Man what a choice b'n the IB and Sofirn. I love the compact nature of the Sofirn, but not the throttling and having to switch the "high" back on. Both put out ample light, but I like the evenness of the IB light more. I'd be very happy with either one as gift.

I love my FW3A, single 18650, lots of modes, bright AF, and while its gone up in price its still under $50

@@dasfahrer8187 the sofirn has a ui that allows to adjust the settings, i don't really care for the throttling since its still plenty bright, but ive seen people adjust the temperature cap to allow for more time in high and a smoother ramp down. They have an owners manual that shows how to do it. on mine all i did was adjust it so the button light only turns on when the light is in use. And also a smooth ramp from light 60 lumens all the way to 5k or so lumens. The factory settings was steps of different lumens

More light types: My pocket daily driver is made by Klarus, if I'm not mistaken you haven't had one of those yet, I think. Maybe 'underwater' could be a segment in general? Mine is a Klarus E1 in case you want to affirm my purchase or instil buyers remorse lol

@@justchillin7274 I don't think I'd use those features for these flashlights. When I buy a flashlight like this, I have a specific use in mind and I want it full blast the entire time I'm using it. I have other, smaller flashlights with multiple settings I use for other situations.

I can attest that a box of broken flashlight shards can be really fun to play with. I have a couple of frankenlights, and I didn't even break them first!

Lol

So I can tell you the Sofirns are crazy tough. I have the SP36 and use it for night rides on my onewheel and I have not been kind to them (on my second one). I have dropped it countless times in mud, grass, concrete, dirt and rocks. I once left it on my tailgate where it fell off and was ran over by a car and given to me the following week. I had to buy a second since I left one on my tailgate a second time and took off and nobody in the group found it.

What about the drop tests! 🤪

that's a nice surprise. and a good wide flashlight is always helpful. it would be tough to beat if it had an adjustable width, that would blast pretty darn far across a field if focused to a point.

Agreed, the interstate is going on my list.

I came here to say the same thing. Very impressed with the runtime

@@volvo09 According to Interstate themselves the LIG6100 does have an adjustable beam.

I agree. Same here, I was looking for a work light to carry in my van

If they only knew!!

@@jsplasha Cells in parallel are generally no more at risk then a single cell. It is when you put them in series that you have to watch out, particularly when charged in series. With them in parallel the biggest concern is that 1 bad cell with high internal resistance would drain the others and cause all 4 cells to die an early death by going below 2.5v. This is only an issue if one cell is already bad though and it just kills them, no fire. The other possible issue is that if you used really bad quality cells (anything with fire in the name or claiming over 3500mh for sure), then 1 or more of them could be doing basically nothing putting a greater load on the remaining cells. Although even in this case I could not create a failure but it is technically possible BUT really no higher risk then using those cells in a single cell light. If you make sure to always use good high quality cells there is virtually no risk over a single cell light. Also the cells are not "loose", they are each held in the battery carrier in individual slots.

So what are the best keychain, pocket, and heavy duty flashlights out there?

