Wolf Eyes Defender III (and Krait)

[gcbryan]

There's been some talk of these lights in other threads but they didn't go anywhere so I thought I'd give them their own thread.

There doesn't seem to be a lot of info/reviews out there. I've asked questions of some dealers/factory but no response yet.

These are variable focus lights using the XR-E R2. The Krait uses (2) AA's and the Defender III uses (1) 18650.

The ad copy for the Krait mentions both aspheric lens and reflector while the Defender only mentions aspheric lens.

I'm not clear if there really is a difference between these two in this regard (I don't know if there really is a reflector in one).

Max lumen for the Krait is listed at 220 Lumens and for the Defender III it's listed at 285 lumens.

The Defender III is about an inch shorter than the Krait.

Detailed pictures (more than one angle) are hard to come by. The Krait seems to have a smooth bezel and the Defender III seems to have a lightly scalloped bezel.

Both of these sell for around $70. I'm unclear if throw for either is appreciably further than some of the DX flood-to-throw models. Some of those take 18650's and are as highly binned as Q3 or perhaps Q5. With looser regulation in some cases it would be possible for higher current draw and therefore throw may be the same in some cases?

Most of these questions weren't addressed in other threads. If anyone has any info to contribute it would be appreciated.

These lights are roughly in the size range of the Surefire 6P I believe so potential differences in throw are limited I would think. If the R2's are driven at 700mA then that only leaves the type and quality of the aspherics involved I guess.

One positive thing over the DX models is at least both the Krait and the Defender III seem to be nice looking flashlights. Most of the DX models (including the one I have-C30 model) are very odd looking as if the tail end of the flashlight were just chopped off.

I haven't personally seen or used a Led Lenser P7 but I think these lights may look similar. I've read a bit about them (Lensers) but it's still hard to get a good feel as to whether they throw much better than the cheap DX models either. They don't use R2's I don't think and they don't use 18650's either so the Wolf Eye models do having some things potentially distinguishing them from the Lensers. If someone has a Lenser P7 and one of the DX flood-to-throw models perhaps you can at least compare the throw between those models. Also, I've read I believe that the Lensers use both aspherics and reflectors in the same model(is that true)?

If anyone has more info/reviews/experience/pictures to add this is the thread to do it in!

 

[recDNA]

There's been some talk of these lights in other threads but they didn't go anywhere so I thought I'd give them their own thread.

There doesn't seem to be a lot of info/reviews out there. I've asked questions of some dealers/factory but no response yet.

These are variable focus lights using the XR-E R2. The Krait uses (2) AA's and the Defender III uses (1) 18650.

The ad copy for the Krait mentions both aspheric lens and reflector while the Defender only mentions aspheric lens.

I'm not clear if there really is a difference between these two in this regard (I don't know if there really is a reflector in one).

Max lumen for the Krait is listed at 220 Lumens and for the Defender III it's listed at 285 lumens.

The Defender III is about an inch shorter than the Krait.

Detailed pictures (more than one angle) are hard to come by. The Krait seems to have a smooth bezel and the Defender III seems to have a lightly scalloped bezel.

Both of these sell for around $70. I'm unclear if throw for either is appreciably further than some of the DX flood-to-throw models. Some of those take 18650's and are as highly binned as Q3 or perhaps Q5. With looser regulation in some cases it would be possible for higher current draw and therefore throw may be the same in some cases?

Most of these questions weren't addressed in other threads. If anyone has any info to contribute it would be appreciated.

These lights are roughly in the size range of the Surefire 6P I believe so potential differences in throw are limited I would think. If the R2's are driven at 700mA then that only leaves the type and quality of the aspherics involved I guess.

One positive thing over the DX models is at least both the Krait and the Defender III seem to be nice looking flashlights. Most of the DX models (including the one I have-C30 model) are very odd looking as if the tail end of the flashlight were just chopped off.

