I didn’t have the time or gumption to de-solder the LED wires, so I made what observations I could and then put everything back together.  Based on my sample, it looks like you could reasonably take the GT3 Pro apart and flash an updated build of Anduril (2) if you’d like.

The farm shed in these beamshots is 100 meters (109 yards) away. Pictures were taken with my Pixel 3 using ƒ/1.8, ⅕ second exposure time, and ISO200.

• Lumintop GT3 Pro
• Astrolux MF01X
• Convoy 3x21A

Disclaimer: This flashlight was sent to me for review at no cost by Nealsgadgets. I have not been paid to review, nor have I been holding back on problems or defects.