Review Ray D1 mini thrower

[HKJ]

[size=+3]Ray D1[/size]

Ray is a new name in flashlights and the D1 is their first model. The light is a multimode CR123/16340 light with a rather large reflector. The light is controlled with a forward tail switch with on/off function, selecting the desired mode is done with multiple presses, but more about that later. The light is made of aluminum with hard-anodized (Type 3) finish.

The light arrives in a cardboard box with foam insert.

The contents of the box is the flashlight, GITD (Glow in the Dark) rubber boot for the tailcap (The mounted rubber is black), 3 extra O-rings and a specification and instruction sheet.

Looking from the front the large, deep (For this size light) and smooth reflector can be seen with a XR-E led in it.

The head of the light can be removed to gain access to the led that is mounted in a pill together with the driver.

The body has some groves and a band of knurling. The knurling is placed exactly where I hold my fingers when using the light in underhand grip, when using overhand grip the groves helps holding the light.

The backend of battery tube has an o-ring, like all joints on the light, and is anodized to provide a lockout function.

The tailcap has a forward switch and a ring around it, the ring does not hamper pressing the switch (Because the light is short), but is not high enough to allow tail standing. There is no hole for a lanyard in the ring.

The tailcap is the usual construction, with easy access to change the rubber boot.

The light is not glued together, everything can be disassembled

Now to the UI (User interface) and modes, the light has from one to 6 slots and each slot can be programmed with any of the following:

• Brightness setting, any brightness from lowest to highest
• Strobe, there is a selection of frequencies from 1 Hz to 15 Hz
• SOS, with two different brightness settings
• Locator, will give a low power flash every 5 seconds (Called Standby in manual)
• Beacon, will give 3 fast flashes every 3 seconds (Called Liaison Signal in manual).
• Strobe with variable frequency

To program these settings, press the switch halfway 3 times and hold it down the last time, the light will flash fast two times and then slowly flash up to 6 times, release the switch when it has flashed the number of slots/modes that is desired.
Press the switch halfway again, the light will flash twice and then start cycling through all its settings, release the switch when the desired setting for the slot is reached. This is repeated for each slot. I.e. if 3 slots/modes is selected, the 3 next times the light is turned on a slot must be programmed.
The light has memory that will remember the last selected slot.


The light has very good throw for a small light, the big reflector is of course the reason for that. It is also nice to have a broad selection of modes and the possibility to adapt the light for any kind of use. But the light also has a few problems, the LiIon warning signal triggers when using CR123 batteries and if the programming sequence is accidental started, all slots/modes has to be reprogrammed.



[size=+3]Technical specification and measurements[/size]

The light supports both CR123 and RCR123/16340 LiIon batteries. The light has a warning when LiIon batteries are running low, but this warning is also trigged when running on fresh CR123 batteries.

The light is specified with 235 lumens for maximum output with a 16340 and a runtime of 30 minutes. With a CR123 the output is specified as 200 lumens with a runtime of 45 minutes. Minimum output is specified as 2 lumens for more than 100 hours. In my measurements the minimum is more like 5 lumens and (without measuring it) I would expect the runtime on minimum to be around 15 hours with CR123.

Current measurement with 16340: Min: 72 mA, Max: 1100 mA
Current measurement with CR123: Min: 100 mA, Max: 2000 mA

Here is the runtime with AW16340 and CR123, both at full brightness. On the 16340 it is possible to see the warning flicker, just before the protection in the AW cell shuts the light down. The CR123 starts with the warning flicker and then runs normally until the battery is empty. It has a long runtime at reduced brightness, but I have not measured it. The scale is in minutes.

Size: Diameter: 22mm to 26mm, length: 97 mm
Weight: 102.4 with AW 16340, 100 with CR123

Led is a Cree XR-E R2.

The light is using pwm to regulate the brightness, at 250 kHz this is the fastest pwm I have seen to date. The upper trace is high power and the lower trace is a medium power.

Slow strobe, at 0.6 Hz with 50% duty cycle.

Fast strobe, at 17 Hz with 50% duty cycle.

This trace is the low sos setting, the dot is 0.3 second and the total sos message is 7.6 second followed by 2.8 second before repeating.

Beacon/Liaison signal, 3 flashes each 0.1 second with a 0.1 second pause, then a 3 second pause.

Here is the full selection sequence, it takes about 1 minute and 30 seconds.



