Fenix TK61vn (XM-L2, 4x18650/8xCR123A) Dedome Modded Review: BEAMSHOTS, RUNTIME+

[ven]

Thats why your reviews are 2nd to none selfbuilt,honest,unbiased..............superb:twothumbsand have such a following for detailed opinion,so well communicated.

I agree on that vinh does compensate with beefing up components,as we know manufacturers have to make money,all profits,be it cars or flashlights. Thinner metals on body work ,cheaper parts/components too,to thinner wires,less solder on lights etc etc(just plucked examples).

The added bonus is also vinhs communication and customer service...........i dont know how he does it but he does and surpasses my expectations and some x 10.

As in my 1st post,a great team,reviews and modder,the best imo,just makes CPF all the better.:twothumbs
lovecpf great community :grouphug:

I really look forward to the future relationship with lights and reviews,both with a strong following=excellence at its best.

Regards mr very positive :laughing:

 

[who]

selfbuilt,

Your assessment and precaution are needed.
None of my comments were meant as a challenge to you or anybody else, in any shape or form. Just my observations.


I used to work with MTBF (mean time between failures) a lot in my CPU design days. [FONT=&quot]Like you with over-clocked computers, I played with various CPUs, increase the speed / megahertz, and used all kind of heat sinks to cool those CPUs. Yes, I was one of the guys in the 80386 design team.
[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]This is a hobby for most of us, and these VN turbo lights put a lot of fun back in this hobby. That said, for anything tactical, I still use the old SureFire lights.
[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Thank you again for your great work.[/FONT]

 

[InfinitusEquitas]

That said, my "gut impression" is that if a dedomed emitter functions stably for the first few hours of continuous use, it is probably not going to be an issue in the regular lifetime of the product. To use a parallel, this is why (in my younger days) I used to "burn in" all my over-clocked computer equipment with several hours of hard-core torture testing with limited cooling. If the parts didn't experience errors under those conditions, they were likely to be fine for the estimate lifetime of regular use at the elevate clock speeds/timings.


Just to be clear - I don't take any of the community comments above as challenging in any way - I think it was fair to raise them. I don't mean to be overly verbose, but it is just that this is my first review of a commercially modded light, and I want to make sure everyone can see my reasoning and understand where I am coming from. All points of view are welcomed here.

I still do that Whenever I put together a new computer, or buy a new laptop, or cellphone, I torture test them to far beyond what would be considered normal use.

Thank you for understanding, and even more so for updating your review, I thought it was very fair and balanced to begin with, but is even more so now. I'm certainly not out to contradict/challenge you. It's just that in many cases, the readers here might not be very aware of modded lights, dedoming, the risks, and the rewards, so I felt it would be good to comment on this. My own personal experience has been much the same as yours, in that when my lights died, it was due to circuit failure (usually from my own abuse). To date, only one light I had die, was due to the LED, and that was an older light with an XMLT6 led, with really almost no heatsinking.

Looking forward to your beamshots!

 

[TEEJ]

Excellent review SB!

(As always)



Your point about dedomed LED is on point. From what I see, having a lot of dedomed lights, I see no observable degradation of the LED as a result, despite the fact that most of the dedomed lights are also souped up and therefore run hotter to even further improve performance.

If an LED has a factory life of 30,000 hours, and you use it say 2 hours a day, seven days a week (More than most actually get used), that's 14 hours a week, or ~ 2,142 weeks of use from 30,000 hours.

That's roughly 41 YEARS.

If running the LED pedal to the metal, dedomed, cuts the life in HALF (I don't know if it does, I have yet to see one die/dim at all...), that's still ~ 20 YEARS of LED life.

Even halving THAT to ~ 10 years...let's face it, in 10 years, it will be obsolete and outgunned by whatever wonder chip, etc, we have by then.

 

[Capolini]

SB's complimentary assessments/statements: Some of those "Highlights"! :thumbsup:

Note that the emitter die centering was perfect on my TK61vn, and was only "good" on my stock TK61 (i.e., not perfectly centered, but not bad). This is again one of the benefits on a custom mod – everything is adjusted for absolute best performance. :thumbsup:

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To look at it another way, that's a 250% increase in throw on my TK61vn, with only a ~65% increase in overall output, from stock. :bow:

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the TK61vn is the clear throw king in my testing at the moment. :wave:

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How well does this light throw? Well, peak beam intensity is ~3.5 times the stock TK61. oo: That corresponds to ~3 times the stock TN32, and more than twice that of my previous peak throwers, the SBT-70-equipped Olight ST95S-UT and Eagletac MX25L2 Turbo.

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The TK61vn is the top-throwing reflector light I've tested to date, bar none. ~600,000cd is an incredibly beam intensity. :bow:

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Ok, here's the top line: my TK61vn has ~600,000cd by ANSI FL-1 measures, making it the furthest throwing reflector light I've ever tested.

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Thats ALL folks!!!!

