Got a PT Rage - Disappointment [beam shot]

Hello,

i have just got a PT rage flashlight and are not very happy with it. Before buying one I have read the review at flashlightreviews.com and it seems that may flashlight does not have the same quality as the one reviewed by quickbeam. I took am beamshot of the light. It was taken from a distance of 1,2m:

http://320095413440.bei.t-online.de/Rage.jpg

And here is the beamshot from flashlightreviews.com:

http://flashlightreviews1.home.att.net/reviews/images/princetontec_rage/pt_rage_beam.jpg

As you can see my light's beam is not nearly as smooth as the one at flashlightrewies.com. There are holes in the beam despite of the textured reflector. Also the type of the beam is not really a "spot" as described at quickbeams page. I would call it a "medium flood". The throw of this light seems to be pretty limited. IMO a UK 4aa or a maglite have a "spot" type beam, but not this light.

What do you think, shall I send the light back and try to get another one, which may have a better beam quality?

Regards,
Gerd

Your Rage is on par with the one I have and its two lamp asseblies I have for it. It wasent designed for a tight focus beam.

Most people are content with its medium flood beam(as you accurately describe it by the way)as it puts out a poop load of light for its size and is a good value.

I cant think of anything better that uses 4 AAA's.

With not being sure what you want from it, you could smooth the beam with Writeright or some such. However it would lose some brightness.

I almost always choose beam quality over absolute power.

[ QUOTE ]
PlayboyJoeShmoe said:
With not being sure what you want from it, you could smooth the beam with Writeright or some such. However it would lose some brightness.

I almost always choose beam quality over absolute power.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks for the hint, but with writeright the light would lose the rest of its throw. It would be down to the level of a small LED-Light ;-)

Well, what do I want from it? ;-) Hmm.. I would like to have the light, that was reviewed by quickbeam. His PT Rage seems to be superior to the lights that can be bought around here.

Another question... I was just looking at the Output-throw-chart at:

http://flashlightreviews.home.att.net/articles/output_vs_throw/chart_throw.htm

There you can see, that the rage has about the same throw as the Tec40. Ist this really correct? Does the Tec 40 also have such a "medium flood" beam? Whats the effective range of a Tec40? The effcetive range of my PT Rage ist about 15...20m.

Greets,
GerdK

[ QUOTE ]
N710 said:
Your Rage is on par with the one I have and its two lamp asseblies I have for it. It wasent designed for a tight focus beam.

Most people are content with its medium flood beam(as you accurately describe it by the way)as it puts out a poop load of light for its size and is a good value.

I cant think of anything better that uses 4 AAA's.

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh, thats sad news. A little bit more throw would be nice...

A good value... hmm... It costs 25 USD (20 Euro). Pretty much for a little piece of plastic with a non perfect beam. For 10 USD ist would be a good value.

[ QUOTE ]
GerdK said:
A good value... hmm... It costs 25 USD (20 Euro). Pretty much for a little piece of plastic with a non perfect beam. For 10 USD ist would be a good value.

[/ QUOTE ]


Check out www.brightguy.com his price for the Rage is $10.50 US

Yes- it is a broad beamed light- mine is just like your beamshot. Very bright for it's size, and watertight (I let the kids play with it in the pool at night sometimes). But if you're looking for a light with good throw this is not the light you want. Take a look at the beamshots and reviews for the Streamlight Propolymer Xenon (4aa). Very tight spot- smooth reflector. Very long throw.

The Rage is 8.95 USD from www.texastacticalsupply.com.

It's a bigger version of the Blast, with the same reflector. I don't have a Rage but have had several Blasts. The Blast's beam quality does vary from one unit to the next.

If you take out the lamp/reflector assembly you'll see there is a normal bi-pin bulb soldered in. Maybe you can improve the beam by heating up the solder with a soldering iron, and adjusting the position of the bulb in the reflector. Some people have done that with the Blast.

