greenLED
Flashaholic
Yeah, yeah, another one of those! :nana:
First off, a huge thank you to 4sevens and fenix-store.com for letting me abuse this light. It's been fun trying to completely destroy a beefy light such as the T1.
Objectives:
My tests were done with the following three questions in mind:
These were addressed by two simple set of tests. First, I took a Low Light/Night Fire class and used the T1 throughout the day of training. Then I repeated a similar sequence I used when testing the Bogolight (as described here and here).
The gist of the second round of testing was to drop the light onto different surfaces and from increasing heights and check routinely (after 25 drops initially, then I got bored and checked every 50-100 drops) for damage and functioning. I also ran over the T1 90 times with a full size sedan. In addition, I made a point of using the T1 daily, as a bike light, I let our toddler play with it (he's my VP of Destructive Testing, BTW), etc. I did the latter until the light quit working.
Onto my findings:
Using the T1 in conjunction with a handgun:
You can read about the tactical experience in this thread. The more I used the T1 after that class, the more I became aware of how much light the T1 puts out in "low" mode. I think low/high are a bit of misnomers on this light; they're more like bright/super-bright.
I now think the "low" beam is plenty bright for anything and everything you might encounter at close ranges and indoors, and is the beam I'd use almost exclusively. I'd use the high setting only while trying to spot some distant object while outdoors.
This is how the T1 looked after a full day in the range:
Those pics are of the largest scratches. As you can see, they are minor (<2mm).
The tailcap flares got kinda squished after the light was tossed across a room and it hit the concrete floor:
Results of drop tests:
I started by letting the T1 fall 100 times from desk height onto a linoleum floor. The T1 fell on the bezel the vast majority of times. Aside from damage to the linoleum, there really isn't anything salient to report in terms of physical or electronics damage to the T1. Once in a while it would fall "just right" on the tail end of the light and the tailcap would loosen and prevent activation. I think the metal flares hitting the floor "just right" would make this happen. The light worked flawlessly after tightening the tailcap.
The second round of drops consisted in letting the T1 fall 150 times from hip height onto a smooth concrete surface. Again, I couldn't really get any significant dings on the T1. The tailcap would also "act up" once in a while (the light wouldn't turn on), but re-tightening it would fix the problem. The concrete surface started showing signs of wear from the SS bezel hitting it, so I decided to move onto a bit harsher tests.
From the time I finished the smooth concrete drops and the time I began the next round of drops, I made a point of throwing the T1 down a flight of stairs whenever the opportunity arised. I did this for about a week, but didn't keep a log of how many times I tossed the light like this. If I had to guess, I'd say 30-50 times. Again, no further damage to the finish, or severe effects on the functioning of the light. I did manage to break the switch, though. It wasn't a complete failure, but it would fail to engage as I it cycled on/off. Momentary on would still work, though. 4sevens sent me a replacement switch and I kept testing.
For the next round of drops I dropped the light from about 2m height onto a rough sidewalk. Here's were things started getting interesting. The damage to the finish from each fall was small, but it did accumulate with time. Most importantly, this is the stage of the testing where the switch started acting up. It took only 25 drops for me to break the replacement switch 4sevens had sent. At this stage it the switch worked properly about 70% of the time, and is when I started to think the T1's switch might be the "weak link" on this light. I decided to keep the second switch in place and see how long it'd be until it completely stopped working.
After 300 drops, the switch appeared to have fixed itself for the most part; it malfunctioned only 10% of the times. When it failed to work it would appear as if the switch was jammed. However, once I pushed on the button really hard, "something" seemed to realign itself and the switch would then function normally for another round of drops.
The switch continued to work as described up until I logged 475 drops onto the sidewalk. When I tested the light again at 575 drops, it wouldn't work. I performed the usual diagnostics: tighten the switch retaining ring, clean threads, change batteries, use wires to bypass the tailcap, close the circuit without the body, etc. Nothing I could do brought the light back to life.
At first I thought I had dented the (+) contact on the head, but changing the batteries and bypassing the body didn't solve the problem. Then datiLED reported the inductor on the T1 he was testing had broken off the board. It is possible the same thing happened with my test unit, but I have no way of being 100% and I've decided I won't take the light apart. This could easily be solved by potting the circuit inside the head.