[size=+3]Comparison to other Flashlights[/size]

I have selected the following lights for comparison (Same sequence as picture): Ray D1, JetBeam RRT-0, Fenix PD20 R2, NiteCore EX10, Quark 123, LiteFlux LF3XT
These light are all lights than has many brightness settings and most of them can also use LiIon batteries.

Measuring light output with a ceiling bounce, the D1 has about the same output as many other CR132/16340 lights.

The brightness of D1 can be adjusted to any value between minimum and maximum, giving it even more possibilities than the lights with fixed levels, only the low level is not as low as the other lights.

Usual the RRT-0 wins in throw for small lights, but the bigger reflector on D1 makes it throw much better than RRT-0.



[size=+2]Beam profile[/size]

Ray D1 LiIon, JetBeam RRT-0, Fenix PD20 R2

NiteCore EX10, Quark 123, LiteFlux LF3XT

[size=+2]Beam profile, reduced exposure[/size]

Ray D1 LiIon, JetBeam RRT-0, Fenix PD20 R2

NiteCore EX10, Quark 123, LiteFlux LF3XT

[size=+2]Lowest output[/size]

Ray D1 LiIon, JetBeam RRT-0, Fenix PD20 R2

NiteCore EX10, Quark 123, LiteFlux LF3XT

Dark reference:

[size=+2]Hotspot[/size]
Note how bright the hotspot on the tree is, the D1 is much more concentrated and brighter than the other lights.

Ray D1 LiIon, JetBeam RRT-0, Quark 123

[size=+1]Ray D1[/size]

CR123 minimum and maximum:

LiIon minimum and maximum:

Hotspot with LiIon:

CR123 minimum:

CR123 maximum:

LiIon minimum:

LiIon maximum:

Hotspot with LiIon:

[size=+1]JetBeam RRT-0[/size]

This light has a ring to select between 5 predefined brightness settings.
Read more about the light and see pictures and beamshots in my Danish review

Low, #2, #3:

#4, high:

Hotspot:

Low:

#2:

#3:

#4:

High:

Hotspot:

[size=+1]Fenix PD20 R2[/size]

Each press on the button will change the selected brightness, loose/tight head select between two different sequences.
Read more about the light and see pictures and beamshots in my Danish review

Low, medium, high:

Turbo:

Low:

Medium:

High:

Turbo:

[size=+1]NiteCore EX10[/size]

Holding the switch down will adjust the brightness.

Minimum, maximum:

Minium:

Maximum:

[size=+1]Quark 123[/size]

Each press on the button will change the selected brightness, loose/tight head select between two different sequences.
Read more about the light and see pictures and beamshots in my Danish review

Moonlight, low, medium:

High, turbo:

Hotspot:

Moonlight:

Low:

Medium:

High:

Turbo:

Hotspot:

[size=+1]LiteFlux LF3XT[/size]

In default mode holding the switch down will adjust the brightness, but this light has lot of programable options.

Minimum, maximum:

Minimum:

Maximum:

[size=+3]Notes[/size]
Light was supplied by Ray for review.
Sorry about the pictures, but I had a light behind me than showed up on the snow.

 

[lazaris]

Great review! Looks like a nice thrower in a really small package. Looks like it can keep up in throw with much larger (M20, CL1H etc.) with that hot spot.

 

[fa__]

Very nice review, and the light is also nice ( I own one)

 

[liketotallyrandom]

Do they really make NiMH 16340 batteries? What are THOSE like?

 

[HKJ]

Do they really make NiMH 16340 batteries? What are THOSE like?

Oops, fixed!
Thanks.

 

[easilyled]

It looks very similar in proportion to the original Lumapower D-mini thrower.

It would be interesting to see comparison pics between the 2 both for build proportions and beamshots.

 

[TBell-EDC]

Any indication of price they intend to market teh "D1"? I checked their web [page but did not locate any price information.

 

[MattK]

It looks very similar in proportion to the original Lumapower D-mini thrower.

Agreed but a bit of an understatement IMO - it looks almost like a clone to me.

 

[HKJ]

It looks very similar in proportion to the original Lumapower D-mini thrower.

It would be interesting to see comparison pics between the 2 both for build proportions and beamshots.

I do not have the orginal d-mini, but only the VX-ultra, they are definitely the same class of light. The D1 is very close to the same size, but has a deeper reflector.

