Lumintop Petal

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Lumintop Petal specifications

Brand/model	Lumintop Petal
Flashlight category	Throw / EDC
LED	LEP (shine through)
Max. output	250 lm (LEP), 300lm (LED AUX), 500lm (combined)
Max. beam distance	1056 meters
Max beam intensity	279,000 cd
Battery config.	1*18350
Onboard charging	No
Modes	2 LEP, 2 LED, 1 Mix
Blinkies	Yes, strobe
Waterproof	IPX8
Review date	June 2023

It may seem like a while, but actually, LEP flashlights haven’t been around for very long. Right now, it’s only been about 5 years since they appeared for the first time.

LEP stands for Laser Excited Phosphor and basically means that the laser beam shines through, or shines unto phosphor to change the color and characteristics of the beam. It’s no longer a pencil beam like you see with laser pointers, but a beam that is more similar to the traditional LED flashlight.

The advantage?

A much more intense beam that can reach over 1000 meters from a flashlight that fits in your pocket. LEP flashlights don’t need a large reflector, and are able to beat an LED flashlight by half of their size.. if not less.

Right now we are looking at a relatively unique flashlights. Not because it’s an LEP flashlight, and not because it’s a hybrid model. No, because the LEDs sitting in this flashlight don’t produce a normal beam. No, it produces a beam that looks like a petal, hence its name.

Package quality.

Just like many other Lumintop flashlights, the Petal was sent in a standard grey cardboard Lumintop box. And this is what you get:

• Lumintop Petal
• Spare o-rings
• Glow tubes (installed)
• Manual

Yeah, that’s not much, but enough I guess. But before you use the Petal, make sure you remove the film from the front lens!

I still dig the pineapple knurling which looks pretty sweet. This design has been around for about 15 years, but is still pretty attractive. I believe the first flashlight with this design was custom made. In later years, Lumintop and Jetbeam have used this pattern with success.

Even though its small design, the Petal is easy to hold and operate. It’s currently the shortest LEP flashlight on the market, together with the Lumintop Thor 1. The reverse-clicky switch is located at the rear of the light and contains a dim multi-color LED indicator. As far as I can see it uses 3 colors; green, red and blue. And it switches between them when it’s turned off. This means that there is some sort of low drain on the battery. And the only way to get rid of this little current draw is by removing he battery. Unscrewing the tailcap doesn’t help because the threads are bare aluminum.

The Petal can be unscrewed in 2 locations. At the rear, the tailcap can be removed to insert the battery, and the front shouldn’t be unscrewed. If you unscrew the front, you’ll get access to the LEP module, which is screwed into the body. This is great, and perhaps this could be the time to return to the good old P60 system? I had already asked Weltool a long time ago about making the first P60 LEP module, but they declined.

There’s no pocket clip or lanyard attachment so you either need a pouch, holster or carry it in your pocket.

Tail standing is possible on the switch boot, but not very stable.

I already mentioned the pineapple style knurling which I personally really like. I can’t wait for a full body pineapple flashlight!

It looks and feels smooth without any sharp edges.

Unscrewing the tailcap feels very, very smooth since they applied a decent amount of lubrication. And just like its sibling, the Thor 1, it also comes with 2 golden-looking rings to make it feel a bit more premium.

Inside the tailcap is a single spring, as well as on the driver’s side. Since both ends use a spring, and the threads are non-anodized, you can use flat tops as well as button-top batteries.

This is what Lumintop has to say about its warranty:

30-day free replacement: LUMINTOP will replace a new product within 30 days of purchase for any manufacturing defects if problems come into being in normal use; We will replace it with the same model. If the model has been discontinued, customers will receive a product with a similar or improved model.

Five-years free repairs: LUMINTOP will offer free repair within 60 months for lights from the date of purchase if the problem develops with normal use.

Lifetime warranty: If repair is required after guaranty period, we’ll charge for parts accordingly.

If you have trouble with any of their products, I recommend getting in touch with the seller first, unless you bought it directly from them.