If you want a small light with a tighter beam, try a UKE 2L, which is unfortunately a lot more expensive (25 USD at TTS). But it's a nicer light in general than the Rage.

Personally I like the Blast (2aaa version of the Rage) better than the Rage. It's even less bright than the Rage, but it's half the size and weight, nice for dropping in your pocket and taking everywhere.

[ QUOTE ]
paulr said:
The Rage is 8.95 USD from www.texastacticalsupply.com.
...
your pocket and taking everywhere.

[/ QUOTE ]

WOW, less than 9 USD...

But here (europe, germany) there is no chance to get this light for less than 20 or 19 Euro :-(

Flashlights, electonics and optics (telescopes etc...) often cost here twice as much, as in the United States. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif

If I'd want to buy an expensive telescope I almost could make a 2day trip to NewYork, buy the telescope there and then fly back to germany. This (journey+telescope) would cost as much as the telescope alone in a local store.

Greets,
GerdK

I have always really liked the Princeton Tec lights. I have found the Rage to be a great EDC - a nice compromise between the Blast and the 40.....in fact, the Rage is what my wife has in her purse. She's had to use it for various uses and has been impressed with it's light output.

I also own a Streamlight 4AA Xenon and would def. recommend it if throw is what you're looking for. I posted a story about having to use that light to see what was behind my house once, and it's def. a nice beam and has pretty good output for the 19 bucks I spent on it.

I think the greatest features of the rage is being waterproof and pretty reliable.

[ QUOTE ]
GerdK said:
Flashlights, electonics and optics (telescopes etc...) often cost here twice as much, as in the United States. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif
If I'd want to buy an expensive telescope I almost could make a 2day trip to NewYork, buy the telescope there and then fly back to germany. This (journey+telescope) would cost as much as the telescope alone in a local store.
Greets,
GerdK

[/ QUOTE ]

Can you mail order it and have it shipped to you?

Gerd, a lot of the CPF dealers will ship stuff to Europe. I don't know about TTS, but I think Brightguy will. Those lights also show up on the CPF buy/sell/trade section pretty regularly, and sellers are often willing to send stuff overseas. I sent a Minimag/BB400 (about the same weight as the Rage) to Greece a few weeks ago, and the airmail postage was just 3 USD or so. The main nuisance is the seller has to take it to the post office and fill out a customs form to mail it, instead of just dropping it in the mailbox. There is a chance that the customs office at the receiving end will hold up the package and charge import duty, but in practice that hardly ever seems to happen.

GerdK,
I sent you a PM with links. Click on the flashing envelope at the top left of your screen.

[ QUOTE ]
charliek said:

Can you mail order it and have it shipped to you?



[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, that is possible. But you have to pay about 25% Taxes and the costs for Shipping (costs much, since telescopes tend to be big)
But the price difference between US and Europe often is so big, that you still save some money, despite these costs.

But importing a 9 USD PT Rage would be useless, not expensive enough. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif
On the other hand: A Streamlight stinger costs here 240 USD and in the USA only 80 USD. In that case a US-import certainly would be a good idea ;-)))

[ QUOTE ]
Hoghead said:
GerdK,
I sent you a PM with links. Click on the flashing envelope at the top left of your screen.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

BTW, my Rage is the same. Ringy, crappy, floody beam. I know I've seen people claim to have reasonable beams in their Rages, so obviously quality varies a lot.

Joe

[ QUOTE ]
There you can see, that the rage has about the same throw as the Tec40. Ist this really correct?

[/ QUOTE ]

Of COURSE it's correct!!! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

What you are failing to take into consideration is that the throw has nothing to do with beam width and the size of the spot. Check out this page: http://flashlightreviews.home.att.net/qa.htm#lumens which I refer to from the throw vs. output page. Everyone needs to read and understand how Lux measurements work before judging lights based on the charts!

The high intensity spot of the Rage is much smaller than that of the Tec40. Look at the review beamshots and you can see this.