 

[jmpaul320]

thanks SB for the great review

this is a wonderful light

i have used it for the last few months almost exclusively as my go to thrower

if anyone is worried about the driver - vinh always stands behind his product 100%

 

[rdrfronty]

Nice review on an awesome light. I'm glad to see we are in the same ballpark testing wise. Unfortunately most of us hobbiest cannot afford true integrated sheres, so we do the best with what we can make & afford. And of course we have to create multiplier baselines from lights that are "rated" from the factory. And from my observation, some manufactures tend to test high (eagletac for example) and some tend to test low (zebralight is an example). So there is the fun part of creating the baselines we have to use for our light boxes and meters. If some manufactures are consistantly high and some are consistantly low - exactly which one is correct? We basically have to find the best medium point, just like you did way back when you started this fun.
Anyways, like I said we can only do the best we can. And be consistant with our testing will at a minimum create accurate results relative to other lights we test.
Again awesome job guy! I always look forward to your reviews and will continue to do so for cool lights in the future.

 

[GordoJones88]

Speechless.

 

[Skylumen]

:twothumbs

 

[cagenuts]

Doff question here, are those prices on top of the original cost of the torch or does one purchase a complete modified version from VN?

 

[AmperSand]

Its the total cost for the modified version of the light.

 

[cagenuts]

Thanks &. I've just taken delivery of a stock TK61 which I bought for my fishing trip later this year on Lake Kariba (Zimbabwe) but the throw on this one looks mighty impressive.

 

[Ernst from Germany]

Sehr, sehr strong Beam ,reaching nearly one mile !!!
Ernst

 

[selfbuilt]

It's just that in many cases, the readers here might not be very aware of modded lights, dedoming, the risks, and the rewards, so I felt it would be good to comment on this.

Yes, I think that's true today. I joined CPF at a time when many here had a hobbyist perspective - a lot of people (myself included) were looking to upgrade and modify our lights, to boost performance. But a whole new breed of good quality (and reasonably inexpensive) lights starting being made by new manufacturers, so the "demographic" around here eventually changed - the majority interest moved to wanting to compare performance of the increasing number of economical commercial lights (which is what I now do almost exclusively).

As a result, I expect most who come across my reviews today are not familiar with the long tradition of custom building and modding here on the forum - and why I thought some extra comment was needed in the the review. It's also why I'm happy to encourage this side-discussion in the thread, so people can become more familiar with that "other world" of flashlight interest and experience. Hopefully it gives people the idea to check out the custom/modder forum here. :wave:

Nice review on an awesome light. I'm glad to see we are in the same ballpark testing wise. Unfortunately most of us hobbiest cannot afford true integrated sheres, so we do the best with what we can make & afford. And of course we have to create multiplier baselines from lights that are "rated" from the factory. And from my observation, some manufactures tend to test high (eagletac for example) and some tend to test low (zebralight is an example). So there is the fun part of creating the baselines we have to use for our light boxes and meters. If some manufactures are consistantly high and some are consistantly low - exactly which one is correct? We basically have to find the best medium point, just like you did way back when you started this fun.

Indeed - it is all part of the challenge (and the fun) as a reviewer. This is clearly off-topic, but I certainly have my own personal views as to which manufacturers specs are consistently above or below the trend line. Fenix has always impressed me with thier remarkable consistency - and close match to my overall best fit line. I note that they claim to use one the industry-standard, flashlight-optimized integrating spheres for all their output measures.

Of course, it is more than just how you measure - it's what you measure, and what you choose to report. Consistency is the one aspect that we really don't have good data on - as we would each need to test a large number of samples. Unfortunately, ANSI FL-1 places no requirement to provide variation data, only the average result (and typically from only 3 samples required). That is likely insufficient to provide a true estimate of the wider "population mean." And when it comes to modded lights, I would expect variation would increase even further - so I hope everyone can appreciate that each of our set of numbers are simply individual data points of one sample in a larger universe of samples.

For that matter, it is only some manufacturers (Fenix among them) that seem to really go for the true average of their test samples in the first place. Others go for the extremes - both high and low. Of course, we can all understand why some may like to report only the high-end ... but there are a couple of well-known manufacturers who seem to prefer to give "low ball" specs (i.e., they are really minimum specs, not average). And that's fine, as long as you are upfront about it - it's actually useful to know the "floor" of minimum expectations (although I suspect the main reason some do it is so they don't need to update their specs/marketing once better output bins start working their way into production). It's an interesting business.

 

[hikingman]

Great review SB as they always are. Just emailed Vinh and ordered one! I agree with TEEJ's assessments (and your's too) about the "life" of these things. I'll want and be in love with newer models way before any old ones die...

Dave

 

[gkbain]

Thanks SB for another educational review. I know very little about flashlights, only been into it for about a year, and none about modded lights. I have read a bit about modding lights but seems like it is for the super flashaholic. This review really sparked my interest and Vihn seems to have it all together. I would like to thank Vinh for providing the light and SB for the review.

 

[Skylumen]

Thanks SB for another educational review. I know very little about flashlights, only been into it for about a year, and none about modded lights. I have read a bit about modding lights but seems like it is for the super flashaholic. This review really sparked my interest and Vihn seems to have it all together. I would like to thank Vinh for providing the light and SB for the review.

Thanks!

 

[Roger Ranger]

Wow! Vinh and Selfbuilt. It's like when the guy with the peanut butter ran into the guy with the chocolate! Thank you both.

 

[ven]

Wow! Vinh and Selfbuilt. It's like when the guy with the peanut butter ran into the guy with the chocolate! Thank you both.

Thats such a sweet thing to say

 

[Jdubs]

Great review, Selfbuilt! I've been eagerly waiting for this review, and I am looking forward to adding a Vinh-modded light to the stable soon.