Ripsshine HF1

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Ripsshine HF1 specifications

Brand & Model	Ripsshine HF1
Flashlight category	High Output General Purpose
LED	6*Cree XHP50.2 HD
Max. output	20,000 lumens
Max. beam distance	580 meters
Max. beam intensity	70,225 cd
Battery config.	46950 battery
Onboard charging	USB-C
Main modes	6
Blinkies	Strobe, S.O.S., beacon
Waterproof	IPX8
Review publication date	March 2024

It’s a good time to be a flashlight enthusiast. There’s no dearth of relatively inexpensive high performance lights. The small, indie start-ups in particular offer their own interpretations of consumer and enthusiast-grade flashlights. I’ve reviewed some lights from the oft known brands before, but the one up for review today is one that I hadn’t heard of outside of enthusiast circles. Unless you’re an occasional Chinese window shopper like I am, you probably haven’t heard of it either.

Enter the HF1 from Ripsshine.

By now, if you haven’t already Googled the name, Ripsshine is a small start-up company with a very slim portfolio of lights, 4 in total, with this HF1 as the flagship offering. They’re only for sale from China, so they’ve yet to garner any serious exposure. Naming convention aside, this one promises to be a hoot and thanks to the feature set,  joins a pretty small populous of flashlights. It also takes some design cues from another light starting with M and ending with ‘ach.’

What’s in the package

The HF1 came in a pretty plain box for a high price light. I’m not complaining though because it;s utilitarian like Thrunite’s boxes. The bit carrying the light pulls out from the side. Inside it’s nestled in foam with the accessories

• Ripsshine HF1
• Ripsshine branded 32 Ah 46950 battery
• O-rings
• Instruction manual
• Lanyard
• USB type C cable

This is a ready-to-go kit. However for my sample it was DOA…well, the battery sure was! Even with the stick-on isolator, the battery had somehow discharged so low it tripped the protection board. The cell read 0.73 volts out of the box, and it required almost 13 hours of charging to get it back to 4.14 volts. The included lanyard is made from 3/16 paracord and has a quick release clamp on one end. Otherwise, pretty standard stuff.

The HF1 follows the same vein of the newest crop of high output lights with the humongous 46950 li-ion cell. In fact, if you’re thinking, “Hey, that looks like the Lumintop Mach!” you’d be right because the HF1’s design was influenced by that light. This is a thick bodied, multi LED, fan-cooled flooder. Like the Mach, its handling is identical. It’s really heavy, the tube is girthy, and fills my big hands. While not a huge light, it’s still a handful. The body has some nobbles and grooves that are less aggressive than the Lumintop Mach’s, but were plenty grippy. For retention, you can holster it or sling it. There’s a ¼-20 UNC threaded mount on the backside of the head for a tripod shoe or mounting a swivel stud or bail. Ripsshine includes one in the box, a stainless steel threaded mount with a folding bail. The included lanyard can thread on it, or clip on. 

The head flares out a bit from the tube, and has lots of thin, deep fins surrounding a hollow cavity under the LED shelf. Housed in the cavity is a central cooling fan. Air is drawn from the sides and exhausted upwards over the LED shelf and fins. There’s a single e-switch behind the bezel in the middle of the head in a flat cutout for resting your thumb. It’s easy to find by feel and works just fine.

The clicks are positive and feel about like any good e-switch. There’s a row of 4 LED indicators below the switch for on state, battery condition, and charging. The switch boot itself is pretty cool. It has a translucent Ripsshine logo that changes color (turns red) when set to fan-on, and turns off for fan-off mode.

Build quality for the Ripsshine HF1 is really good! I don’t know if these are made in-house or by an ODM, but they’ve done good with no major quality issues. Overall fit, finish, and feel is great! For sale direct from Ripsshine for around $200 US, you get an active-cooled flashlight with a big battery. Constructed from an undisclosed aluminum alloy (probably the standard 6061), the machining is nice and tidy with no anomalies to speak of. Zero tool marks, and everything lines up with no gaps. It’s not specifically mentioned, but the finish is probably some kind of hardcoat anodizing. It comes in two colors: Black or green. The sample came in green, and it’s a nice shade with more of a semi matte finish, which I like. 

