Maratac Titanium Peanut-Beast

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

Maratac Titanium Peanut-Beast specs

Brand & Model	Maratac Titanium Peanut-Beast
Flashlight category	Keychain / long-range
LED	Osram KW CSLNM1
Max. output	520 lumens
Max. beam distance	311 meters
Max. beam intensity	?cd
Battery config.	1x 10180
Onboard charging	No (but includes a mini charger)
Modes	5
Blinkies	N/A
Waterproof	IP68
Review publication date	April 2023

The Maratac brand of flashlights are produced by/for a company called CountyComm. It’s a pretty neat company with a lot of awesome, high-quality products. In their own words: CountyComm designs, manufactures and sells select products to federal, state and local government agencies. Specializing in EDC ( Every Day Carry ) or in other places, Limited GOV overrun tactical goods brought to the consumer market. So… they make products to meet the exacting demands of US government agencies and then sell extras (or additional batches) directly to consumers. While I’ve purchased items from CountyComm before (like their excellent glow tape), I’ve never had one of their Maratac flashlights.

If you take a look at the Lights section of CountyComm’s website, you might begin to notice that these aren’t 100% original designs. Rather, it seems like CountyComm partners with other known brands (Lumintop, Reylight, Acebeam). The Maratac light may share a similar layout as an existing light, but will have unique aspects like a different UI, materials, or knurling.

CountyComm was kind enough to send their Maratac Titanium Peanut-Beast flashlight for testing. As you may have noticed in the summary table at the top, I’ve listed this as both keychain light and a long-range light. What an odd combination, huh? It may not be a crazy thrower, but for its size? This thing is intense! Which makes sense, because you might say this light has its origins as a nano version of the BLF GT (aka, “giga thrower” or “giggles thrower”).

To get started with the Titanium Peanut-Beast, you’ll need to remove the little isolation disc that separates the pre-installed battery from the driver. That’s there to prevent accidental activation before you receive it.  Just throw that disc away, or do what I do – stick it back in the package in case you ever want to box the light up for safe keeping. Oh, and there’s a protective film over the lens – remove that, too.

Package quality.

The Maratac arrived in one of the most unusual packages I’ve seen: a 2-part clear plastic square tube. It is minimal yet sufficient packaging with everything securely tucked inside. All told, there was:

• Maratac Titanium Peanut-Beast
• Battery (10180, pre-installed)
• Charging head
• Charging cable
• Spare o-rings
• Lanyard
• Keychain clasp
• Small split ring
• Information cards

Normally when I think of keychain lights, I think of tiny little AAA-based tubes. They generally feature a twisty-head UI and a floody beam. So take all of that and throw it in the rubbish bin. This isn’t a tube; it’s not twisty, and it’s not at all floody. It has the shape of a traditional flashlight with an enlarged head featuring a sidewitch. Unlike strikingly-similar light that you might find elsewhere (the Lumintop GT Nano), this has nice knurling cut into the bezel and tail end that add a reasonable amount of grip. The lanyard and keychain clasp that are included are pretty standard stuff, but it’s nice that they’re in the package.
Since the Peanut-Beast has a throwy (comparatively) beam, it can be useful for things like quickly scanning the backyard, going for a short walk, or showing – especially with the eye-catching titanium build. Just know that this is not for extended use. The battery is less than half the size of a AAA, so runtimes are very short.

The first thing you’ll notice, perhaps besides its diminutive size, is the gorgeous grade 6AL-4V titanium body. Titanium isn’t really all that practical for most flashlights. While it is extremely durable and reasonably light weight (compared to something like stainless steel or copper), it’s not as light as aluminum. And it’s pretty terrible as a heatsink. Those are actually ok here. The Peanut-Beast is so small that you might not notice the bump in weight. And runtimes are so short that heat buildup isn’t much of a concern.

As far as machining goes, everything looks really clean and smooth. There seems to be only one sharp area, and it’s a common one – the lanyard or split ring attachment point. That bump-out area could have used a chamfer.

Warranty:

The warranty seems simple and straight-forward, if maybe a little short. According to CountyComm: “Full 365 day warranty on all items we sell from defect or failure. We stand behind every product we sell 100% from watches to flashlights, we have you covered!”

Aside from the titanium build, the other star of the show is the Osram KW CSLNM1 LED that they used in this Maratac light. That’s one of the most intense (candelas per lumen) LEDs in the flashlight space. Throw that LED in a smooth, large (for a keychain light) reflector and you’ve got a pretty tight beam. The Ti Peanut-Beast throws like no other keychain light I’ve seen.

The bezel of the Peanut-Beast has shallow crenulations. Within that bezel is a sheet of AR-coated glass, sitting atop the aluminum alloy reflector. 

