ANYBODY LIKE THE INOVA T 4

I AM CONTEMPLATING BUYING ONE OF TWO LIGHTS. THE NEW INOVA T 4 OR THE SF L7. I LIKE THE ADVERTISED 125 LUMEN RATING ON THE T 4 BUT AM SKEPTICAL OF THE REALITY. I LIKE THE Lion BATTERY OF THE T 4 OVER THE NI CAD IN THE L 7 ANY ADVISE WOULD BE HELPFUL THANKS

First piece of advice,
Find the caps lock and use it.

The T4 125 Lumens is not what you're actually going to get out the front of the light. Both the T4 and L7 use "old" LEDs. There are brighter and more efficient lights out there now. I'd recommend reading some more here on CPF before making a purchase.
Both are decent lights, well respected companies, good quality. But it is likely you can find better. Do you have anything specific you want to use the light for?

im a construction inspector and do alot of roadside inspections an night for the dot. i need about 200 feet of throw with alot of sidespill for closeup work. mid sized and rechargable is a must, atleast 2 hours of run time . what do you reccomend

Go for the T4.

Surefire's lumen ratings are closer to reality, since they are measured out the front; instead of at the emitter. Pelican also measures out the front. Pretty much every other company, including Inova; measures at the emitter. No way is the T4 going to be 125 lumens. (One thing to keep in mind is that the older version of the T3 was rated at 80 lumens, and gave about 45 out the front).

Still, a T4 is worth the asking price. I own an older version with the TIROS in place. It works well! But I'd recommend getting a newer version (2007) T4 with a reflector, instead. Not a huge improvement, except for the much better side-spill vs. the TIROS version. (Newer T4s have a black bezel ring).

I don't own a Surefire L7. (L4 and L5, I do). I've only heard of one CPFer who owns and uses an L7 on a routine basis. Not nearly as popular as the T4. Not sure why.... Although the price is probably the main reason.

Why get a $225 SF L7, when you can get a Inova T4 for much less? No, it won't be as bright as an L7, but close enough for a lot less money.

Surefire doesn't let their Dealers discount SF lights. Inova doesn't take the same hard-line view when it comes to discounting. When I bought my T4, let's just say that for the price of an L7; I could have bought two T4s and still had plenty of money left over.

I really like SF lights. (Currently own 7 with more to be bought in the near future). Some SF models have literally no competition, like the Kroma. But that's just one example. However, the L7 does indeed have competition. Mainly from Inova's T4 model.

In terms of overall value: Got to give it to the T4. The L7 will be a bit more brighter. But the increased cost just doesn't seem to be worth it, in this comparison.

When the L7 was introduced several years ago it was the premier in-situ rechargeable mid-size police duty light. Then the T4 was introduced a year or two later, with a lower price with a better battery. But this light beats them both with a much brighter emitter: http://www.pelican7060.com/lapd.html

Yes, I'd definitely recommend the Pelican 7060 over the Inova T4.

I have both, and I have found the T4 to be generally disappointing. For one, it has a barely noticeable advantage in output and throw compared to the T3 (2007 version), which is a much smaller and less expensive light. I like the recent versions of the T1 and T3 despite their older K2 emitters, but the T4 was below my expectations.

Also, the first T4 that I bought at Fry's last weekend was dead out of the box. I took it back and got a new one. The new one had intermittent problems with the switch sticking and flickering, and these problems persisted until I disassembled the switch and sprayed all of the surfaces with Deoxit Gold. Yesterday, it started going out when shaken or bumped. After I cleaned the battery contact surfaces, it seems to be working OK again. But if it gives me any more trouble, I'll be taking it back for a refund.

The Pelican 7060, on the other hand, is very bright and has excellent throw. It's about 5% longer and 20% thicker than the Inova T4, but you get vastly increased performance for that size increase. Estimating by eye, I'd say that the Pelican has 50% more total light output and 10X the hotspot intensity of the Inova.

The Pelican is advertised for 1.5 hours of runtime, so its suitability for your purpose depends on how literally you need 2 hours of runtime.

I had 4 T4's. All of them had charging troubles. Even after having 2 of them sent back to Inova for replacement, the famous blinking blue charging light never quit. Search the forum and you'll find many charging problems with the T4. I ended up with the Wolf-Eyes 6A Sniper with Cree HO bulb. It's the best light I've owned yet.
Dave

Ditto on the Pelican for a medium sized rechargeable light. You can always buy a second battery if you need more runtime. If this doesn't sound good I have a couple other ideas but I'd say the Pelican is choice #1 imho.

Oh, and :welcome:.

If the 1.5 hour runtime is a problem, for $12.50 you can buy a 12vDC adapter plug so you can charge up the 7060 while you drive around.

:welcome:

+1 on the Pelican 7060. You will like it much better than the T4. Its much brighter too. Don't let the advertised 130 lumens fool you, It's more like 175-200 Lumens.