There are currently 2 types of LEP flashlight modules. A mirror-type LEP module, which reflects the blue laser beam unto phosphor to turn it into a ‘normal white beam’. And there is the shine-through type module, that has the laser situated behind a translucent screen of phosphor. The Petal is using the latter.

Some of the benefits of this module is the size and the ability to directly connect the laser to the body of the flashlight for better heat dissipation.

Then there is a convex lens to turn the laser beam into a wider beam, and make it look like an average (kind of) LED flashlight.

And like all good LEP flashlights, Lumintop uses a protection lens in front to protect the plastic convex lens.

There’s no real bezel on the Petal. The front/bezel/head is all made of 1 piece of aluminum. You easily unscrew the head to get to its internals in case you want.

Shining the beam on a white wall shows a pretty uniform LEP beam, without any colored rings. That’s another benefit of this shine-through LEP module. The beam is therefore actually pretty good for an LEP flashlight.

Then there is a green glow in the dark ring, which will glow after the light is used. Don’t expect too much from this though. And the same goes for the glow tubes. Interesting, but they don’t last long.

However, the AUX LEDs that are used in this light can only be used to show a petal shaped beam. This beam is interesting but kind of useless. It’s fun to play with, but its very unpractical. Why even make this type of flashlight I wonder?

Dimensions: 

Lumintop Petal	Millimeters	Inches
Length	45 mm	1.8 in
Head diameter	32 mm	1.3 in
Body diameter narrowest point	26 mm	1 in

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

Weight: 

Measured with Keeppower 18350 1200mAh unprotected.

Lumintop Petal	Weight in grams	Weight in oz.
Without battery:	101 g	3.6 oz
With 18350 battery	125 g	4.4oz

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

LEP Flashlight comparison

Size compared to other LEP flashlights

Group 1, from left to right: Lumintop Thor 1 vs Lumintop Petal

Group 2, from left to right: Mateminco FW2, Loop SK01s, Lumintop Thor 1, Lumintop Petal, Amutorch BT35, Lumintop Thor 2 v2

This is where I don’t really enjoy the Petal too much. Unlike the Thor 1, this has 5 modes, and you can’t skip any. Oh, and it has a Strobe mode, using the last used setting as strobe.

Available modes:

• LED Low, LED High, LED + LEP, LEP Low, LEP High.

From OFF:

• Single-click: to last used mode, mode memory

From ON:

• Half-press: Cycle through the menu from LED low, LED high, LED+LEP high, LEP low, LEP high.
• 2 taps: strobe with the last used setting. So if you used LED high, you get strobe with that mode
• 3 taps: Electronic lockout mode?
• 6 taps: police strobe with the last used mode
• Single-click: off

Shortcuts:

• None, unfortunately! That’s a shame because who needs that petal shaped beam?

Mode memory:

• Yes, it will activate after about 3 seconds.

Blinky modes menu:

• Yes, strobe: activated by 2 taps from on. It will use the last used mode and turns it into Strobe.
• Police strobe: activated by 6 taps from on. The police strobe will use the last used mode, any of the available modes, just like strobe.

Low battery warning:

• No

Lock-out mode:

• 3 taps from on will do some sort of lockout, even though the manual doesn’t mention it.

PWM:

• Possible, but can’t really see it with my eyes

Firmware / UI Conclusion:

I don’t really like the fact that you don’t know the mode it is in, when you turn it on. Also, there is no way to switch between AUX LED and LEP, because they are in 1 menu.

With springs on both ends, the Lumintop Petal has no problem using flat top or button top batteries. If you don’t have any 18350 batteries yet, look for the Keeppower 1200mAh. This is a pretty high capacity, and high discharge. Just make sure you keep an eye on them, and don’t discharge them too deeply.

Also, don’t ever keep your battery loaded in this light!.

I also tried a long 18350 battery with a USB-C port and had no trouble using it. So you can use any 18350 you have lying around. They should all fit and work without problems.

