Rustu R7 right-angle light – Essentials Review (1x14500/AA)

subwoofer

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This is the first of a new style of 'Essentials' reviews intended to provide you with the essential facts and key technical measurements.

The Rustu R7 is a right-angle light that will run on all 'AA sized' cells, though is optimised for 14500 li-ions.

09-RustuR7sidesize-.jpg




What is in the box:

The R7 arrives in a plain oversized cardboard box.

01-RustuR7boxed-.jpg


Inside the box the R7 is in a small zip-lock bag. There are no spares.

02-RustuR7unboxed-.jpg




Taking a closer look and looking inside:

Looking straight down onto the top of the head shows the heat-sink fins, holographic label, branding and switch depression.

03-RustuR7head-.jpg


The R7 has an electronic click switch in the head. The battery tube and tail-cap are cleanly knurled and there is a steel pocket clip.

04-RustuR7side-.jpg


The tail-cap contact.

05-RustuR7tailcap-.jpg


The threads are standard and fully anodised.

06-RustuR7thread-.jpg


Peering down the battery tube shows the first hint of gold contacts. The positive contact is actually a small metal post.

07-RustuR7batterytube-.jpg


The R7 is fitted with a Samsung LH351A and specified by the manufacturer at 300lm output. (Rustu also incorrectly specify a CREE XP-G R5)

08-RustuR7LED-.jpg


There is a small diameter lanyard hole in the head.

10-RustuR7lanyard-.jpg




Modes and User Interface:

The R7 has three output modes. High, Low and Strobe.

The interface is a very simple cycle.

From OFF – Press for High - Press for Low - Press for Strobe - Press for OFF

To switch off you always have to go through all the modes including strobe, although as an alternative, you can lock-out the tail-cap to switch it off.



Batteries and output:

The R7 can run on either 14500 or AA.

The testing was carried out with Eneloop LSD Ni-Mh and Trustfire protected 14500 li-ion.


To measure actual output, I built an integrating sphere. See here for more detail. The sensor registers visible light only (so Infra-Red and Ultra-Violet will not be measured).

Please note, all quoted lumen figures are from a DIY integrating sphere, and according to ANSI standards. Although every effort is made to give as accurate a result as possible, they should be taken as an estimate only. The results can be used to compare outputs in this review and others I have published.

Rustu R7I.S. measured ANSI output LumensPWM frequency (Hz)
High 145003050
Low 1450033125
High AA880
Low AA5125

As the R7 utilises an electronic switch, there is parasitic drain to consider.

The drain is dependant on the input voltage meaning there are different results for AA and for 14500.

For 14500 it is 4.6mA meaning it would take 8 days this to drain a fully charged 14500 battery.
For AA it is 36.3mA meaning it would take 2 days this to drain a fully charged AA battery.


The runtime graph was intended to capture the maximum output and the following output trace is the result. Using a protected 14500 means the output terminated suddenly when the protection kicked in.

RustuR7RuntimeHigh14500.jpg




The beam

The indoor beam shot shows the wide and even spill with a soft edged hotspot. The brightness of the spill works very well indoors.

11-RustuR7beamindoors-.jpg


The hotspot does give some range, but as can be seen by the well lit table in the foreground, the spill is very wide and bright.

12-RustuR7beamoutdoors-.jpg




What it is really like to use…

With the switch located on the left side of the head, it works very well for a right handed person to operate, but is not so comfortable for a left hander.

The right-angle format makes it quite compact and very useful for tail-standing and pointing the light were you want it. It also works well when clipping into a pocket and directing the light forward.

With no battery installed, the head makes it top heavy and it won't tail stand, but with the battery installed it stands securely enough.

The two down-sides for me can be dealt with by doing one simple action. Having to cycle through all modes to switch off is a pain, and the parasitic drain means that a lot of power is wasted with the light on standby.

Both of these are simply bypassed by locking-out the tail-cap to turn the R7 off. As the tail-cap is nicely knurled there is plenty of grip, and this seems to almost be the design intention. So using the R7 with the master switch of the twisty tail-cap, and then a mode selection button makes this a much more attractive prospect.

Although optimised for 14500, and on the DX page, only 14500 is mentioned, it does operate perfectly well (if at a lower output) on a Ni-Mh rechargeable, so you have the added flexibility of this power source.

Curious to see how much power the R7 needed to give any light, I raided the 'to-be recycled' pile of AAs and took out two very run-down alkaline AAs. Using these the R7 gave perfectly usable light output, so it seems to be a bit of a battery vampire (scrounged AA alkalines give a usable output right down to 0.5V), just remember to lock-out the tail-cap.




Test sample provided by DX (DealExtreme) for review.
 
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The emitter looks like XP-G2.
So the rustu is xp-g and the unique fire is xp-e. thats what my research turned up. Would that explain the 300 lumen on the rustu r7 and 350 on uf-v4? That look like the only difference. Other than the brand logo. The rustu r7 description says it has a xp-g r5. Is that the same as xp-g2?
 
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The emitter in this one is not as specified by Rustu. It is mounted on a board with CREE printed on it, but it is not a CREE LED.

Thanks to bshanahan14rulz for identifying this as a Samsung LH351A LED
 
My uf-v4 is on the way. I cannot find much info here on CPF about it. It's description says it has a Cree xp-e led. But probably doesnt.
 
why would a manufacturer claim to have a certain led which it hasnt ? has there been a serious mis- communication between departments at the company ??? most strange and unusual. either way it doesnt inspire much confidence imo. thanks for the review subwoofer.
 
Rustu r7, unique fire uf-v4, and now kinfire k7. How many versions of the same light are there gonna be? All say they support 14500, but some say they don't?
 
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