The body threads are fully anodized rectangular units and they’re very precisely cut and smooth with adequate amounts of lube. There’s o-rings sealing every joint as well: Both ends of the tube, bezel, and the lens, and the IP rating is IPX8. Even though not the proper IP68 I see on other higher-end lights, it’s still good for 1 meter of immersion for 30 minutes and a 1.5 meter drop rating. Ripsshine says the fan will even work when submerged (like the Mach). No, I didn’t test it. On the backside of the driver there’s a circular contact for the battery + and – separated by a plastic insulator (for reverse polarity protection). No springs here folks! The tailcap’s insides are fully anodized, and the battery is separated from the tailcap with a thick rubber gasket.

For the warranty, from the manual: 30 days replacement/DOA guarantee for free replacement or return. 5 year guarantee for functionality not resulting from abuse, normal wear, or intentional damage. Accessories are covered with a 1-year guarantee.

The HF1 uses Cree’s 2nd gen XHP50 LEDs and you get 6 of them. These are the domed version with 4 individual light-emitting dies on a single substrate. It’s a flip chip design, and is capable of very high output and can be had in 3, 6, or 12 volt variants. This LED is super common, and while recently overshadowed by the 3rd gen XHP50, this one’s still alive and kicking These LEDs are probably the 3 volt version, and come in the obligatory cool white tint (for maximum output of course). 

The LEDs sit under a 6 cup OP reflector with each cup arranged radially. Unlike the Mach, there’s no air intake in the middle of this reflector. The reflector is topped with a hardened mineral glass lens with an AR coating (a light one), capped by an aluminum bezel. The beam is typical of multi LED lights with some nice distance behind it. There’s a somewhat visible bright spot, more noticeable than the Mach, but it’s mostly all flood. The beam is pretty clean, but the tint shift is present, with a pee yellow corona and a bright blue/white inner area.

Spectral measurements: 

I used an Opple Lightmaster Pro to measure the flashlight at 1 meters from the sensor 

Mode:	CCT:	CRI Ra:	duv
Turbo	5695K	65.6	0.0087

Dimensions: 

Ripsshine HF1	Millimeters	Inches
Length	155 mm	6.1 in
Head diameter	60 mm	2.4 in
Body diameter	52.5 mm	2in

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

Weight: 

Ripsshine HF1	Weight in grams	Weight in oz
Without battery	416 g	15 oz
With battery	836 g	29 oz

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

Flashlight size comparison with its competition:

Group 1 left to right: Lumintiop Mach, Ripsshine HF1, Lumintop Thanos 23

Group 2 left to right: Sofirn SP36 Pro, Wurkkos TS32, Ripsshine HF1, Thrunite TN50, Amutorch DM80

Group 3 reflectors left to right: Ripsshine HF1, Thrunite TN50, Amutorch DM80

The details are sketchy with the driver, but the early announcements of this light on BLF from Ripsshine specified it had a fully regulated driver. That would mean this is the first affordable fan-cooled 20,000 Lumen light with a regulated driver, but the runtimes will confirm or refute it. The UI is surprisingly well fleshed out, with smooth and stepped ramping, fan control, thermostatic fan control, and auto lockout (don’t worry, it can be disabled). There’s 5 stepped modes plus Turbo, with blinkies. To switch between smooth ramping and stepped ramping, triple click from on.

Available modes: 

• Smooth ramping: Low, High
• Stepped ramping: Moon, Low, Mid 1, Mid 2, High, Turbo

Available blinky modes:

• Strobe, S.O.S, Beacon

From OFF:

• Press and hold: Moon
• Single click: Turns on in last memorized mode (smooth and stepped ramping)
• Click and hold: Momentary Turbo
• Double click: Turbo
• 4 clicks: Electronic lockout
• 5 clicks: Enables/disables the fan (fan ON is indicated by a red LED under the switch)

From ON:

• Press and hold (smooth and stepped ramping): Ramps up
• 1 click: Turns off
• Double click: Turbo
• 3 fast clicks: Switch between smooth and stepped ramping
• Click, hold: Momentary Turbo
• Click, click, hold: Strobe

Mode memory:

• Yes, last mode memory, but Turbo and blinkies are not memorized

Shortcuts:

• To Moon: Press and hold from off
• To Turbo: Double click from on/off
• Instant Turbo: Click, hold from on/off
• Instant Strobe: Click, click hold from on/off
• To Strobe: In Moon, double click or in Turbo, triple click