Trust what everyone has posted. Pelican 7060 all the way!

appreciate the help just bought the pelican i found the caps lock key my bad

Good choice, the Pelican will out throw and out lumen the T4 but the Pelican is bigger.

:welcome:

Wheww, Thought I was the only one with T4 problems. I'm having the charger problems along with the switch issues. This is my second T4. The first did the same right out of the box this one took about a month of riding around in my truck and 1 hour of actual use before the switch stuck in the On position now it sticks every actuation.
I would like to try and disassemble my light and lube the switch also.

INOVA acts like they are just hearing about the charger and switch issues with regards to an email I received back in September. This seems like a great light ergonomically I mean the outside is great the embossed pattern on the metal, the close tolerance on all the fitting parts, but the guts ( electronics) are just sub standard. They claim they redesigned the charger to be better but I don't think so. This might be one of those future host lights, I bought this one off of ebay so their is nothing but the manufacture for support now. Anyone have info on dis-assembly of the switch.

The switch is easy to disassemble. Unscrew and remove the battery, then remove the two contact screws using a star head screwdriver. Pull out the rubber switch cover, and slide the switch assembly out the battery tube.

At this point you'll want to pull the plastic switch housing open and spray down all of the metal surfaces with DeoxIt Gold. This will improve the electrical connections and also lubricate the switch. (Part of the infamous "blinking blue" charger problem appears to be caused by touchy internal electrical connections.) Reassemble everything in reverse order.

I haven't tried getting at the LED yet.

I retired the T-4 a long time ago.

the T4 has had its share of issues since it first came out around 2005 [I think :thinking:]

battery issues, LED issues, so forth, I never owned one so I can't say for sure...but after reading threads about it here and there...if you really must buy an inova...get a T5, but their status has been diminished because of new development in LEDs

previous thread regarding the T4vsL7
Surefire L7 vs. Inova T4 [jan05]
T4 charger issues [1]
T4 charger issues [2]
T4 charger issues [3]

Personally, I would go with the T4. I've used a couple of the older models before the charger upgrade and upgrade to reflector with no problems. We have a Pelican M9 at work that died a death a couple weeks ago and the switch never worked right from day one. The build quality of Inova is outstanding. The old Tiros version of the T4 is probably around 50 lumens and the newer reflectored K2 version is probably less than 60. I haven't used the Pelican 7060, but I have seen some beamshots and it didn't look very impressive for a brand new light. I think it uses the K2 emitter as well, but I'm not sure about that. It's probably a little brighter than the newest version T4, but none of them are that bright anyways compared to the lights with the latest emitters, so that can't be a huge concern.

The L7 is a great light, and very throwy for an LED but also uses an older Luxeon style emitter and even older Ni-Cad battery technology. And you have to deal with a tailswitch. The other disadvantage of course is that you have to remove the battery to charge the L7.

I'm thinking of getting one of the newer, reflectored T4's and modding it with a newfangled R2 binned Cree or something like that. Yea, the T3 is smaller, but if you want a rechargeable one you have to buy a 17670 battery and charger for it and then you still have to remove the battery to charge it. And you have to deal with a tailswitch, which in my opinion is not as nice to use as a barrel switch like the T4 has. The T4 I think is great in every way except for the emitter.

ampdude said:

---snip---
I haven't used the Pelican 7060, but I have seen some beamshots and it didn't look very impressive for a brand new light. I think it uses the K2 emitter as well, but I'm not sure about that. It's probably a little brighter than the newest version T4, but none of them are that bright anyways compared to the lights with the latest emitters, so that can't be a huge concern.

Click to expand...

Nope the 7060 uses a cree.

As far as not being as bright as other lights.

With a canon A650 ISO100 2.5 seconds at F3.5

Here is the 7060


Here is the Taiblo A8 Q5 limited edition. (latest emitter) advertised as 250 Lumens


Edit to add

Here is a link to another post with beamshots of the 7060 vs a new style Inova T3 (very close to the T4)

https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/172623&highlight=Inova+7060

The original specs for the 7060 were a K2. Haven't read up on them lately. Thanks for the updated information.

I wouldn't get either. The T4 uses an obsolete lux III led and the body is unnecessarily large compared to the 18650 li-ion rechargeable battery that it uses. The L7 uses an obsolete luxeon V LED and even more obsolete 1800mAh NiCad battery pack consisting of 3 x sub C cells.

For the same money, you could get the Wolfeyes Thunder rechargeable for example.

http://www.pts-flashlights.com/products/product.aspx?pid=1-99-118-6373

This could DESTROY the L7 and T4 and is roughly the same length

If you don't need that much power then look at the M90 Rattlesnake Cree:

http://www.pts-flashlights.com/products/product.aspx?pid=1-99-112-6384