Opple Light Master reading from Turbo at 5 meters:

• CCT: 6591K
• CRI: 69.5 Ra
• DUV: +0.0003

Dimensions: 

	Millimeters	Inches
Length	54 mm	2.1 in
Head diameter	24 mm	0.9 in
Body diameter	14 mm	0.6 in

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

Weight: 

	Weight in grams	Weight in oz
Without battery:	28 g	1.0 oz
With battery	31 g	1.1 oz

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

Flashlight size comparison with its competition:

Group 1: Astrolux LT1, Maratac Titanium Peanut-Beast, Lumintop Worm Damast, Reylight TI LAN

Group 2 keychain lights: Olight X9R Cell, Maratac Titanium Peanut-Beast, ThruNite Ti3 V2

Available modes: 

• Moon, Low, Medium, High, Turbo

Available blinky modes:

• N/A

From OFF:

• Press and hold: Moon
• Single click: turn on (last used mode)
• Double click: High (note: CountyComm says “double click any time to access Turbo”, but in my usage it seems to go to High on a double click from Off)
• 7 fast clicks: toggle switch backlight

From ON:

• Press and hold: turn Off
• 1 click: change modes (Low, Med, High)
• Double click: Turbo

Mode memory:

• Yes – Low, Medium, and High can be memorized

Shortcuts:

• To Moon: hold from Off
• To High: double click from Off
• To Turbo: double click from On

Low voltage warning:

•  N/A

Strobe/blinkies

•  N/A

Lock-out mode: 

•  N/A

PWM

• Moon mode does not have PWM
• Other modes (Low, Med, High) have 15.7 kHz PWM

Additional/summary info on the UI: 

• The UI is about as simple as it gets. I’m not a huge fan of “hold for off”, but it works ok if you get used to it.

CountyComm’s instructions don’t mention the ability to turn the switch backlight on/off, but I noticed that on the Lumintop GT Nano’s instructions and decided to try it. It worked! Which is good, because the backlight drains the battery fast. From Off, quickly click the switch 7 times to toggle the backlight on/off.

The Maratac Titanium Peanut-Beast comes with a teeny-tiny 10180 lithium-ion battery. It’s pretty much the same diameter as a AAA battery, but only 40% as long. In order to charge the battery, you need to unscrew the head of the flashlight and remove it. Then screw the included charging head onto the light’s battery tube and you’re ready to plug it in. It’s Micro USB charging, which is a shame to see in 2023. It works, though, and Micro USB is unfortunately still common enough. When you plug it in, the end of the charger brightly glows red to indicate that it is charging. The light will switch to green when the charge cycle is complete. In my testing, I observed a 0.45 watt (0.09 amp at 5.28 volts) charge rate. The charge cycle was completed in 52 minutes.

It’s worth noting that CountyComm’s website points you to a listing for a 10440 adapter tube that gives you “400% more runtime.” Unfortunately, it takes you to a listing for black anodized aluminum tube. I don’t see where CountyComm offers a titanium version. Lumintop has produced some, though, so you may be able to find one floating around the internet.
CountyComm recommends for extended standby unscrewing the back end a ½ turn so that the button doesn’t use power. That’s nice and all for anodized lights, but that doesn’t work for this titanium model. They also recommend that you charge weekly or as needed. That’s kinda nuts. Do yourself a favor and turn off that indicator LED if you don’t need it.

Lux was measured by a UNI-T UT383 BT at 5 meters. Lumens were measured in a homemade lumen tube using a VEML7700 sensor, calibrated with a calibration light provided by 1Lumen. The included 10180 battery was used for testing.

Lumen measurements (for each mode)

Mode	Amps at start	Specs	turn on	30 sec	10 minutes
Moon	3.5 mA	1	0.6 lm	0.6 lm	–
Low	85 mA	70	24 lm	24 lm	16 lm
Med	275 mA	300	70 lm	72 lm	51 lm
High	580 mA	460	274 lm	176 lm	66 lm
Turbo	1.3 A	520	538 lm	109 lm	78 lm

Parasitic drain:

• 246 µA with the indicator LED on (factory default) – note, this could completely drain the little battery in under 2 weeks! 
• 49 µA with the indicator LED off – this increases the standby life to nearly 10 weeks. That’s still not a long time, but a lot better than with the indicator on.

If we’re talking about turn-on lumens, it’s good to see the Peanut-Beast attaining the factory spec for Turbo. That’s clearly not an ANSI FL1 number, though, as the 30-second reading is nowhere near the spec. The specs for the non-Turbo modes seem crazy. I have no idea where they got those numbers.

Battery Life: Runtime graphs

Mode	Specified runtime	Measured runtime ANSI	Time till shut off
Moon	12h	–	–
Low	40min	1h 6min	1h 6mni
Med	30min	13min	27min
High	21min	14min	1h 10min+
Turbo	14min	18min	1h 10min+

The runtime lengths are more-or-less inline with the manufacturer claims. While Low and Medium had very distinct shut offs when they got low, High and Turbo just petered along for an extended time.

About 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

Intensity was measured at 5 meters after being turned on for 30 seconds (unless otherwise noted). A UNI-T UT383 BT lux meter was used.

Mode	Specs	Candela measured	Meters	Yards
Low	–	750 cd	55 m	60 yd
Medium	–	5,125 cd	143 m	156 yd
High	–	10,125 cd	201 m	220 yd
Turbo @ 0sec	24,180 cd*	28,250 cd	336 m	367 yd
Turbo @ 30sec	–	7,250 cd	170 m	186 yd

* Note that CountyComm does not provide a candela measurement. Rather, they list it as “max beam throw 1020 feet” and I worked the math backwards. 

Much like the lumen test, I actually measured a bit higher than spec… at turn-on time. Definitely not at 30 seconds. So we’re looking at max values on the manufacturer ratings, not ANSI FL1 specs.

About peak beam intensity: 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 30 m (33 yd) using a Pixel 7 set to ISO 800 with 1/10 second exposure time

Beamshots of the following flashlights compared:

• Maratac Titanium Peanut-Beast
• Olight Arkfeld UV
• Olight Baton 3 Pro Max

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