Lumintop Rattlesnake

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Lumintop Rattlesnake specifications

Brand & Model	Lumintop Rattlesnake
Flashlight category	lumen monster
LED	SFP55
Max. output	16,000 lumens
Max. beam distance	800 meters
Max. beam intensity	160,000 cd
Battery config.	2x 21700
Onboard charging	USB-C
Modes	6
Blinkies	Strobe / SOS / Beacon
Waterproof	IP68
Review publication date	January 2023

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.

This new flashlight – the Lumintop Rattlesnake – technically isn’t part of an existing product line. But it definitely shares DNA with several other recent lights, especially the GT3 Pro. The Rattlesnake uses two 21700 batteries and features a single LED, the beastly SFP55. The side-by-side battery configuration gives the body a fairly unique flat appearance while retaining a large round head.

Package quality.

The Lumintop Rattlesnake arrived in a production-looking cardboard package. The brown box is functional and lightly designed, displaying an outline drawing of the flashlight along with the model name. Inside, the flashlight was secured in dense white foam and surrounded with a few accessories. So in the box was: 

• Lumintop Rattlesnake
• USB-C charging cable
• Wrist strap
• Spare o-rings
• Spare screws
• Manual

The body of the Rattlesnake is a bit unusual, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The thing that stands out the most is the flat body which is part of the twin-battery design. But unlike the Wuben X-1 (another dual-21700 light), the head is still round like a “normal” flashlight. I was initially unsure of this design. However, it turns out that it’s actually pretty comfortable to use. The flattened battery tube is easier to grip than a big, chunky 3x 21700 tube (as in the GT3 Pro). And when you grip it, that naturally positions your thumb to be over the single e-switch that’s on the side of the head of the light.

The tail of the Lumintop Rattlesnake has a couple of flat ridges that stick up and serve as places to attach the included “just okay” lanyard. Those flat spots make it so that you can tail-stand the light, but I wouldn’t do that too much as it’s pretty top-heavy and prone to falling over.

On one side of the body is a large pocket clip. It’s sturdy enough to hold the Rattlesnake just fine. I’m not sure about using the pocket clip, though. The light is too thick to be carried in your pocket for an extended period of time. I suppose you could clip it to the outside of your pocket, or perhaps on a molle strap or something along those lines. On the opposite side of the pocket clip is a shiny (chromed?) nameplate featuring the Lumintop name. Lumintop refers to it as the “rattle plate”, though it doesn’t seem like it really rattles (thankfully!). It’s not just a nameplate, though – it’s also a fidget thing kinda like what the Meote FM2 had. But thankfully the plate is firmly attached and won’t easily come off. You can slide the rattle plate back and forth along the battery tube. It snaps into place with a satisfying magnetic attraction.

That fidgety rattle plate isn’t the only fun physical aspect of the Rattlesnake. Lumintop machined four slots in the tail end of the light and loaded them up with “turbo glow” tubes (glow-in-the-dark material, not tritium). There is a fifth glow tube underneath the clip, which has a split down the middle that allows you to see the glow tube.

So… what would you use a Lumintop Rattlesnake 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 (in short bursts). Outdoors security checks. Impressing your friends. Annoying your neighbors. Being a chunky light, it’s not really EDC material. I suppose you could take it to walk your dog with, especially if running into trouble is a distinct possibility.

The Lumintop Rattlesnake is machined out of aluminum and then hard-anodized. The manual and website don’t really have any specs about the exact anodizing process, but it seems to be well executed – very clean, smooth, and even. 

The body doesn’t have knurling, per se. There is a pattern cut into it 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 pattern matches nicely with the GT3 Pro and GT3 Mini.

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.

When you see that a flashlight is rated at 16,000 lumens, you know that it has to be a multi-emitter light. The Cree XHP70.3 tops out somewhere around 7,000 lumens. And the Luminus SBT90.2 maxes out around 5,000 lumens.

So the Lumintop Rattlesnake must have at least 2 or 3 LEDs, right?

Nope!

This thing is using a massive LED called the SFP55. It’s an 11 x 11 mm LED with 25 dies on board. The manufacturer has it rated at 240 watts and 22,000 lumens. Woah. Lumintop says the Rattlesnake maxes out at 194 watts and “only” 16,000 lumens from that single LED.

The huge SFP55 is nicely centered in a light orange peel reflector. That’s covered by a sheet of glass and held in place by a nice stainless steel bezel with moderate crenulations. I know I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again – I love stainless steel bezels. They usually look great, making a nice accent piece. The stainless steel also helps handle some of those accidents that might otherwise deform an aluminum bezel.

With a single LED and a mid-sized reflector, I think I had in mind that the beam would be a little bit tighter than it is. However, given how large the LED is, the Lumintop Rattlesnake is very floody. It’s rated at 160,000 cd for throw, but that’s largely just because of the sheer volume of light that the flashlight is producing.