@@Tread505 I must admit I have not kept up with flashlights the last few years since I finished working on the GT94 and WT90. Got burnt out after those and stepped back. Plus LED tech has not really improved so hard to really make a better flashlight then I already had so got board lol. Here are some brands names I support as of my last interactions with them. There are more I am forgetting I know. Convoy, Eagle eye, Lumintop, Mateminco (generally sold under the brand name astrolux and others), Haikelite. All of these brands have lights designed by me or someone else from Budgetlightfourm, any light designed by BLF is generally a winner. I would recommend looking up any light you want on BLF as they generally have a good review of how it compares in the real world. Models change so much trying to give an exact model recommendation is kinda pointless. I can give you general guidance on what to look for though. This applies to all lights, given the choice, always go with the high CRI neutral white LED IMHO. While it will have a bit less lumens the better colors make actually seeing stuff far easier in the real world IMHO. I HATE cool white LED's, most people have never experienced a high quality high CRI flashlight to know what they are missing. For a pocked EDC it depends on how you intend to carry/use it. I have deep pockets so I prefer an 18650 single cell light with a tail switch. Skip any USB charging or other fancy features for an EDC light, they are just things that can break or get clogged with pocket grime. You want it to be waterproof as well and that is hard to do with USB. For the LED itself, I personally carry a custom triple LED light I built years ago, I find the floody pattern of the triple combined with 2000-3000 lumens is enough for 95% of situations I use my EDC in. You can get different optics as well to change the beam pattern somewhat for most triple lights. For heavy duty I much prefer the "soda can lights", it is hard to beat their raw power and battery life. The Q8 in the video is a good example but also one of the very early versions. More LED's = more light as a rule but also more flood. There are a lot of them out there, your budget and size restraints are your only limits lol. I would generally shop middle of the pack, the extreme 100k lumen lights are fun but not that pratical. The lights like the Q8 are GREAT value but also lack as much punch as some more expensive options. Never paid attention to key chain lights. for AAA lights lumintop makes a pretty nice one and there is a 219B based stainless steel light that gearbest used to sell that made GREAT Christmas gifts, forgot the name of it though. Good all around AAA light.

I have a Q8, BLF branded from the first batch! Absolutely love it. Easily my favorite. First flashlight I've ever bought that had a menu system with leaflet telling you how to program it. I also have a Lumintop single 18650 pen light, didn't realize BLF had a hand in some of their stuff! Don't remember the model. It has copper endcaps, a carbon fiber barrel, and three power settings adjusted by tapping the button cap. Got it in a grab-bag. Serves as my EDC when I can't fit the Q8 in my pocket, and replaced a lost (beloved) EDC Nitecore P12... Ninja edit, according to the forums the double tap is challenging to perform. Try long holding it to power it up in ultra low, then tapping the button to turn it back off before the light flashes to acknowledge that you powered it up. Much easier and more reliable way to turn the button light off, though it'll turn back on again next time you use the light.

I still get confused. I would have bought the Nitecore alone

TTC and Project Farm are my go-to tool review channels.

@@TorqueTestChannel Overheating and or incorrect thermalthrotteling is a HUGE issue in the high end flashlight industry.

It's almost as bad as Toilet Paper Math.

There are some really good, in-depth reviews on YT and watching many of them from different reviewers led me to my Sofirn if25a (3800 lm) and I have to say, I'm immensely happy with it. But of course, everyone's requirements and preferences are different and the reviews also help you to figure out what you want it for!

They're probably used to having to live up to their advertising or else get dinged in court

@@TheGreatAtario true that

I would 100% buy it, but I dont have use for $100 flashlight. But damn, so much power.

@@jotenmike you're lucky it is so cheap in the USA. Just looked at it here in the UK and it is well over twice that price!

@@PATRICKSMITH1 Well I am from central Europe, but even if it was $100 I dont make that much a day, since I wont use it on daily bases, its useless for me.

You also get higher lumen output by calibrating the temperature sensor. The Q8 Pro has automatic temperature regulation, which I find is conservative from the factory. You can configure it to step down at a higher temperature to sustain higher output over runtime/on turbo. If you're curious, look for the Anduril chart for the Q8 Pro on Sofirn's website to configure ATR, turn off the power button LED, etc

@@drummerundrcovr came here to make sure someone else knew this. The green button led could be turned off, no issue. It sound like the thermal limit wasn’t calibrated properly from the manufacturer, or it was set that way on purpose for safety. But it could be set properly easily.

@@drummerundrcovr most just want a light, not an evening reprogramming their overpriced flashlight every few days 🤣 turn on/turn off seems to be the method that works. Not reprogramming everything when you want to use it for different applications 🤷 whatever floats your boat though.