I haven't personally seen or used a Led Lenser P7 but I think these lights may look similar. I've read a bit about them (Lensers) but it's still hard to get a good feel as to whether they throw much better than the cheap DX models either. They don't use R2's I don't think and they don't use 18650's either so the Wolf Eye models do having some things potentially distinguishing them from the Lensers. If someone has a Lenser P7 and one of the DX flood-to-throw models perhaps you can at least compare the throw between those models. Also, I've read I believe that the Lensers use both aspherics and reflectors in the same model(is that true)?

If anyone has more info/reviews/experience/pictures to add this is the thread to do it in!

Anybody got the defender?

 

[gcbryan]

I did hear back from the company (Wolf Eyes) and both lights are the same regarding the aspheric/reflector combination. I don't know any more than that.

I lost interest and decided it would be more interesting to experiment with making my own thrower.

I'd still like to hear from anyone who has these lights but apparently no one does.

 

[recDNA]

I did hear back from the company (Wolf Eyes) and both lights are the same regarding the aspheric/reflector combination. I don't know any more than that.

I lost interest and decided it would be more interesting to experiment with making my own thrower.

I'd still like to hear from anyone who has these lights but apparently no one does.

I remember when Wolf Eyes got a LOT of buzz here. Now we hear next to nothing about them. I'd love to try he Defender but I need to chill on the $$$ for a while.

Oh...and gc I asked HJK if he had a thread on flood to throws but no dice. Too bad. He has some of the best threads going on various categories of flashlights. Flood to throw aspherics seem to be uncool here.

 

[Chao]

I have this new Defender III that with aspheric lens.
Throw is about 14,000 lux at 1m, it shows sidespill when in focus beam.
I have another throw-to-flood light, Romisen RCII Q5, the throw is 12,000 lux (powered by RCR123A) without spill.
Hope these informations helpful!

 

[recDNA]

I have this new Defender III that with aspheric lens.
Throw is about 14,000 lux at 1m, it shows sidespill when in focus beam.
I have another throw-to-flood light, Romisen RCII Q5, the throw is 12,000 lux (powered by RCR123A) without spill.
Hope these informations helpful!

It's very helpful but also a little disappointing. My Eagletac T20C2 R2 puts out over 15000 lux at one meter without the aspheric. I expected the Defender III to be at least 25,000 lux due to the aspheric.

Any idea how the RC-C6 or X2000 do?

 

[Chao]

I too also expected the defender III can be the great thrower in it's size and can reach to 30,000 lux.
My Romisen RC-C6 Q5 got 12,000 lux with using 3.7V RCR123A, I have it's beamshots and runtimes in my review, but the review was written in Chinese, if you don't mind, welcome to take a look

 

[gcbryan]

Chao, thanks for the info and for the links. Nice beamshots.

recDNA, I guess no one is interested in flood-to-throw because no one has really done it very well.

I'm not impressed for the most part with most aspheric lens. I guess they could be done much better but as they are done I think a lot of light is just wasted and the beam is frequently ugly.

When $10 DX lights throw as well as most other reasonable priced lights you know that no one is doing this category very well.

 

[sol-leks]

It looks like wolf eyes also offers an R5 version of the defender III although I can't find it for sale anywhere. Maybe that will have the improved brightness this light so sorely needs. The price seems pretty reasonable to me though, I feel like wolf eyes lights are usually much more than this.

 

[Chauncey Gardner]

The pics Chao linked kind of make you wonder if the Romisen could not be improved upon. Looks more promising than I thought it would. That is a pretty tight square it's putting out in the indoor tight focus shot.

Would like to see some outside comparison beamshots between the Defender 3 & Romisen.

 

[gcbryan]

Rather than spend $65 on something that seemed to be no better than the cheap DX flood to throw lights I ended up modding my own.

I used a XR-E R2 drop-in for a P60 host and a $2.00 DX 28 mm aspheric lens and it's better than the DX cheap lights.

Recently I got in my Uniquefire HS-802 with has a 50 mm diameter head and a wide and deep reflector using a XR-E R2 and it throws further than any of the above with some spill as well.

I ordered a 50 mm aspheric as well but I can't grind it down far enough to try in the HS-802. It wouldn't focus without being positioned further down the head anyway.

I do have a 42 mm aspheric coming from KD so I have another shot for experimentation.

