HDS Systems Ra Clicky Tactical 170

[Jeff S.]

For Christmas my amazing girlfriend bought me an HDS System Ra Clicky Tactical 170. Christmas came early for me.

It is amazing how much light this little flashlight puts out. The emitter is tiny, and yet the throw and spill is substantial. It throws farther than my HDS EDC Ultimate 60 GT and my Surefire E2e, but the spill is also brighter. It lights up a whole room similar to a Surefire L4, except that there is a defined hotspot with the Ra Clicky. When I first turned it on (in a room, of course), I was surprised because, though the beam is described as "narrow," there is actually a lot of bright spill. When I took it outside, however, I was very pleased with how far the beam throws. It is hard to describe how much light it is pumping out.

It is longer and feels slimmer than my HDS Ultimate. The Ra Clicky truly is the evolution of the previous EDC Ultimate. It has been written that this light feels very substantial and durable, and I completely agree. There is some heft to the Ra Clicky, but I certainly wouldn't describe it as heavy. Also, for what it is worth, the fit and finish is wonderful.

The beam is gorgeous. It is a very neutral white, and compares well to my EDC 60 that has a guaranteed tint. Against a wall, there is a large and very bright hot spot. This hot spot is neutral. Around the hot spot there is a bright secondary hot spot that has a slight yellow to it (and I mean ever so slight). This secondary hot spot transitions very well to a general peripheral brightness. The peripheral light is very neutral. Like I said, this flashlight will light up a room. I've found that in use my Ra Clicky provides better red rendition than my EDC 60 GT, and I'm guessing this comes from the slight yellow previously mentioned, but I doubt it's anywhere close the the color rendition provided by the High CRI emitter that is available. Overall, I couldn't be happier with the tint. Edit to add: After playing with the light some more, calling the secondary hot spot yellow may be misleading; it's just warmer.

As for the clip, it isn't as bad as some claim. I actually rather like it. I'm still undecided about it, as I like the clip on my EDC 60 better.

This light is going everywhere with me, and it happily becomes my EDC. I may customize my light by raising the medium setting (15 lumens) a level or two. The difference between 170 and 15 lumens is quite large, so I think raising the brightness on the medium setting will provide a better general purpose luminosity from that setting. Oh, and one last thing, when I first read about the Ra Clicky series of lights, I was worried about the burst feature, but it is great. After ten seconds it drops down from 170 lumens to 120 lumens, and my girlfriend and I don't think it's that great a drop. Now that I've seen it, I think Henry is brilliant for implementing this feature.

 

[Lumenz]

The Ra Clicky 170 is great. I EDC mine everywhere I go. I don't use the clip, but rather tie a constrictor knot (I got the idea from CaNo) around the clicky and use it as a lanyard.

You mentioned changing the "medium" setting. You realize that the Ra Clicky has four settings, right? Double-click to switch back and forth between two of the settings, triple-click for another setting and a click-press for the last setting.

 

[Jeff S.]

The Ra Clicky 170 is great. I EDC mine everywhere I go. I don't use the clip, but rather tie a constrictor knot (I got the idea from CaNo) around the clicky and use it as a lanyard.

You mentioned changing the "medium" setting. You realize that the Ra Clicky has four settings, right? Double-click to switch back and forth between two of the settings, triple-click for another setting and a click-press for the last setting.

Thanks for the suggestion regarding the knot. There are some members who custom make clips as well, and I may go that route as I really want a clip.

As for the levels, I have the tactical operation, so one of the levels is taken by the strobe. I understand it is completely customizable, but I actually want the strobe. So in my mind I have a 'high', 'medium', and 'low' setting. I want a very high 'high' and a very low 'low,' which I currently have. But for the 'medium' setting, I think I'd prefer 30 lumens.

I also wanted to correct something from the first post. What I call the "secondary hot spot" isn't really yellow; it's actually more of a warm white. Hard to explain, but I really like the tint.

 

[knightrider]

Very cool girlfriend. Sounds like she's a keeper!

I can still remember opening a Surefire L4 my girlfriend gave me out of the blue as a gift. Hadn't even told her about it and she got it anyway. So guess what I did? Married her of course!

That Ra Clicky 170 is one state of the art flashlight for sure! Have fun with it.

 

[DM51]

Very cool girlfriend. Sounds like she's a keeper!

Definitely!

 

[Jeff S.]

Thank you for the responses. I'm gearing up to do a runtime test, so I've been doing a bit of reading, which leads me to a question...