@@winkletown8828 on anduril ui you just program it once according to your taste and forget about it.. the setting will stay there forever and dont need to set it again everyday.. and it can be use default on factory setting to switch on and off without even need to do any setting.. but those who want to control how 'hot' their flashlight can be, that ui are really useful.. been using anduril from sofirn and lumintop since a long time, it never give me any problem.. the performance are really far beyond any streamlight and surefire ever be.

I recently started picking up Sofirns. Love the UI, and they really have some unique models. I picked up a handheld "thrower" and the beam that thing puts off is insane.

It probably is a branded knock-off, but at least they paid for a good one.

ONE OF US! ONE OF US!

$3k in lights? why? isn't the point to buy two or three good lights instead of spending $3k worth of lights? I mean a professional that depends on lights is probably going to spend $3k, me as a consumer, I have two lights Nitcore SRT-7 and NC60. I've had them for 3 years now and living in the arctic I'd say they get about 6 month use 3-4 hours a day every year, in pretty rough weather. I use the NC60 for general illumination while hiking, biking, skiing to be aware of my surroundings, and the SRT-7 is either mounted on my bike to see the road, or in my hand in case of a moos/wolf while hiking/skiing.

but how many hank light ?

I just got on on sale for $70 from Banggood. Keep waiting for the deal.

I had a 420 energizer that was very impressive (also rare back in the day) until I tried the $20 coast 2 pack from costco. They're rated 405 but you can focus the beam. I've tried all sorts of other cheap ones. I have some only paid $1 each, also have a big one with the battery pack on the back of your head. I like the coasts.

If you want a name brand headlamp to wear/use Thrunite and Light both make them a little more money, worth every dollar, I have the Thrunite TH02 and it works flawlessly so far of almost 18 months of ownership/use, I work in heavy steel and have used it on my hardhat and at home while working on my vehicles and have no complaints about it and it comes with extra O-ring and seal cover for the USB charging port and spare rubber holder that attaches to the headband , the build quality is the best from Thrunite and Olight out of the 5 that i looked at before deciding on the Thrunite, i machine for a living and also do quality inspection for the company i work for as part of my job, so yes I am particular about what i buy 👍

They included lumen-minutes in their chart around the ~14m mark, which should be the metric you're looking for.

It does need to be made clear the Sofirn would need to be given a higher temp calibration. There set very conservative from factory when there capable of much more.

a good chunk of good flashlight reviewers like Zeroair do post their runtime graphs online though so that's a cool thing

That's actually asking a lot. You really need to see a graph of the output and runtime. The ANSI FL1 standard measures runtime until output falls below 10%. Hence, if I wanted, I could design a flashlight that turns on at 1000 Lumens, waits 1 minute, then drops to 101 Lumens (barely above 10%). That light would "run" a very long time at 101 Lumens. On the other hand, the exact same flashlight design (same LED, same circuitry, same battery, etc) would have a much shorter run time if it runs at 500 Lumens until the battery is drained. And none of them will run the whole time at 100% full power. First, the light would overheat. Second, the output *will* decrease as the battery voltage drops.

@@cymond Yes and no, plenty of brands will actually maintain there max output. As for "output will drop with voltage" also not the case in regulated lights. Have a look at some reviews on Budget light forum and a few other places on KZfaq etc and you'll find in depth reviews.

@@unclejohn5012 Yeah, I was talking about these "super lights" with extreme outputs.

you should check out budgetlightforum and candlepowerforums if you're into flashlights. there's some really great flashlight reviewers on yt but nothing compares to ones you'll find there.

oh wow!

@@brandonlee8400 Yep! On sale all the time, and its dirt cheap to add 4 of their batteries with it. Downside is it ships from China quite slowly if you order it at the cheaper prices.

It would be nice to have a separate rating in the title that tell you how high the light normally operates. The price difference between a 4-5K lumen light and a 800-1000 lumen light is like 3X. But if they both operate at 600 lumens most the time, it's probably worth knowing without having to research.

@@TorqueTestChannel Yes, a lot of them call it turbo mode. Some are more clear about how it's rated than others. A lot will also require high end cells to achieve their numbers as well.