Low voltage warning/protection:

• Yes. For 3.6 volts and under, the Turbo and High are not available. The light is limited to 60% output if the battery is 3.2 volts.
• Under 3.2 volts, the light will flash 3 times when turned on twice with a pause in between followed by a step down to 20% output.
• Below 3 volts, only Moon is available, and the output shuts off under 3 volts.
• There are 4 LEDs above the switch that show battery state.
• 1 LED on, 25%, 2 LEDs on 50%, 3 LEDs, 75%, 4 LEDs for >90%.
• During testing, the light output dropped very low when down to 1 blinking LED. The light powered off for LVP, but could be reactivated in Moon.

Strobe/blinkies

• Strobe, SOS, Beacon

Lock-out mode: 

• Electronic lockout is activated by 
• Automatic lockout: If the light sits idle for 10 minutes when off, the output is locked. The auto lock can be disabled/enabled. From off, click the switch 10 times to enable/disable the lockout. The light flashes two times when the lock is disabled.

PWM

• None visible with the naked eye

Additional/summary info on the UI: 

• I’m glad Ripsshine didn’t flash this thing with Anduril because this is a nice, simple, easy to use UI. No configuring, no tweaking, just turn it on and go. Easy! It also has some nice features as well, with auto lock out which can be disabled (it’s disabled from the factory), smooth or stepped ramping, and some handy shortcuts.
• All good stuff. The fan is thermostatically controlled by the UI. At 55 C, the fan comes on, and turns off around 47 to 45 C (by my testing) and it works reliably. In Turbo, the fan is activated from turn-on. The switch backlight is always on in standby, can also be disabled with 7 clicks from off.

The Ripsshine HF1 employs the hugest battery you can get in a flashlight right now: The 46950 li-ion cell. The HF1 comes with a Ripsshine branded 32,000 mAh proprietary cell (they actually all are), with a raised positive terminal and ground contact (negative) integrated on the top of the battery. This cell can feasibly deliver 118 Wh (assuming 3.7 volts), and you’d need six, 5000 mAh 21700s to get the same kind of energy.

While not the best for energy density (these batteries are heavy…400 grams), they stand alone in the (hand portable) li-ion battery hierarchy. For charging, you get onboard USB type C at QC2 and 3 for up to 18 watts (5v 3a, 9v 2a, 12v 1.5a). There’s also a power bank feature present, for the same QC2/3 speeds.

On the Ruideng AT35 USB A tester and Hidance USB C tester I was seeing 9 volts 2 amps and 12 volts 1.5 amps on the charging and the same on the power bank side, so you’re limited to about 19 watts for both. While this isn’t slow, when charging up a 32 Ah battery, even at 18 watts, it still takes over 9 hours, and it did for me. My USB tester stops measuring capacity at 12 Ah, but it still counts the electrons, and I would get between 110 and 127 Wh after about 10 hours. The charging terminated between 4.18 and 4.19 volts. 

Charge type	Fits	No fit	Charge time
Onboard USB-C	Included 46950 cell	Everything else	Around 10-11 hours

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.

Lumens are measured in my 50 cm integrating sphere with a Digi-Sense 20250-00 data logging luxmeter. The sphere has been calibrated with a Convoy S2+ measured to 260 Lumens and the figures are within 10% of actual. No current measurements due to the isolated current path. The battery was fully charged prior to the testing.

Mode	Specified	Turn on	30 sec.	10 min.
Moon	5	4.9	4.9	–
Low	800	738	738	–
Mid 1	2000	1795	1795	–
Mid 2 fan off	5150	4551	4551	4428
Mid 2 fan on	–	4428	4428	4305
High fan off	10,900	9549	9348	3690
High fan on	–	9471	9348	8118
Turbo fan off	20,000	17,220	15,744	3567
Turbo fan on	–	17,220	16,113	7872

Ambient temperature during testing:

• 19 °C 

Parasitic drain:

• N/A

Looking at the numbers, I’m pretty close to the advertised spec, which is always nice to see. The sustained outputs are also telling: The fan makes a BIG difference in output over time. ANSI doesn’t really tell us much, since it’s not until about the 120 second mark that the fan comes on for High mode, and a little longer for Mid 2 (closer to 4 minutes). Turbo output without the fan takes a big hit also, with less than 50% of the fan-on Turbo output at 10 minutes.