At this point I also realized the loctite keeping the bezel in place had come lose from all the impacts and I was able to easily unscrew the bezel off the head. I formally declared the light "dead" after 575 drops from 2m height. However, you have to keep in mind that this was after 100 drops onto linoleum floor, 150 drops on smooth concrete, and 30-50 tosses down a flight of stairs. Ultimately, this light took 855-875 falls (most from unconventional heights) before it completely quit working. That'd be at least 755 drops if I count from the last time I know the light worked -impressive. As shown by my tests and those of others, the switch is pretty much the only weak part of this light.
This is how the T1 looked after all those drops:
Light/bezel shots:
Bezel ring:
Tail:
Clip:
As you can see, there's significant "character" on the surface of the light, but it's concentrated on the bezel and tail portions. Nothing surprising, really. HA resists abrasion fairly well, but does NOT really protect against impacts and depends on the hardness of the underlying materials.
The T1 gets run over by a car:
I ran over the T1 with a full size sedan 90 times. I positioned the light tail first, head first, and on its side, and ran over it 30 times in each position. I rotated the light to expose a different surface after 10-15 passes with the car. Other than the clip getting a little flattened (I was afraid it'd break and puncture a tire, actually), the light doesn't look much worse than after the drop tests. If anything, you can tell the new "character" marks because they dig much deeper into the light, as you can see from the bezel close-up pics. If I had done this at the very beginning of my testing, I'm 100% confident there would be no damage whatsoever to the light (aside from cosmetic blemishes, of course).
At first I was really hoping the bezel ring would deform, but as Marduke showed it takes a whole lot more force to do so.
Now I'm intent on finding how much force it takes to shatter the window. datiLED did it by flinging it against a concrete wall a couple of times, but mentioned the bezel ring might've been lose. So, for the final act, I'm going to make sure the bezel ring is tight and I'm going to start dropping the light from greater heights. I just have to find a safe location to do so. Or maybe I'll tie it to a rail and let it swing against a wall. It wouldn't be hard for somebody who remembers Physics 101 to calculate the force on impact. (Don't look at me for that one, I have no interest in revisiting Physics.)
Stay tuned! :wave:
First off, a huge thank you to 4sevens and fenix-store.com for letting me abuse this light. It's been fun trying to completely destroy a beefy light such as the T1.
Objectives:
My tests were done with the following three questions in mind:
- How does the T1 perform as in a tactical environment (that is, in conjunction with a firearm).
- How resistant is the finish of the T1 to physical abuse?
- How resistant are the components of the T1 to physical abuse?
These were addressed by two simple set of tests. First, I took a Low Light/Night Fire class and used the T1 throughout the day of training. Then I repeated a similar sequence I used when testing the Bogolight (as described here and here).
The gist of the second round of testing was to drop the light onto different surfaces and from increasing heights and check routinely (after 25 drops initially, then I got bored and checked every 50-100 drops) for damage and functioning. I also ran over the T1 90 times with a full size sedan. In addition, I made a point of using the T1 daily, as a bike light, I let our toddler play with it (he's my VP of Destructive Testing, BTW), etc. I did the latter until the light quit working.
Onto my findings:
Using the T1 in conjunction with a handgun:
You can read about the tactical experience in this thread. The more I used the T1 after that class, the more I became aware of how much light the T1 puts out in "low" mode. I think low/high are a bit of misnomers on this light; they're more like bright/super-bright.
I now think the "low" beam is plenty bright for anything and everything you might encounter at close ranges and indoors, and is the beam I'd use almost exclusively. I'd use the high setting only while trying to spot some distant object while outdoors.This is how the T1 looked after a full day in the range:
Those pics are of the largest scratches. As you can see, they are minor (<2mm).
The tailcap flares got kinda squished after the light was tossed across a room and it hit the concrete floor:
Results of drop tests:
I started by letting the T1 fall 100 times from desk height onto a linoleum floor. The T1 fell on the bezel the vast majority of times. Aside from damage to the linoleum, there really isn't anything salient to report in terms of physical or electronics damage to the T1. Once in a while it would fall "just right" on the tail end of the light and the tailcap would loosen and prevent activation. I think the metal flares hitting the floor "just right" would make this happen. The light worked flawlessly after tightening the tailcap.