If you are moving around with them the heat gets removed quicker, though at the turbo levels, especially on the smaller lights, still wouldn't be able to maintain super bright, though would be a bit brighter than static. The larger lights I automatically guessed a higher rating just due to heat dissipation.

Now if only we could get the general public to understand the intricacies of Anduril.

@@MrSoundChaos haha I wish

@@MrSoundChaos Now if we could just get the fanboy enthusiasts to just understand that the general public doesn't give a hoot about Anduril, or programming a mundane, should-be-simple-as-in-the-past, flashlight.

the streamlight can also be set to go low medium high with 3 half clicks. I have had this model for several years now and im quite happy with it. The rubber grip is really nice, it grips well and keeps the heat of the light from getting your hand too uncomfortable. I like to run mine in medium brightness most of the time.

I still keep the old 4 cell mags in my cars for that exact reason. If I pull it out it's because I need to see something, not because I feel like a rave

Streamlights are good, Maglite sucks though. Ever since they went to MagLED, every single one i've owned, 2, 3, 4 D, Minimag, a 3aaa tactical, they've all met the same fate - battery leakage. Name brand batteries, and they're the only devices that leak, and they ALL leak. Tells me they're the problem.

On some of these flashlights, if you press ⬆️⬆️⬇️⬇️⬅️➡️⬅️➡️🅰️🅱️ you get 1000 extra lumens.

@@herculesbrofister265 Yeah I don't use the newer LED mags for that reason. I had that happen to a 3 cell I bought and immediately returned to the old incandescent one that never leaked

I, too, have the Streamlight. I use it for late night walks with my dog through a forest preserve and love it. I’ve used the strobe to scare coyote. The light doesn’t do much but a good shout along with the strobe seems to do the trick! So far! Lol

Why would you use this day to day.

@@asherdie "Night to night" then. Sheesh.

I agree with you @Aaron Miller. I'm liking the Interstate one for your two reasons.

@@huyked hashish

"Tactical use shape" means you can use it to bludgeon someones face in.

A glowing ring would be a lot better than a tiny button.

​ @XtreeM FaiL Hmmm, you mean around the top lens of the flashlight? That would be kind of cool. The light on the button has the advantage of allowing you to find the button quickly in the dark so you can turn the light on without fumbling around the flashlight's body looking for which side the button is on.

@@Tolg No, around the body so it will always be seen.

The “always on” button light on the Sofirn is counter intuitive but provides the visual safety feature of letting the user know the light beam is actually off. These beer can style lights are often planted beam down after use naturally mainly due to their short statures. If your “alway on” button isn’t “on” after use there’s a chance you’ll be leaving burn marks on a wooden table if last use was at a high brightness. these lights do have a safety feature of turning off if it’s too hot, so I would be worried about setting a fire so much, but you might need a few coasters to cover up burn in on your coffee table.

@XtreeM FaiL I imagine something like that would me more likely to waste the battery. The sofirn has a couple settings to make the button light brighter and even blink, which would be hard to miss.

Well we messed with the sphere originally untill it matched 3 reports. Just had no idea if it would stay that way into the thousands

Maybe we could create some sort of commission that was able to punish unfair and deceptive marketing practices? Obviously this trade commission would need to be federal, to be most effective. Write your congresspeople now, demand the creation of the TCF ("Trade Commission (Federal)")!

@@tdj5245 sounds like a great idea.. if only the government would actually do anything right.

Lack of business from intelligent customers would be effective. Not many of them these days though

Thanks for the heads-up! Even better! Was interested in that one.

Damn it! In the 15 minutes or so that I was reading all the reviews, now it's unavailable! It was when I started reading. Damn it! I snooze, I lose. SIGH!

@@huyked as soon as I saw that 25% off I snatched one up. ANY decent product listed on a great channel like this will sell out near immediately. Next up is to see what type of batteries it uses, because they look standard, just taped/sealed together.