 

[joe1512]

This might be a dumb question, but how come nobody has made a strong flood to throw light?

Can you use a SST-50/MC-E/P7 instead of an XP-G or XR-E or whatever? At 2.5 amps, you'd have a base 500ish lumens to work with. This would work great with an 18650 or two.

Is the emitter too big to work with aspheric or what?


It just seems that this would be an ideal general purpose light. As mentioned, the flood-to-throw and aspheric doesn't cost THAT much to make. Why is there no itp Polestar FT variant with it, or Fenix TK40-AS, or MG-PLI flood-to-throw?

Even DX uses the same ole outdated emitters with 1 or 2 AAs or CR123s for an underpowered product.

 

[gcbryan]

This might be a dumb question, but how come nobody has made a strong flood to throw light?

Can you use a SST-50/MC-E/P7 instead of an XP-G or XR-E or whatever? At 2.5 amps, you'd have a base 500ish lumens to work with. This would work great with an 18650 or two.

Is the emitter too big to work with aspheric or what?


It just seems that this would be an ideal general purpose light. As mentioned, the flood-to-throw and aspheric doesn't cost THAT much to make. Why is there no itp Polestar FT variant with it, or Fenix TK40-AS, or MG-PLI flood-to-throw?

Even DX uses the same ole outdated emitters with 1 or 2 AAs or CR123s for an underpowered product.

Aspherics and quad emitters like MC-E and P7 don't work well as you get the focused die with 4 light sources.

It would work with a SST-50. It wouldn't throw as far at the same power settings since the SST-50 is a larger emitter and the XR-E has greater surface brightness.

The main reason I'd guess is that's not what enough people want. You do get aspheric add-ons occasionally like the one for the Tiablo A9.

Part of the problem is that the beam isn't what people expect and in some cases a lot of light is wasted since the aspheric just cuts off the unfocused light rather than creating spill and with cheaper aspheric there are artifacts.

I'd like to see more fixed focus lights coming with an aspheric option but I'm not that into the variable focus ones even though I have one of the cheap DX models.

I don't know why there are no "good" versions on DX of those kinds of models. They could at least use a XR-E R2 and they could design a light that looked better and fit in the hand better than those models. A better quality aspherical optic would be nice as well. A bigger optic and something more robust than a slide head would be nice.

 

[recDNA]

I wish one of our mod experts would build there own quality flood to throw and add a real glass quality asheric from one of the sources who supplies them. You may be sure that you'd have a well-matched set of emitter and aspheric then

Of course there's the deft but it really doesn't have a full flood mode and pure aspheric has no real use I can think of except for fun. The flood mode allows me to pretend the flashlight serves a practical purpose as well is a fun purpose.

 

[gcbryan]

I wish one of our mod experts would build there own quality flood to throw and add a real glass quality asheric from one of the sources who supplies them. You may be sure that you'd have a well-matched set of emitter and aspheric then

Of course there's the deft but it really doesn't have a full flood mode and pure aspheric has no real use I can think of except for fun. The flood mode allows me to pretend the flashlight serves a practical purpose as well is a fun purpose.

I think you might like the Uniquefire HS-802. It's basically all spill (which you can use as flood) and has a tiny bright spot in the middle. You can ignore the spot until you need throw. . . then I throws extremely well.

 

[recDNA]

But it can't throw like an aspherical lens does. I'm looking for at least 25,000 lux @ 1m or it isn't worth my while. It has to be able to outthrow a TK40.

 

[gcbryan]

But it can't throw like an aspherical lens does. I'm looking for at least 25,000 lux @ 1m or it isn't worth my while. It has to be able to outthrow a TK40.

I don't have a lux meter but since it has a deep 50 mm head/reflector it does throw further than my 28 mm aspheric (P60 host).

I'm guessing this throws further than the TK40 which is a MC-E in a 40 mm reflector isn't it?

 

[red02]

But it can't throw like an aspherical lens does. I'm looking for at least 25,000 lux @ 1m or it isn't worth my while. It has to be able to outthrow a TK40.

Excuse my ignorance, but doesn't the lux at 5m tell more about throw since it gives a better idea of how the beam disperses?