The second round of drops consisted in letting the T1 fall 150 times from hip height onto a smooth concrete surface. Again, I couldn't really get any significant dings on the T1. The tailcap would also "act up" once in a while (the light wouldn't turn on), but re-tightening it would fix the problem. The concrete surface started showing signs of wear from the SS bezel hitting it, so I decided to move onto a bit harsher tests.
From the time I finished the smooth concrete drops and the time I began the next round of drops, I made a point of throwing the T1 down a flight of stairs whenever the opportunity arised. I did this for about a week, but didn't keep a log of how many times I tossed the light like this. If I had to guess, I'd say 30-50 times. Again, no further damage to the finish, or severe effects on the functioning of the light. I did manage to break the switch, though. It wasn't a complete failure, but it would fail to engage as I it cycled on/off. Momentary on would still work, though. 4sevens sent me a replacement switch and I kept testing.
For the next round of drops I dropped the light from about 2m height onto a rough sidewalk. Here's were things started getting interesting. The damage to the finish from each fall was small, but it did accumulate with time. Most importantly, this is the stage of the testing where the switch started acting up. It took only 25 drops for me to break the replacement switch 4sevens had sent. At this stage it the switch worked properly about 70% of the time, and is when I started to think the T1's switch might be the "weak link" on this light. I decided to keep the second switch in place and see how long it'd be until it completely stopped working.
After 300 drops, the switch appeared to have fixed itself for the most part; it malfunctioned only 10% of the times. When it failed to work it would appear as if the switch was jammed. However, once I pushed on the button really hard, "something" seemed to realign itself and the switch would then function normally for another round of drops.
The switch continued to work as described up until I logged 475 drops onto the sidewalk. When I tested the light again at 575 drops, it wouldn't work. I performed the usual diagnostics: tighten the switch retaining ring, clean threads, change batteries, use wires to bypass the tailcap, close the circuit without the body, etc. Nothing I could do brought the light back to life.
At first I thought I had dented the (+) contact on the head, but changing the batteries and bypassing the body didn't solve the problem. Then datiLED reported the inductor on the T1 he was testing had broken off the board. It is possible the same thing happened with my test unit, but I have no way of being 100% and I've decided I won't take the light apart. This could easily be solved by potting the circuit inside the head.
At this point I also realized the loctite keeping the bezel in place had come lose from all the impacts and I was able to easily unscrew the bezel off the head. I formally declared the light "dead" after 575 drops from 2m height. However, you have to keep in mind that this was after 100 drops onto linoleum floor, 150 drops on smooth concrete, and 30-50 tosses down a flight of stairs. Ultimately, this light took 855-875 falls (most from unconventional heights) before it completely quit working. That'd be at least 755 drops if I count from the last time I know the light worked -impressive. As shown by my tests and those of others, the switch is pretty much the only weak part of this light.
This is how the T1 looked after all those drops:
Light/bezel shots:
Bezel ring:
Tail:
Clip:
As you can see, there's significant "character" on the surface of the light, but it's concentrated on the bezel and tail portions. Nothing surprising, really. HA resists abrasion fairly well, but does NOT really protect against impacts and depends on the hardness of the underlying materials.
The T1 gets run over by a car:
I ran over the T1 with a full size sedan 90 times. I positioned the light tail first, head first, and on its side, and ran over it 30 times in each position. I rotated the light to expose a different surface after 10-15 passes with the car. Other than the clip getting a little flattened (I was afraid it'd break and puncture a tire, actually), the light doesn't look much worse than after the drop tests. If anything, you can tell the new "character" marks because they dig much deeper into the light, as you can see from the bezel close-up pics. If I had done this at the very beginning of my testing, I'm 100% confident there would be no damage whatsoever to the light (aside from cosmetic blemishes, of course).
At first I was really hoping the bezel ring would deform, but as Marduke showed it takes a whole lot more force to do so.
Now I'm intent on finding how much force it takes to shatter the window. datiLED did it by flinging it against a concrete wall a couple of times, but mentioned the bezel ring might've been lose. So, for the final act, I'm going to make sure the bezel ring is tight and I'm going to start dropping the light from greater heights. I just have to find a safe location to do so. Or maybe I'll tie it to a rail and let it swing against a wall. It wouldn't be hard for somebody who remembers Physics 101 to calculate the force on impact. (Don't look at me for that one, I have no interest in revisiting Physics.)
Stay tuned! :wave:
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