 

[litemax]

I do not have the orginal d-mini, but only the VX-ultra, they are definitely the same class of light. The D1 is very close to the same size, but has a deeper reflector.

How deep is the reflector? From your photos, it looks to be as deep as its width.

 

[easilyled]

Thanks for providing comparison pics and for your informative review HKJ.:thumbsup:

The proportions are remarkably similar.

I remember that my original Lumapower D-mini had very impressive throw even with the Cree-P4-XRE.

 

[DM51]

Just found this. Excellent review! The comparison beamshots are very interesting - this is quite a thrower. It's hard to believe this is their first model - they've hit the ground running, and this is light a serious competitor.

Moving to the Reviews section...

 

[selfbuilt]

Nice review HKJ - ironic that both of ours came out on the same day (a lot for everyone to read through!)

In my runtime tests, I got much lower performance on max AW RCR - 7 mins (!).

In my case, this was on a brand new AW protected purchased a few weeks ago, and one that I confirmed in my other tests to have good capacity (e.g. I got 24 mins in my Jet-II PRO on max with the same battery, which is a record for a regular RCR cell in that light - few last even 20 mins). It similarly performed at the top of the range for medium output in the jetbeam light. Of course, there is bound to be some variability, but that is a pretty extreme difference between our D1 samples on max.

Thanks again for the detailed summary! I'm glad your oscilloscope setup could detect the freq (250kHz, wow ... no wonder my sound card setup couldn't detect it).

:wave:

P.S.: Great beamshots, much more than I ever provide. I can't resist the shameless plug, but I do have white wall shots comparing the the original D-mini (Cree P4) and recent Dmini VX Ultra (SST-50) in my D1 review.

 

[HKJ]

Nice review HKJ - ironic that both of ours came out on the same day (a lot for everyone to read through!)

It probably has a lot to with when Ray send out the review samples.

In my runtime tests, I got much lower performance on max AW RCR - 7 mins (!).

In my case, this was on a brand new AW protected purchased a few weeks ago, and one that I confirmed in my other tests to have good capacity (e.g. I got 24 mins in my Jet-II PRO on max with the same battery, which is a record for a regular RCR cell in that light - few last even 20 mins). It similarly performed at the top of the range for medium output in the jetbeam light. Of course, there is bound to be some variability, but that is a pretty extreme difference between our D1 samples on max.

I wonder about this, I already saw the D1 performance in your DX-Ultra review and was very puzzled. I also uses AW16340 cells and have in fact done the runtime with two different batteries and got nearly the same result.

One explanation could be that I had not selected full power on the light. To confirm that I have just done a scope trace (again) of the selected full power I have, the light is on in about 93% of the time. It might be possible to get a bit higher ontime (By waiting to just after the 100% flashes), but that would not explain the differences anyway.

Another difference in our reviews are the user interface, mine follows the printed manual and my (short) description in the review.

Thanks again for the detailed summary! I'm glad your oscilloscope setup could detect the freq (250kHz, wow ... no wonder my sound card setup couldn't detect it).

I was very surprised about the high pwm rate, that might be one of the reasons for the lower efficiency (I was curious what you would say about the pwm).
I also has some problems with these fast pwm rates. My scope can easily cope with it, but my sensor has a problem with "fall time".

P.S.: Great beamshots, much more than I ever provide. I can't resist the shameless plug, but I do have white wall shots comparing the the original D-mini (Cree P4) and recent Dmini VX Ultra (SST-50) in my D1 review.

Sometimes I think it would be nice if reviews always ended with a list of other reviews of the same light. Getting more than one opinion about a light is very useful.

 

[selfbuilt]

One explanation could be that I had not selected full power on the light. To confirm that I have just done a scope trace (again) of the selected full power I have, the light is on in about 93% of the time. It might be possible to get a bit higher ontime (By waiting to just after the 100% flashes), but that would not explain the differences anyway.

Interesting. Agreed, it doesn't explain the differences, but it is interesting (since I can't measure the PWM freq, I can't tell if it's really at 100% power on mine, but it is probably the same as yours).

One thing I did notice is that my RCR output was higher than my IMR, which gave a more "reasonable" 13mins (I've just updated the runtime graph to show everything in one place). I wonder if my results have something to do with the relative efficiency issues in the 60-100% range ... it is odd that runtime doesn't improve until I get closer to 50%.

