Wuben TO40R

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Wuben TO40R specifications

Brand & Model	Wuben TO40R
Flashlight category	EDC, general use
LED	Cree XP-L2
Max. output	1200 Lumens
Max. beam distance	220 meters
Max. beam intensity	N/A
Battery config.	1*18650
Onboard charging	Micro USB
Modes	5
Blinkies	Strobe, SOS
Waterproof	IPX68
Review publication date	October 2022

Wuben’s TO40R (that’s Tango Oscar four zero Romeo, in case the O and 0 were confusing) is a dual switch light of a different style. Most dual switch lights combine a side switch with a tail switch, but the TO series of lights have a pair of side switches. There are also the TO46R (18650, quad emitter) and TO50R (21700, quad emitter) in this lineup.

Package quality.

The TO40R comes in a shelf-ready package which would be right at home in any retail store. The front of it features a plastic window through which you can see the light, framed by blue accents and some of its noteworthy features. On the opposite side are a description of the light, a specifications chart, addresses, regulatory information, and product codes. It’s a high-quality package.

Inside, there’s a molded tray which cradles the TO40R on the right, and the holster on the left, which has all the other accessories inside it.

The complete contents of the box include:

• Wuben TO40R with clip attached
• Wuben-branded 2600mAh 18650 Battery
• Plastic zip bag with two spare o-rings
• Lanyard with cinch
• Belt holster
• USB A to micro USB cable
• Manual

Wuben advertises the TO40R as an outdoor flashlight, and as such, you might be carrying this light in a bag. It does come with a clip and a holster, but you’ll probably want to experiment with these to see what works best for you. The reason being that the TO40R is a long light. Can you carry it in your pocket? Yes. Wuben includes a friction clip, which can be attached to either the head or tail end of the body. The clip isn’t deep carry though, so quite a bit of the light will be sticking out, regardless of which direction you attach it. It holds securely, but is loose enough that it can easily slide around. I like to keep it opposite the switch to help locate the switch by feel.

The holster is made of rather stiff material (looks like polyester webbing backed by foam) with elastic sides and hook and loop closure. Interestingly, the left side (looking at the holster) has a small pocket in the elastic. You can stick the included USB cable into it so that you always have it handy, but it’s a bit long. If you have one, a shorter USB cable would work better for this. Carrying the USB cable that way does make it a little harder to get the light in the holster, though. The holster has both a solid belt loop and a hook and loop one on top of that, as well as a large D-ring at the top, so there are multiple ways to attach the holster to something, too.

The lanyard can be attached to the light through the two eyelets on the arms of the tail cap, and has a cinch sleeve to allow you to keep it tight on your wrist while you’re using it.

When you’re holding the light in use, the main section of the body is rather smooth, but the other features on the light like the fins on the head and the clip help you keep a hold of it. In a regular hold, your thumb naturally falls right over the buttons, so they’re easy to activate. This is likely how you’re going to be using the light, since it only has side switches, making the cigar or overhead holds less useful.

The buttons are both quiet and have low action, but are stiff to push. That’s a good thing though, since it means the light is much less likely to be accidentally activated. There is electronic lockout in addition to unscrewing the tailcap for mechanical lockout, but I have not experienced accidental activation while keeping the light in my pockets or bag during my testing period.

Having both buttons next to each other is nice. It makes the dual switch concept easier to use, if you don’t have a need for a tail switch. The downside is that you could accidentally press the wrong one, especially if you’re operating by feel but the longer you use the light, the more familiar you’ll get with the distinct feel of each of them. The worst that could happen is you turn the light off, in which case, you just press it again to turn it back on. The buttons have another function, though: Shortcuts to turbo and strobe. Holding the W button for two seconds activates momentary strobe, while doing the same with the power button activates momentary turbo. If you like having instant access to both of these, that should come as good news.
I feel like this is a good general purpose light if you’re going to toss it in a bag or use the holster, or just have it lying around. It’s a bit long for a pocket, but the simple dual switch interface would be useful for any number of situations.

The TO40R only comes in black, HA III anodized aluminum, but it’s solidly built and has no rattles or internal movement when used with the included battery.