@@robertthompson5084 Reading the question section on Amazon, Interstate says they sell the battery for about $15.

Just checked Amazon here in the UK - the Interstate is £199 - approx $230 !!

and at least mention not blinding other road users... too many badly adjsted lights these days, and vehicles with headlights way too high above grade.

Iv got a 12 v Milwaukee spot light. It works pretty good. Probly around 1000 lumens.

if you like that pattern check out lights that have TIR optics. Like the emisar/noctigon D18 and K9.3, Manker MK34 II, EagleTac MX30L4XC etc.

How the hell do u configure thermal limit. I've have one for almost 2 years and never could figure it out

@@Trollingtrollssince see if you can find Texas aces comment and reply, he programmed them

I wish they'd change to 21700s, that seem to have become far more common than 26650, with 21700s being used in powertools and electric cars.

A working mans flashlight if ever there was one, shame they don't sell them here in New Zealand.

The Sofirn Q8 Pro is a better choice because use Andruil 2 to configure it.

DITTO

DITTO

Yup

I was looking for the same thing, just a flashlight that could keep up at a certain lighting level without dying faster than a moth in the fires of hell, I ended up settling for the Milwaukee 1100 Lumen flashlight, just based of the testing they did of their little brothers on this channel, the 1100 model behaves the exact same way. Drops a bit, but then it's stable light until it dies. I assume it drops somewhere between 600-700 lummens, but at that spot it's perfect for what I need it to. My only complaint would be the fact that in this day and age, the year of our lord 2022, Milwaukee still uses Micro USB for charging.

I've been daily carrying a Milwaukee 2011R for about 3 months, 500L high, with a medium and low mode all easy to switch between. Battery is type c rechargeable, lasts me a few weeks.

Sounds like you really should look more into Sofirn lights, or Zebralight if you want to spend a little more for quality. You can set most Sofirn lights to max themselves at 500 lumens or so, and they will give you weeks of normal use between charges. Just have to learn to configure the Anduril UI. If you are dead set on American made and build quality over big lumens (and dont have a budget...) Look at HDS systems. max 300 lumens or so, but literally bullet proof.

Several days would be kilos of batteries. Sofirn has 4 18650 cells and did almost 4 hours at maybe 4 times the load you'd want, meaning 16 hours around 400lm, maybe 19 if you get the best 18650s. Even assuming battery tech over twice as good, 40 hours is 5 days if you use it for 8hours/day and that's with a big big flashlight. I have bought a Sofirn SP36, it cost me $31.62 with 3 cells included, my plan is exactly for it to be able to last throught the night or two at low brightness, I don't really care about turbo mode which is there because it can be there. It has awesome brightness regulation, Narsilm ramping mode that allows you to get to basically any amount of lumen you want from the range the flashlight supports. I'd suggest you to get any of decent models and a bunch of cells for it, or a powerbank, my sofirn can work without the body just with the usb cable, although it's most likely under 1000lm powered this way, with 30Ah powerbank that's days of light.

ASTROLUX A6

Haha. We just listen to you guys

the streamlight also can be set to low and medium modes which have much longer run times if one ends up in a situation where runtime is critical. Its lowest brightness setting is listed as 250 lumens for 11.5 hours.

I really appreciate it!

The magnetic charger was actually the least attractive thing to me. It’s just one more specialized dongle/cord you have to keep track of. Much better when companies stick with existing standards (micro usb/usb c)

@@Travisrogers87 I can understand the hesitation with proprietary cables, but to be honest, there is no way I'm plugging a USB/barrel connector into a light on a gun I will inevitably be reaching for in the dead of my sleep cycle. I guarantee that I'll forget to unplug it and either break the connector (hopefully on the cable and not an expensive light) or I'll be sleepily dragging a cable/charger around the house still attached to the gun.

You guys are an immense resource, major props

@@TorqueTestChannel thanks man! Appreciate that. Keep up the good work!