WISELED Tactical

kevindick

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May 3, 2004
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171
I just received my WISELED Tactical from Pacific Tactical Solutions. They've got a CPF special price, but they've asked that I not publicize it. List price is $560,

The summary is that this is one big, bad*ss light. It uses 7 Luxeon K2's to achieve a marketing output of 1000 lumens. Obviously, because the highest bin rating for a K2 is 140 lumens at 1500ma, that's really only 980 lumens at the source. Moreover, once the LED junction heats up, the output goes down and then you have losses getting the light out the front. Nevertheless, a lot of light.


DESIGN

The design is interesting. I don't have the time or skills for photographs, but I'll walk you through it from front to back. The WISELED Website has photos if you need them.

The light is about the same size as a 3D M@g: somewhat shorter and a bit thicker at both the head and body. There is no window on the front, just a customized optic recessed a few mm into the housing. Obviously, I'm a little concerned about scratching the optic. Given the $500+ MSRP, I would have liked to see an AR sapphire window.

The body is anodized black with slightly protruding o-rings at the various seams. However, the light is not user serviceable. I assume they've used some loctite-like adhesive on the threads at these seams. Strong manual twisting did not unscrew anything other than the endcap, which is just a cosmetic covering for the true body. I assume this sealed design is in the service of high depth water resistance. Theydo have a three year worldwide guarantee on the light, so if the Li-ion pack goes bad, you can send it back. But no switching spare batteries in the field.

There are two silver buttons set inline about a half inch behind the head. Right behind those is a three-inch rubber sleeve for grip. With dry hands, this grip is plenty tacky and very comfortable. With wet hands, it was a bit slippery. I would have preferred knurling. Moreover, with the amount of heat generated by 7 K2s at 1500ma, I don't think I want an insulator preventing my hand from cooling the light.

Behing the rubber sleeve, there's a silver metal ring with a lanyard hole. At the very end is the charging plug, which I assume is waterproof. The light comes with a wall power supply and car cigarette lighter plug. It has a keyed plug with visual indicators of the proper alignment.

The fit and finish on everything was excellent.


USABILITY

The light feels great in my hand. I have large hands and have always felt that M@gs were a little skinny for me. My thumb rests comfortably on the front button after reaching for the light and letting it settle into a natural position.

The user interface could use some work. Push the front button for on. Hold the front button for tactical strobe. So far so good. Holding the rear button down scrolls through the light levels, going down, then up. It looks to me like approximately 32 or 64 levels. I would prefer more distinct levels that scroll more slowly, a la the Chameleon. I often miss the lowest level before it starts scrolling up.

This is important, because the lowest level is still 2-4 times as bright as my Chameleon, which is obviously too bright of a low. I would have liked 5 levels evenly spaced, with the lowest level 1/20th of the highest.

Once you set the level, if you turn the light off and on with the front button, you return to the previously set level. Then things start to get weird. If you find a level you like and press the rear button again, it goes back to the highest level. OK, but there's no way to get back to the lower level you just set without going through the scrolling again. Turning the light on and off after going to high brings you back to high. Pushing the rear button again does strange things. Push once and the light goes off. Push twice and it comes back on to high. Push three times and it flashes a continuous SOS.

This weirdness has to do with controlling the optional taillight. I don't know why you would want the taillight, but surely the microcontroller could sense whether I have it and make those modes inaccessible. Better, yet forget about the taillight and have the rear button dedicated to controlling brightness. I found myself constantly getting to high output and then needing to scroll back down.


BEAM

You have to see it to believe it. It is friggin' bright! And as white as any of my LED flashlights.

I compared it to my sub-2D cmacclel hotwire, using the 1150 lumen Pelican bulb and 6 AA Lithium primaries (I have it configured for bedside deployment where shelf life is important).

In a ceiling bounce, I couldn't tell the difference because the colors were too different. Against a wall, the hotwire has a narrower, brighter hotspot and large corona. The Tactical's hotspot was about twice the diameter at 3m and very little corona. Overall light output looked roughly comparable, but it was hard to tell.