Ripsshine HF1 Battery Life: Runtime graphs

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.

Lumens are measured in my 50 cm integrating sphere with a Digi-Sense 20250-00 data logging luxmeter. The sphere has been calibrated with a Convoy S2+ measured to 260 Lumens and the figures are within 10% of actual. I use a Digi-Sense 20250-92 data logging thermocouple for the temperature measurements. The probe is affixed to the head using kapton tape and uses the same 5 second sampling rate for logging. The battery was fully tested before the tests and I tested Mid 2, High, and Turbo with both the fan on and off.

Mode	Specified	Runtime (ANSI FL1)	Time till shut off
Mid 2 fan OFF	5h 35min (total)	5h 32m	6h 43m
Mid 2 fan ON	3h 30min	3h 30m	4h 38m
High fan OFF	5h 16min (total)	5h 17m	6h 35m
High fan ON	3h 20m	2h 58m	4h 36m
Turbo fan OFF	4h 3m	5h 39m	7h
Turbo fan ON	3h 20m	2h 57m	4h 27m

The advertised runtimes are super close to what I got. Looking at the graphs, we can see that the HF1 is indeed sporting a fully regulated driver and that’s awesome! The output for all modes (after the first step down for Turbo and High) is fully laminar, punctuated by minimal thermal blips when the fan kicks on and off. I had issues with my temperature logging for the Turbo fan-on and Mid 2 fan-on cutting out after an hour, so the temps weren’t captured for the entirety of those runtimes. There is thermal throttling coinciding with the fan on/off for High and Turbo.

The fan makes a big difference, not in total raw output, but runtime and sustained output. Obviously having an active cooling solution helps remove heat, and it shows. The fan comes on immediately for Turbo, but even so, there’s a deep step down in output before it thermally recovers. Like with the Lumintop Mach, the fan helps sustained output, but at the expense of reduced runtime overall as the higher output uses the battery faster, and the fan running probably doesn’t help much either.

I compared some other high output lights to the HF1, including the two Lumintop competitors in the Mach V1 and Mach 4695. Looking over the comparison between the Machs and the HF1, you can see how the fully regulated driver makes a difference. The HF1 has two fewer LEDs than the Machs. Overall, impressive performance from the HF1. The battery was discharged to 3 volts after the tests.

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.

Beam distances are measured using a Uni-T UT383S luxmeter measured indoors at 5 meters using the included fully charged battery. Measurements taken at 30 seconds.

Mode	Specified	Candela measured	Meters	Yards
Moon	?	800	57	62
Low	?	2800	106	116
Mid 1	?	6450	161	176
Mid 2	?	16,300	255	279
High	?	34,450	371	406
Turbo fan on	70,225	57,700	480	525
Turbo fan off	?	37,775	389	425
Turbo at start	?	61,725	497	544

Ambient temperature:

• 18.9 °C 

Ripsshine only listed a single candela/beam distance figure (I assume it’s Turbo), and at turn-on, I’m coming up a bit short on that one. The beam distance for this light is good! Not far off from the Lumintop Mach V2 (which has 2 extra LEDs).

Camera settings and distance: Photos taken with a Canon EOS R100 and Canon RF-S 18-45mm STM lens set to 0.3s, f5 ISO 1600 and 5000K WB. The fence is 95 meters away. The trees beyond the fence are about 150 meters distant. 

Beamshots of the following flashlights compared:

• Ripsshine HF1
• Lumintop Mach 4695 V2
• Lumintop Mach V1
• Lumintop Thanos 23 (flood+spot)
• Amutorch DM80
• Fenix LR60R (flood+spot)
• Thrunite TN50
• Fenix LR80R

Please note that the following beamshots are mainly intended to showcase the beam pattern and beam quality, rather than overall performance. These images are typically taken directly after activation, and in different seasons or weather conditions, and therefore do not fully represent its overall performance. For accurate performance metrics, such as output, beam distance, and runtimes, you need to look at the performance section of this review.

Disclaimer: This flashlight was sent to us for review at no cost by Ripsshine. We have not been paid to review, nor have we been holding back on problems or defects.