Interestingly, the tail cap looks like that of a tail switch light, since it has the raised, split ridge, one side with eyelets for the lanyard, but there’s simply no tail switch. The middle of it is just flat, with Wuben’s website and some regulatory information etched onto it. It’s nice that these are kind of hidden here on the tail. Unfortunately, these ridges also increase the length of the light by about half a centimeter, but they’re flat, so at least it can still tail stand.

Both the tail and body have diagonal cuts along the middle, though I’m not sure whether this would be considered knurling or just a design. The point of knurling is to aid in gripping, but these sections on the tail and body are remarkably smooth. Luckily, the threads are smooth and well lubricated, so removing or tightening it does not require much force. The threads are anodized, so physical lockout is possible. On the tail end of the body, there’s a small image of a battery, indicating which direction goes in (it’s the positive side), and both ends of the tube have springs to allow non-protected, flat top 18650 batteries.

The front of the head is where Wuben put the two electronic switches. The bottom switch is more recessed and has a clear power symbol on the rubber cover and turns the light on and off, while the top switch is more pronounced, with an embossed W on it, and controls mode selection. When you turn the light on or change modes, the indicator light under the power symbol will light up for 5 seconds. Opposite that is the USB charging port. It has a rubber cover that fits tightly over it to protect against water ingress which can easily swivel out of the way while charging.

The head is glued to the body, so removal will not be easy. There are four large fins on either side for cooling which are square cut and have 90-degree corners. Not sharp exactly, but angular. On the other hand, the head is hexagonal, but with rounded edges, so much so that it’s almost like there are 6 long sides and 6 short sides. Either way, this will definitely prevent the light from rolling around. 

Wuben offers their standard warranty with the TO40R, which is pretty thorough. As copied from their site:

30 days money back guarantee: Within 30 days from the date of purchase, if the product has quality problems, customers can request full refund.

30 days replacement: Within 30 days from the date of purchase, if the product has quality problems, customers can request free replacement.

1 year warranty: Within 1 year from the date of purchase, if the product has quality problems, WUBEN will offer free repair.

Battery warranty: WUBEN offers a 1-year warranty for the rechargeable batteries but other included accessories are not covered by the warranty.

5 Years product warranty: Within 5 years from the date of purchase, if the product(for battery-removable flashlights, accessories excluded) has quality problems, WUBEN will offer free repair for WUBEN registered customers(Support-Product registration).

Lifetime maintenance: From the date of purchase, if the product has problem after 1 year, WUBEN will offer paid repair for WUBEN registered customers.

At the front of the light, there’s a long aluminum bezel with short crenulations that’s glued to the head. The reason the bezel is so long is that the reflector inside of it is very deep. I estimate it’s about as deep as the reflector in the Convoy S2 (not S2+), so about 20mm. Wuben doesn’t specify the material for the lens, but it looks like it’s glass with an anti-reflective coating. Under the hood is a Cree XP-L2 emitter in 6500K. An older LED, but it still gets the job done. As with many domed Cree emitters paired with a smooth reflector, there is a fair amount of tint shift from the white hotspot through the yellowish spill to the blue corona and is most noticeable against a white wall or flat surface and up close.
My Opple Light Master Pro shows that the TO40R has some very fast PWM, but it doesn’t affect the beam and can’t be seen.

Dimensions: 

Dimension	Millimeters	Inches
Length	131.7	5.18
Head diameter, across button and USB cover	28.5	1.12
Head diameter, across flat surfaces	26.6	1.04
Body diameter	25.1	0.98

Weight: 

Weight	Grams	Oz.
Without battery:	94	3.3
With battery	146	5.2

Flashlight size comparison with its competition

As you can see, the TO40R is slightly taller than the ThruNite TN12 Pro, which in itself is a tall 18650 light with a tail switch, and the Acebeam E70, which is a 21700 light.

Group 1 EDC flashlights: ThruNite TN12 Pro, Wuben TO40R, Acebeam E70

Group 2: Convoy S21E, Wuben TO40R, Emisar D4v2

Available modes: Eco, Low, Medium, High, Turbo

Available blinky modes: Strobe, SOS

User interface:

From OFF:

• Click power button: On to last used mode
• Click W button: Nothing
• Hold power button: Momentary turbo
• Hold W button: Momentary strobe
• Hold both power and W: Lockout

From ON:

• Click power button: Off
• Click W button: Advance modes
• Hold power button: Momentary turbo
• Hold W button: Momentary strobe

Mode memory:

• The TO40R memorizes the last used light mode.