I took both lights down to a soccer field. At 100 yards, both lights did a great job of lighting most of the other end of the field. Interestingly, the Tactical did a better job. It's wider hotspot lit a noticeably wider field of view. However, I assume this would change if we took the range up to 200 yards--the Tactical's dimmer hotspot wouldn't reach, while the hotwire's would.

Don't even ask for beamshots because I don't have the time or expertise.


BOTTOM LINE

I'm happy with this purchase as a wow-light. I probably won't use it very often in a practical setting due to its bulk and usability issues. Though when taking the kids trick or treating, I will definitely have it with me. If I had more confidence in the user interface, I would definitely consider getting the Street version (much smaller, 3 K2's, only 1 button). Obviously, these guys are pretty serious flashaholics
 

Long John

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Mar 16, 2006
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2,307
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Spain, near Cadiz
Good review:goodjob:

IMO too complicated with the brightness levels and a big minus , that the user can't change the batts, specialy in fields.

Thanks for the review and best regards

_____
Tom
 

Chronos

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Jan 27, 2006
Messages
1,757
Location
Tampa, FL
Ok this light is getting sooo tempting to me. I only wish it had the ability to run off of primaries as well as the rechargeble cells. 10 watt HID-like output in a robust LED configuration. Hmm. A few questions if you don't mind:

- Is the finish HA?
- Do you have any ideas as to runtime (maybe to around 50% or to a moonglow)?
- Do you think it may replace any specific lights you may already own? Or is it too specialized?

Thanks for taking the time to review this light!
 

kevindick

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Joined
May 3, 2004
Messages
171
- It looks like HA, but I couldn't find anything that would tell me for sure.

- It's regulated. The spec sheet says 100min @100%, 300min @ 70%, 600min @ 35%

- It will probably replace my Elektrolumens Tri-Star and I probably won't buy a BAM4 now.

BTW, it's 12 levels of dimming according to the spec sheet.
 

CM

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Sep 11, 2002
Messages
3,454
Location
Mesa, AZ
1000 lumens from 7 k2's. That's about 143 lumens per LED. After reflector/optic/lens. I would like to know if they actually measured the 1000 lumens. For a $560 light, I would think they would go through the expense of backing up their claim.
 

Art Vandelay

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Mar 13, 2006
Messages
1,550
What is the lux @ one meter. I'd like to see how it compares to Elektro Lumens K2-Stunner. Thanks.
 

Mark2

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Apr 10, 2003
Messages
577
Location
Europe
25-1.jpg


40.jpg


Beamshots of 38 production LED lights at the same spot with the same camera settings available in this thread on PF: The ultimate LED Battle
 

Quickbeam

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I guess mine was missing the spec sheet. I have no confirmation of the type of LED, the type of battery, or the type of anodize.

I don't know where the "12 steps of dimming" figure is coming from either. If it's in the instructions, it's wrong. I can plainly (but quickly) count 16 steps. I counted them numerous times.

I'm measuring the lowest setting as 20% of full. It drops from 40000 to 8000 on my meter.

This means there is only a 5% drop for each step. This small of a drop between steps is really not very useful.
 

Free

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Apr 25, 2001
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612
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Arizona
Is it true that the full brightness is only good for 8 minutes, after which time the brightness is only 25%??
 

tenfour

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Oct 13, 2006
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Seattle WA
It's true, sorta. The light automatically dims, but you can always just boost it back up to full power. It's "by design" although the design sucks.

All in all, I get about 90 minutes at the brightest setting on a charge.
 

cmacclel

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Jul 15, 2003
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Sweden
Do you plan on updating your review with the pertinent information that was left out? That information being that even when the light throttles down a simple press of the "B" button will boost to full output for approximately a minute if needed. This seems like a huge thing to leave out. The way the light is programmed could defintely use some improvements but your review makes it sound like after 8 minutes you have a $60 flashlight and have to waite for it to cool to become bright again which is not true. The light is programmed to continuosly step down brightness to conserve battery's and a simple depress of a button will boost the output back to full power. Again I don't exactly like how it works but leaving this information seems like a big deal :)


Mac


Quickbeam said:
I guess mine was missing the spec sheet. I have no confirmation of the type of LED, the type of battery, or the type of anodize.

