Zebralight H600Fc Mk IV - First Impressions

[likethevegetable]

I think you could be right about that because it's nowehere mentioned on the ZL site , the light includes a clip. The pictures are without a clip too.
Good it has a clip because it greatly increases usability (for me). Clipped on your skirt can be handy. Even on the front of your belt can be useful when you don't have the headband with you.

Question: Does it work with flat-tops?

If you look at their accessories page, it shows an H60x pocket clip for $2.95 (no picture) now. It's a pretty decent clip, I just wish it was deep carry.

Yes it works with my flat top. The tailcap is a spring, and the positive electrode looks like 5 pogo pins.

Speaking of batteries, I did have a bit of battery rattle in my light. It was fixed with one layer of electrical tape near the negative and positive terminal of the battery.

 

[Lumenize]

If you look at their accessories page, it shows an H60x pocket clip for $2.95 (no picture) now. It's a pretty decent clip, I just wish it was deep carry.

Yes it works with my flat top. The tailcap is a spring, and the positive electrode looks like 5 pogo pins.

Speaking of batteries, I did have a bit of battery rattle in my light. It was fixed with one layer of electrical tape near the negative and positive terminal of the battery.

I checked their site for the clip, but unfortunately there is no picture or description.

Good news about the flat tops because I have several.
Even the rattle gives me a little hope... do you think the slightly thicker 20700 cells fit?

 

[tech25]

Haha that's how it goes. You take light "a" but you know you left the one with better tint at home. Take light "b" but you know you left the one with a better CRI at home. Take both and you wish they could be magically combined into one light.

Lesson is... Take both! 😀
but would be nice to combine them...

 

[tech25]

Hey Lampe-
I replaced my beloved & waterlogged H600w MKII with an H600fc MKIII & have felt the beam pretty much universally better for anything I use a headlamp for - MTN bikes, backpacking, camping, cooking etc.
three of my friends whom frequently ride and backpack with me have h600w MKIII and one has the reflector-less model (which we all think kinda sucks) so I've had lots of chances to compare in the field.

I do usually have a handheld throwy light available but even if not it's not like ~900 Floody lumens gives me tunnel vision

The frosted feels like it has more lumens at close range due to the spill being so filled out.

That's me 2cents - cheerz!

I am totally with you, the "f" beams still have a hotspot- but reduce the bouncing ball effect of a thrower. I usually have a throwier handheld along as well, but rarely use it.

 

[likethevegetable]

No chance they would.. one layer of tape with an 18650 was tight

 

[Mattz68]

Hey Ben, I use the "two fish lockblock" to mount any of my zebra's to my handlebars or helmet. They're cheap (I think like 8 bucks on amazon) and as long as the light isnt too heavy -there won't be much movement. For any of the "Headlamp models" you mount them vertically on the handle bar and just Velcro them secure. This is kinda nice because the brake wires don't block the light at all because it's directly in the center. For trail riding, I use an H600w for helmet and H600cf for handle bar. With this combo I can ride nearly as fast as daytime!

 

[bentas]

thanks Matt, I'll check them out... seems my messages are not going straight through so they're a bit out of kilter with the thread. Anyway, cheers Ben

 

[twistedraven]

Got my H600FCs in today!

All 3 are pretty indistinguishable in terms of anodizing finish.

Lenses seem to be all equally frosted.

Tint difference between the three is very minimal. The camera has a hard time picking it up in this case, but the one in the middle is ever so slightly less rosy/more green than the two on the outside. Deciding between the other two was very hard for me. I ultimately went for the one on the right.

H600FC MK4 on left (93-95cri XHP50.2 4000k), SC600MK3 HI in middle (80cri XHP35 HI 4500k), H600FD MK3 on right (83-85cri XML2 5000k).
The tint differences here are slightly exaggerated. In person I saw the HI's hotspot to be slightly less greenish than it is in picture, but only a little bit. Also keep in mind that my particular SC600 MK3 HI was also cherrypicked between 3 different samples to be the least green I could get it. The differences in tint between the three samples for those was more apparent than the 3 samples of the H600FC I received today.

H600FC MK4 on left, H600FD MK3 on right. This picture is fairly accurate to what I saw in person at the time with my currently adapted eyes. The tint on both is pretty great, but I would probably choose the FC for nighttime tasks, not to mention its higher output and higher CRI (which will be much more subtle of an effect than just discerning the raw differences in color temperature and how that affects spectral balance on objects you view.)


A couple of observations: Zebralight says you can use a protected 18650 for the H600FC's highest output, but it needs be capable of highish drain regardless. The Olight 3600mah 10amp battery I put in it refused to work with the H1 output. A keeppower 3500mah did work, however. For the sake of reduced resistance, I would run unprotected cells only in this light.

The luminous efficacy of the XHP50.2 is great. The H2 output of the H600FC MK4 (980 lumens) takes way longer to get hot to the touch than the H1 output (870 lumens) on the H600FD MK3, even though it's rated for a higher CRI. An advancement of 2-3 generations of LED tech.