The Ra Clicky will get at least one hour (60 minutes) on the high (120 lumens) setting. My understanding is that my light will output a constant 120 lumens for at least sixy minutes. According to light-reviews.com/ra_clicky, their runtime test of a Ra Clicky 140 was 2 hours and 27 minutes to 50%. The high on the Ra Clicky 140 is 100 lumens, so I'm guessing that 50% would be roughly 50 lumens. However, according to Surefires website, both the L4 (120 lumen) and the LX2 (200 lumen) have a 2 hour output of tactical level light ("total runtime until output drops below 50 lumens" ~surefire's website). I'm guessing that Surefire's numbers are minimums, but still, how can a 1 cell light outlast 2 cell lights?

Thanks for any insight into the matter.

 

[lrp]

The Ra Clicky is by far my favorite light!!

 

[HDS_Systems]

Jeff S.,

Our typical runtime on high is listed as 1 hour and 15 minutes (75 minutes) before dropping down to the next level. If you start at the burst brightness, 170 lumens, you get the 10 second burst at 170 lumens (level 23), followed by 75 minutes (typical) at 120 lumens (level 22) followed by a drop to 85 lumens (level 21). For marketing purposes, we call this the 50% point because the light will double-blink once a minute to indicate it is no longer able to support the requested power setting. Hence, the published typical runtime on High of 75 minutes.

But is this really "below" 50%? No. The light is at 50%, plus or minus the production calibration tolerance. And here it will stay until the battery cannot support the setting, which may net you an additional hour of runtime at 50% output - before truly falling below the 50% output level.

Thus, we certainly could claim to have over 2 hours of runtime before falling below 50% - if we wanted to.

So back to your final question: how can a 1 cell light outlast a 2 cell light? We use burst mode to save battery power. We also use a stepped approach to generating light instead of a linear approach - which in the end is more efficient. We take advantage of the logarithmic nature of your eyes to give you the most useful amount of light for the power.

Henry.

 

[jblackwood]

Very cool girlfriend. Sounds like she's a keeper!

+1, I agree 100% with this statement.

So guess what I did? Married her of course!

You did what?!?!?! Married her? WTH did you do that for? Go and ruin a perfectly good thing . . . grumble grumble . . .

Just kidding to all you gals out there reading this . . . all four of you. :kiss: :naughty:

Congrats on the light. I'm still trying to figure out a way to get an RA clicky on my Amazon wishlist, but I just like too many options.

 

[Jeff S.]

Jeff S.,

Our typical runtime on high is listed as 1 hour and 15 minutes (75 minutes) before dropping down to the next level. If you start at the burst brightness, 170 lumens, you get the 10 second burst at 170 lumens (level 23), followed by 75 minutes (typical) at 120 lumens (level 22) followed by a drop to 85 lumens (level 21). For marketing purposes, we call this the 50% point because the light will double-blink once a minute to indicate it is no longer able to support the requested power setting. Hence, the published typical runtime on High of 75 minutes.

But is this really "below" 50%? No. The light is at 50%, plus or minus the production calibration tolerance. And here it will stay until the battery cannot support the setting, which may net you an additional hour of runtime at 50% output - before truly falling below the 50% output level.

Thus, we certainly could claim to have over 2 hours of runtime before falling below 50% - if we wanted to.

So back to your final question: how can a 1 cell light outlast a 2 cell light? We use burst mode to save battery power. We also use a stepped approach to generating light instead of a linear approach - which in the end is more efficient. We take advantage of the logarithmic nature of your eyes to give you the most useful amount of light for the power.

Henry.

Thank you Henry for the reply.

 

[shawn a.]

Henry,
You seem like a very cool and "focused" person--Forgive the pun.
If I get to the gem show this year, I'll try to look you up.
I'm an OPAL freak.
Shawn A.

 

[knightrider]

You did what?!?!?! Married her? WTH did you do that for? Go and ruin a perfectly good thing . . . grumble grumble . . ..

Had to - only person that tolerates me! And how else could I keep getting nice lights and not be in trouble?

 

[Dead_Nuts]

Jeff S. -- Congrats on the great light and the great gal.

I love all my Ra lights, with my 140-Cgt and 200-Cn being my favorites. To be honest, my 170 is almost as bright as my 200, but the 200 has a much nicer tint.

I EDC a 170 virtually all the time now (sometimes as a primary, sometimes as a backup). It's plenty bright enough with a bullet-proof construction.