I don't know where the "12 steps of dimming" figure is coming from either. If it's in the instructions, it's wrong. I can plainly (but quickly) count 16 steps. I counted them numerous times.

I'm measuring the lowest setting as 20% of full. It drops from 40000 to 8000 on my meter.

This means there is only a 5% drop for each step. This small of a drop between steps is really not very useful.
 
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Quickbeam

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cmacclel said:
Do you plan on updating your review with the pertinent information that was left out? That information being that even when the light throttles down a simple press of the "B" button will boost to full output for approximately a minute if needed. This seems like a huge thing to leave out. The way the light is programmed could defintely use some improvements but your review makes it sound like after 8 minutes you have a $60 flashlight and have to waite for it to cool to become bright again which is not true. The light is programmed to continuosly step down brightness to conserve battery's and a simple depress of a button will boost the output back to full power. Again I don't exactly like how it works but leaving this information seems like a big deal :)


Mac

I'll have to disagree with you that leaving this information out is a "big deal". If the light did actully step down over the 8 minute period, I'd be pretty convinced that it's by design. However the output curve shows otherwise. It doesn't step, it plummets. There is no solid indication of the drop which may serve as a notification that a circiuit timer is running out - you just keep getting dimmer and dimmer light.

I may be wrong, and I have been before, but this looks like a thermal-caused output drop, not an intentional circuit-based drop. That, or it's a circuit based drop due to thermal considerations so it doesn't overheat. Any way you cut it, it looks like it can't handle the high volume of light output it starts with.

If you can kick it back up (which you can) why should you have to? If I wanted it dimmer, I'd dim it myself. If I need it at full brightness for 20 minutes, why should the user have to keep hitting the button? Having any kind of an automatic dimming feature is just plain silly if the heatsinking can handle the thermal load. Or is that the problem, and it starts out super bright just for marketing purposes ("brightest LED light...") and to justify the high price but has to dim so it doesn't fry?

It doesn't even maintain it's super bright output for even one second - it starts to drop as soon as it is turned on. Very poor design in my opinion. I personally wouldn't buy one as-is, that's for sure.
 
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cmacclel

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Jul 15, 2003
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I do agree with you that the design needs improvements and no one right now knows exactly what is going on.

As for your High Price comment I disagree. This is really a dive light and dive lights are generally alot more expensive. The price of Tactical is around $425 for CPF members.

The only other Dive rated light that has been sold in Group Purchases here on CPF is the Barbolight U15 which is a 4x, 3watt direct drive light that comes with a DSD charger and is roughly 90% the price of the Tactical.

A comparable output dive light would be a 10 watt HID and they average easily around $600.


Also I do feel it is a *big deal* that you left part of the functionality of the light out of your review. If I never heard of this light other than from your review I would never now the boost feature existed. From what your review stated below

"Now presumably, when you shut the light off and it has a little time to cool, output will go back up, followed by another precipitous 8 minute drop"

Presumable??? Sorry but in my opinion if a dealer or manufacture has to "give" you a light free, and an expensive light at that for you to perform a review, I don't think presumably should be in the review. I also think the "B" button boost feature should not be left out especially with the statement you made above incinuating that maybe if you let the light cool it will be bright again.

Sorry if my last few statements seem harsh but I see no other way that I can put it.


Mac











In my opinion
 

dskazan

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Joined
Jun 5, 2020
Messages
1
IIRC, Mac's review here has lux figures of the tactical compared to some of his other lights.

Mac's review excellent. Thank you.

I have a question though:
Can you help how or where I can find help to WiseLED Street®, Model 321030021 - to Replace my Batteries?
The company does not support this product anymore.
 
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