[ QUOTE ]
Quickbeam said:
[ QUOTE ]
There you can see, that the rage has about the same throw as the Tec40. Ist this really correct?

[/ QUOTE ]

Of COURSE it's correct!!! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

What you are failing to take into consideration is that the throw has nothing to do with beam width and the size of the spot. Check out this page: http://flashlightreviews.home.att.net/qa.htm#lumens which I refer to from the throw vs. output page. Everyone needs to read and understand how Lux measurements work before judging lights based on the charts!

The high intensity spot of the Rage is much smaller than that of the Tec40. Look at the review beamshots and you can see this.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hi!

Ah, now I understand (I think /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif )

The throw measurement alone says nothing about the real reach of the beam. It does not say that you can or cannot illuminate a thing that is maybe 50m or 100m away.

You are measuring the brightness of the brightest part of the hot spot in lm/m² at a certain distance. Maybe at one or two meter(?)

As an example: Mini-Mag vs. PT Rage...

At 1m the brightest spot of the Rage-beam is 37. The Minimag just has 31.
But now I have to realize that the beam of the Rage is much more divergent than the beam of the minimag. So if you would repeat the lm/m² measurement at a distance of maybe 20m the minimag would have a much higher rating than the Rage. Maybe 10 lm/m² vs 3 lm/m²...
I hope that I understood it right.

A question about the Tec 40: You mentioned that its hotspot is bigger (and maybe better focussed??) than the hotspot of the PT Rage. Is it possible to illuminate something that is 30-40m away, using the Tec 40? I'm asking because I maybe want to buy this light. For outdoor use (Fishing, Hiking). But for these tasks I need a light, that has a bit more throw than the Rage.

Greets,
Gerd

I've decited to keep the PT Rage as a EDC-Light. Maybe I will buy a 2nd reflector and try to fit a luxeon 1W LED in it. (Will be my first mod /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif )

Gerd, the Tec40 is available both with a textured reflector (like the Rage) or a smooth reflector. The smooth reflector makes a ringier, but tighter beam, so it will have longer range. If you want a smaller light, I highly recommend the UKE 2L. It is smaller than the Rage and has a narrower beam, so more range, plus it has more runtime. It uses two CR123 lithium cells instead of four AAA's.

Hello Gerd,

You are very close to understanding the concept, but still a little off.

Doug (Quickbeam) measured the output from the brightest spot on the PT Rage beam at a distance of 1 meter and found it to be 1400 lux. This is the brightest "pin point" of light in the beam.

To come up with the throw figure, you take the square root of the lux measurement at 1 meter. This figure means that at 37.42 meters the amount of light (from the brightest pin point of light) falling on an object will be 1 lux (which is about 10 X the light from a full moon).

The throw measurement does tell you about the reach of the beam, but does not tell you how much of an object will be lit up at that distance.

To illustrate, consider a laser. A laser has a high lux value and a lot of throw, but it is difficult to identify an object with a laser. The other extreme is the flood light. This would have a small lux value indicating that the beam will not reach that far, but it will light up the whole side of your house.

To help us understand the beam characteristics of flashlight, Doug came up with a home made integrating sphere. The values from this device are listed as Overall Output.

If you take the two examples you mentioned (PT Rage and MiniMag) and look at the chart, you find that the Rage will out throw the MiniMag (37.42 meters vs 31.62 meters) by about 6 meters, but the beam from the Rage will have about 5 X the amount of spill light (27 qups vs 5.8 qups) as the MiniMag.

If you were choosing between these two lights you would have to consider wether you wanted more of a spot light or not. The Rage will give you more throw and light up more with its spill light. The MiniMag will give you more of a spot light.

Hope this helps.

Tom

If you're looking for a to use the 40 for fishing and camping, I'd say, go for it! I have one in my tackle bag and it's helped me out plenty of times at night. It's plenty bright for close to medium range tasks. Just be realistic though, it won't illuminate the shore from the other side of a lake....but it does put out 28 Lumens, which is pretty good for a light that size.