I will do some runtime tests next.

 

[likethevegetable]

Congrats twistedraven, photos are looking good.

I noticed last night that the H1 would only last for a few seconds before reducing output to less than 500 lumens (without getting hot), I took the NCR18650GA and measured it at 3.3V.. maybe under H1 there is too much current draw and the voltage drops on the cell to the point where the LVP kicks in and reduces the current order? At 568 lm, the output was very stable though.

It's been bothering me a bit, but the tint on my sample looks way more like your photographed H600Fd III than your H600Fc IV. When I tried to photograph the H53c and H600c in darkness they definitely look like your photographed H600Fc though. I saw a post about the wrong emitter in a SC64c and I guess that's stimulated a bit of paranoia that my baby was a mistake.. lol. Compared with my H53c I would say the average tints are compareable and have identical CCT. Now my 5000k BLF A6 is definitely cooler than my H600Fc.

I just saw your comment on the H600Fd thread about our eyes vs. camera adapted CCT - a very important consideration I hadn't thought of.

 

[likethevegetable]

Here's another beam shot of the H600Fc IV (left) and H53c (right).

 

[NPL]

Fc looks really good! Very little tint shift. Can you take the same shot but with DC fix on the 53c? Thanks

 

[ank]

Can you comment on the plastic holder?
Is it as bad as people say, and should be replaced with Armytek plastic holder?

 

[likethevegetable]

ank - it's not terrible, but the Armytek plastic holder fits perfectly and I would recommend it over ZL's without hesitation.

 

[likethevegetable]

I went for walk tonight and compared my H53c + DC-fix to my H600Fc IV. When I first tried the DC-fix on my H53c, I wasn't terribly impressed, but after putting it on again I think I'm gonna give it another chance - it works very well to smooth out the hotspot and mitigate tint-shift. The DC-fix does not widen the spill of the beam by very much though and it's throw still surpasses the frosted lens for approximately the same lumens. I would recommend the DC-fix to someone who might want a little bit more throw with the option of taking it off if need be (if they needed to find a lost trail marker, for example), but the extra spill and smoothness of the frosted lens make it the winner IMO for general use.

I tried my best to take a good photo, but it was -20C and my best camera is my phone. The tree was maybe 50 ft away.

H600Fc on the left, H53c + DC-Fix on the right.

I also got around to magnetizing my H600Fc.

 

[NPL]

These are great, thanks again for taking the time to take the photos and share with the rest of us.

It's cool to see how the h53c with DC fix is now significantly closer to the tint of the h600Fc at least based on the beamshot a provided. H600fc outside looks amazing. At full power it must make night into day!

 

[scs]

Though I agree magnets on the clips are useful, I still wish in the future ZL would offer magnetic tailcaps interchangeable with the current ones.

 

[lampeDépêche]

Though I agree magnets on the clips are useful, I still wish in the future ZL would offer magnetic tailcaps interchangeable with the current ones.

Yeah, I'd be in favor of that option, too.

But having done it myself in the past (i.e. by supergluing a disc magnet onto the tailcap), I have to say that the magnet on the pocket-clip is *much* more versatile.

Think about a magnetic surface like the door of your refrigerator. With a tail-cap magnet, you attach it to the fridge, and then it can point straight up or straight down or anywhere else in a plane parallel to the surface of the door. But that's all. It is constrained to that plane. If you attach it to a steel table-top, then it is like a miniature light-house, shining a beam around the horizon, but not up into the air.

With the magnet on the pocket-clip, you can rotate the barrel of the light with respect to the clip, in order to direct the light to any point in the half-sphere. It can point to all of the places you can point to with a tail-cap magnet, and also all of the other angles, too.

I mean--both would be cool, too, so I am not opposed to having a magnetic tailcap. But it does not replace the utility of a magnet on the pocket-clip.

 

[ank]

Whats the diff between tint and CRI ? I thought that high CRI = perfect tint ?!

 

[markr6]

CCT = correlated colour temperature = in Kelvin, it's the color appearance of the light. Low numbers like 2000K are warm, higher numbers like 6500K are cool.

CRI = color rendering index. 100 is the highest, 80 is pretty standard now days. Basically "color accuracy" but you could write a 900 page book on this. The 90+ CRI LEDs make things look "true"...the red apple actually looks red instead of reddish/orange/purplish. I was counting on my SC5c II to be perfect at 4000K and a high CRI of 93-95. Unfortunately it was very yellow; no better than a standard 80CRI Cree at 4500K to my eyes.

Tint = unfortunately you can buy 10 identical LEDs and they may all have a different tint/cast to them. One may have a hint of green, another yellow, another pinkish. Even though the box says 90CRI, 4500K, that doesn't guarantee they will look exactly the same.

Some types/brands are better than others when it comes to consistency.

 

[archimedes]

It may help to think of tint as a point in "color space" while CCT would be defined by a line ...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planckian_locus