Any chance of getting you to do a RCR and CR123A runtime at around 70% output to compare?

Another difference in our reviews are the user interface, mine follows the printed manual and my (short) description in the review.

Mine generally follows the manual too - it's just that I find the manual less than clear at times (especially in regards to clicks vs presses), so I thought I'd re-write it in more detail.

I was very surprised about the high pwm rate, that might be one of the reasons for the lower efficiency (I was curious what you would say about the pwm).

Yes, it may have something to do with the lower overall efficiency at all levels. I seem to recall the similarly maximally-driven Dereelight C2H was also supposed to have a very high PWM (and it has virtually identical efficency in my testing).

Sometimes I think it would be nice if reviews always ended with a list of other reviews of the same light. Getting more than one opinion about a light is very useful.

Definitely ... as I mentioned in my recent Olight M21 review, I don't believe manufacturer's stated runtimes, and think people would be better off averaging the results presented by multiple reviewers!

 

[HKJ]

Any chance of getting you to do a RCR and CR123A runtime at around 70% output to compare?

How do I find 70%, the predefined values are 18%, 30% and 100% (Same as above 93%) according to my scope. I.e. pwm percentages, did you use your light meter to find 70% or you runtime sensor (That might not be linear).
I can easy do a 16340 run more, but please no CR123 run (I have to pay $4 for each).

Mine generally follows the manual too - it's just that I find the manual less than clear at times (especially in regards to clicks vs presses), so I thought I'd re-write it in more detail.

You write something about clicking to select number of modes, I have none of that. I just press 3 times, see the double flash and then count flashes. each flash adding a slot/mode.

 

[Patriot]

Outstanding review HKJ! You're beamshots are amazing and your text is packed full of information. As a single cell throw fan, lights such as this really capture my attention. Am I correct to assume this is the new single CR123 throw champion? Seeing the way it out threw the RRT-0, I can't think of any other 123 light would beat in now. Thanks for showing this new light to us. Now I'm off to see Selfbuilt's review.

 

[selfbuilt]

How do I find 70%, the predefined values are 18%, 30% and 100% (Same as above 93%) according to my scope. I.e. pwm percentages, did you use your light meter to find 70% or you runtime sensor (That might not be linear).
I can easy do a 16340 run more, but please no CR123 run (I have to pay $4 for each).

Sorry, I should have said ~70% That's what I estimate the default "Med" level to be in the default 4-mode configuration (i.e. Med-Lo-Hi-freq conv strobe).

Maybe simplest if you do a reset and try the first output mode in RCR? That's what corresponds to "Med" in my runtimes. And I understand about the primaries - they are expensive here too!

You write something about clicking to select number of modes, I have none of that. I just press 3 times, see the double flash and then count flashes. each flash adding a slot/mode.

My bad - I've screwed up that description (I will go and fix it). Yes, as you say, you just have to release/click on the number you want (I must have miscounted - I thought it had started to display the number selected on mine - it doesn't). The point is you can do it by a press-and-hold on the 3rd flash (and then release when the mode number comes up), or release and click on after the 3rd flash (and then click off when the mode number comes up).

 

[lazaris]

Outstanding review HKJ! You're beamshots are amazing and your text is packed full of information. As a single cell throw fan, lights such as this really capture my attention. Am I correct to assume this is the new single CR123 throw champion? Seeing the way it out threw the RRT-0, I can't think of any other 123 light would beat in now. Thanks for showing this new light to us. Now I'm off to see Selfbuilt's review.

According to Selfbuilt's D mini test in which he also compared the Ray D-1, It appears to out throw many 2 cell RCR 123's such as the Raptor RRT-2 and Egaletac T20C2 which were some of the best throwers during his test in that class as well!!
Both great reviews!! Looks like I'll be getting one.

 

[HKJ]

Sorry, I should have said ~70% That's what I estimate the default "Med" level to be in the default 4-mode configuration (i.e. Med-Lo-Hi-freq conv strobe).

Maybe simplest if you do a reset and try the first output mode in RCR? That's what corresponds to "Med" in my runtimes. And I understand about the primaries - they are expensive here too!

I have done a medium runtime now, I get 31 minutes. This is a surprising short time for 30% pwm and 55% brightness. The brightness was measured with fresh LiIon where high is considerable brighter at the start of the run, 70% is more correct when it reaches the flat part of the runtime.