Measurements from Opple Light Master, Turbo mode at 5 meters:

• CCT: 6299K
• CRI: 69.1
• DUV: +0.0020

Dimensions: 

Dimensions	Millimeters	Inches
Length	131 mm	5.2 in
Head diameter	48 mm	1.9 in
Body diameter	47 mm	1.9 in

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

Weight: 

Weight	Weight in grams	Weight in oz
With battery	404 g	14.3 oz

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

Flashlight size comparison with its competition:

Compared to some other bright flashlights

Group 1: Lumintop GT3 Pro, Lumintop Rattlesnake, Lumintop GT3 Mini

Group 2: Convoy 3X21A, Lumintop Rattlesnake

Group 3: NlightD T90, Lumintop Rattlesnake

Available modes: 

• Moonlight, Low, Medium, High 1, High 2, Turbo

Available blinky modes:

• Strobe, SOS, Beacon

User Interface from OFF:

• Press and hold: Moonlight
• Single click: turn on
• Double click: High 2
• 3 clicks: Battery Check
• 4 clicks: Lock Out
• 7 clicks: button back-light Off/On

From ON:

• Press and hold: turn off
• 1 click: change output
• Double click: Turbo

Mode memory:

• Yes, there is mode memory

Shortcuts:

• To Moonlight: hold for 1 second from Off
• To High 2: double click from Off
• To Turbo: double click from On
• To Strobe: double click from Moonlight

Low voltage warning:

• Output will begin to drop
• Battery Check mode blinks out volts and tenths similar to Anduril. It repeats itself 3 times quickly, then stops.

Strobe/blinkies

• From Moonlight mode, double click to go to Strobe
• From Strobe, double click to go to SOS
• From SOS, double click to go to Beacon
• Single click from any of those to exit

Lock-out mode: 

• Four clicks from Off goes to Lock-out mode
• Four clicks exits Lock-out mode
• While locked out, Momentary Low is available

PWM

• Most modes have a 15.9 kHz PWM. Turbo, of course, does not. Moonlight also seems to have no PWM (perhaps just being “regulated” with a resistor instead of with PWM?)

Additional info on the UI: 

• Aside from the hold-for-off, this UI reminds me of a dumbed-down Anduril
• This is the same UI that I recently saw with the Lumintop GT3 Mini

The Lumintop Rattlesnake uses two 21700 batteries, 5000 mAh each. They come installed in the flashlight and are meant to be left there, as the tailcap is held in place by two Torx screws. Lumintop certainly isn’t telling you not to open it up, though, as they include replacement screws and a couple of o-rings.

Charging is done via a USB-C port on the side of the head, which is protected by a rubber flap. Lumintop says the charging can handle QC3.0 / PD3.0. I observed a charge rate of 13.9 watts (1.16 amps at 11.95 volts). The charge ended in 3 hours 32 minutes, transferring 42.3 Wh of power. While charging, the button flashes blue and goes solid blue when the charge cycle is done. The Rattlesnake can also function as a powerbank, handling up to 5V/3A discharge.

Lux was measured by a UNI-T UT383 BT at 10 meters. Lumens were measured in a homemade lumen tube using a VEML7700 sensor, calibrated with a Maukka calibration light. Due to the nature of the flashlight design, current tests were not possible.

Lumen measurements (lm) (for each mode)

Mode	Specified	turn on	30 sec	10 minutes
Moonlight	3 lm	3 lm	3 lm	–
Low	150 lm	125 lm	125 lm	–
Med	1,000 lm	1,034 lm	1,022 lm	–
High 1	4,500 lm	2,791 lm	2,715 lm	1,512 lm
High 2	10,000 lm	7,382 lm	6,638 lm	1,079 lm
Turbo	16,000 lm	15,409 lm	1,012 lm	1,001 lm

Parasitic drain:

• N/A (couldn’t test due to internal battery design)

The turn-on measurements are reasonably close to what Lumintop claims. And in the manual, they’re pretty upfront that the output figures are only for a certain number of seconds (eg, 15s for Turbo). So I’m not sure why the top of their table says ANSI/NEMA FL1 when those really aren’t FL1-style specs.

Having a light that can do (nearly) 16,000 lumens is great… but when it only does that for 15 seconds before dropping down to 1,000 lumens? Ouch. And with the light being as large as it is, it still hits 70°C while it peters along at 1,000 lumens. It hits that temperature over an hour after stepping down off of Turbo/High, so this LED must produce a lot of heat.

Battery Life: Runtime graphs

Mode	Specified	Measured runtime ANSI	Time till shut off
Moonlight	30d	–	–
Low	18h	–	–
Med	3h 15min	–
High 1	50s + 3h	3hr 38min	8h 36min+
High 2	30s + 3h	3h 0min	6h 51min+
Turbo	15s + 3h	3h 55min	9h 27min+

Overall, the runtimes were reasonably close to spec. When the batteries were getting low, the output dropped and just kept on chugging. It would get down below 10 lumens and continue to run and slowly ramp down for several more hours. I finally just terminated the tests.

ANSI FL1 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.

Peak beam intensity and beam distance measurements

Beam was measured at 10 meters. Measurements were taken at 30 seconds unless noted (ie, on Turbo due to the rapid step down).

Mode	Specified	Candela measured	Meters	Yards
Low	–	900	60 m	66 yd
Medium	–	8,100	180 m	197 yd
High 1	–	32,100	358 m	392 yd
High 2	–	68,200 cd	522 m	571 yd
Turbo	160,000 cd	8,100 cds	180 m	197 yd
Turbo at turn on*	–	115,000 cd	678 m	742 yd

While turn-on lumens were pretty close to spec, these throw measurements seem way off from spec. Just to be on the safe side, I recharged the light and checked again. And then I charged it back up and tried getting readings at 5 meters. No matter what I tried, I never saw readings above 115,000 cd. 

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). The columns ‘Meters’ and ‘Yards’ use rounded numbers.

Camera settings and distance: 

Beam shots of the building are taken at 50 m (55 yd) using a Pixel 7 set to ISO 800 with 1/20 second exposure time

Beamshots of the following flashlights compared:

• Lumintop Rattlesnake
• Astrolux FT03S SBT90.2

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