Shortcuts:

• To Turbo: Hold power button
• To Strobe: Hold W button

Low voltage warning:

• The TO40R output quickly drops before shutting off.

Strobe/blinkies

• Strobe: Hold W button for 2 second to activate
• SOS: Keep holding W button for another 3 seconds to switch to SOS
• The strobe blinks at different frequencies, switching every second or so.

Lock-out mode: 

• From off, hold both buttons to enter lockout mode. 
• To deactivate, hold both buttons again.

PWM

• There is PWM, but it doesn’t affect usage.

Wuben includes one of their self-branded 2600mAh, button-top, protected, 18650 batteries. The protection circuit makes the battery longer than a regular, unprotected 18650 by 5mm, though as mentioned above, the dual springs in the tube are long enough that an unprotected battery will work, too. 

I ran a capacity test using my Vapcell S4+ charger at 250mA on the included battery, and it came out to be 2718mAh, so it lives up to its claim.
The TO40R has integrated charging via a micro USB port on the back of the head and includes a USB A to micro USB cable for that purpose. Wuben advertises that it charges at 1A and should take 4 hours for a complete charge though in my testing, it took an average of 3 hours and 15 minutes. When complete, the battery always measured 4.17V.

To obtain these numbers, I used a very rudimentary integrated shoebox and ceilingbounce on my Samsung Galaxy S10. Ceilingbounce has been calibrated to match the specs of the Baton 3 as provided by Olight and corroborated with other reviewers.

Lumen measurements

This is one of most well-regulated and accurately advertised lights I’ve seen! As you can see from the graphs, after the step down on turbo and high, the output line is basically flat until it runs out of battery. That step down is large, but fairly gentle, giving you almost 4 minutes above 1000 lumens. My readings for each of the modes are consistently about 10% lower than the specifications, which is not only close enough to consider the factory specs accurate, and too small a difference to be visually noticeable. The output difference between levels is also pretty good. There’s a noticeable and usable increase in light each time you go up a level. Both of these make for very nice output.

Mode	Amps at start	Specs	Lumens @turn on	Lumens @30 sec	Lumens @10 minutes
Eco	0.01	8	4	4	4
Low	0.06	40	30	30	30
Medium	0.36	200	163	163	163
High	1.38	600	503	498	308
Turbo	2.13*	1200/700	989	951 lm	512

(Edit: Nov 2022: lumen table updated with new correction factor)

Parasitic drain:

• 0.00 µA/mA  

Amps were measured with a Klein Tools MM300 digital multimeter to the best of my ability. 

* Turbo jumped around quite a bit, but this was the highest number I saw.

Wuben TO40R battery life: runtime graphs

Turbo and high both exceed the given specifications, but medium falls short. Still a respectable runtime, though. Low and eco are so long that I didn’t test them.

Mode	Specified runtime	Measured runtime (ANSI)	Time till shut off
Eco	125h	–	–
Low	56h	–	–
Medium	7h	6h 12min	6h 12min
High	3h 30min	3h 40min	3h 40min
Turbo	1h 46min	1h 57min	1h 57min

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

The numbers for candela were obtained with a UNI-T UT383S luxmeter at 5 and 15 meters, then averaged.

The only spec Wuben gives for the TO40R is a maximum throw of 220m, and it makes good on that! I measured 12,713 candela, which equates to 226m of throw.

Mode	Specs	Candela measured	Meters	Yards
Eco	–	–	–	–
Low	–	375	39	42.7
Medium	–	2,013	90	98.4
High	–	6,375	160	175
Turbo	220 m	12,713 cd	226	247.2

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).

These were taken with a Samsung Galaxy S22+ using pro mode and the following settings: 

• WB 5000K
• ISO 200
• Speed 0.5

I was surprised to see just how wide the hotspot is given that the TO40R has such a deep, smooth reflector. It looks more like the beam pattern of an orange peel reflector. I would’ve expected something more like the ThruNite TN12 Pro, also listed here. Not that it’s a bad thing, but important to know, in case that’s not what you’re looking for.

Beamshots of the following flashlights compared:

• ThruNite TN12 Pro
• Convoy S21A
• Convoy S21E
• Wuben TO40R

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