This is the gear I used for testing:

Gear	Purpose	Link to buy
Hagner E4-X	Measuring beam intensity (throw)	Inquire at Hagner.se
Extech SDL400	Lumens and logging runtimes	Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk,
Leica Disto D2	Distance for throw measurements	Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk,
Asensetek Lighting Passport Pro Standard	Spectrometer for LED measurements	–

Lumen measurements:

How Lumens are Measured: Understanding ANSI FL1 Standards How Lumens are Measured: Understanding ANSI FL1 Standards: The ANSI FL1 standards specify that output in lumens should be measured 30 seconds after turning on, as this is the standardized time for measuring brightness according to the industry standard. This is why we focus on this part in our measurements. The ANSI FL1 standards require an ambient temperature of 22 ± 3°C. We record the ambient the ambient temperature to identify potential reasons for any observed discrepancies.

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.

I took measurements manually at turn on and 30 seconds. The 10 minute numbers are taken from the runtime graph. I also measured them at 60 seconds and 90 seconds to make sure my runtimes are most accurate.

Mode	Advertised output	at turn on	30 sec	10 minutes
Low (LEP)	60 lm	80	78	75
High (LEP)	250 lm	311 lm	291 lm	106 lm

This is better than advertised.And now let’s see how the AUX LEDs are doing.

Mode	Advertised output	at turn on	30 sec	10 min
High LED	300 lm	229 lm	257	–
Low LED	40 lm	38	37	–
mix LED+LEP	500lm	520 lm	486 lm	168 lm

The turn on lumens with the AUX LEDs in high mode started low, and increased the first 30 seconds or so. High mode didn’t reach the advertised output, but the mixed mode reached 520 at turn on, but after 30 seconds, dropped to below the advertised 500 lumens. Not a really big deal, because it was only about 14 lumens less than advertised.

Parasitic drain:

• Electronic lockout seems to be 3.6 mA with the lights turned off. That seems like a lot.

Lumintop Petal Battery life and runtime

How Runtimes are Measured: Understanding ANSI FL1 Standards About ANSI FL1 runtime standards: The runtime is measured until the light drops to 10% of its initial output (30 seconds after turning 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.

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

Mode	Specified	Measured runtime (ANSI FL1)	Time till shut off
Low LEP	2h	5h 01min	5h 01min
High LEP	5min + 1hour	54min 55sec	54min 55sec
mix LEP + LED	2min + 40min	37min	37min

It’s also interesting to note that my manual test resulted in a totally different maximum output from the runtime test. I probably used the wrong keeppower 18350 battery for the runtime. One of them that I have seems to be damaged or have lower power.

Whenever you see 2 or 3 numbers by a specified runtime, the first number represents the duration the highest output can be achieved. The second number will show the next duration the outpu can be held. In this case, Lumintop is saying that the output of High mode is 5 minutes, before the output drops. From that moment, the flashlight will run for 1 more hour.

We always test this, so have a look at the following graphs to see if that is actually correct.

Petal peak beam intensity and beam distance measurements

About Peak beam intensity: Understanding ANSI FL1 Standards About peak beam intensity 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). This means that the intensity has decreased so much, it becomes difficult to see darker objects, or objects that don’t reflect light. The columns ‘Meters’ and ‘Yards’ use rounded numbers.

Measurements were taken outdoors at 20 meters, with a Hagner E4-X Lux Meter. They were measured 30 seconds after turn on.

Mode	Advertised	Candela measured	Meters	Yards
Low	–	122,000	699	764
High	279,000 cd / 1056m	408,000 cd	1277	1397

I was surprised to see the Petal throw much better than claimed!

I then compared the Petal to the Thor 1, and here are the runtime graphs.

The Petal is definitely better performing.

For the following beamshots I used a Canon EOS 5D Mk2 and a 100mm lens. manual settings: ISO1600, .5sec , F4, 5000K

The tower is about 450 meters / 492 yards away.

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.