XM-L CR123 keychain light?

Ok I've been off this forum for a while, so there are new flashlights I'm not familar with... After a quick look at the marketplace, found several new pocket rockets in the AA platform.

I've been carrying a Jill lite J2 replica and it has been great so far. But now I would like to have something more powerful in my keychain for about the same size and weight.

Any one?

Quark Mini X 123.

That would be my choice...unless somebody has a better idea?

Neutron 1c is brighter and is Ok to run on RCR unlike the mini, but is also larger and there is no keychain attachment in stock form. Also, some of the Neutrons have a wobbly head issue so you may not get an acceptable one on the first shot and have to return it.

Is the neutron 1c brighter than a mini-x in direct drive? (both using rcr)
I love the mini-x, having no troubles running it with rcr. Infact i only have tested it once with a normal cr123 for some seconds, the rest is aw imr/16340 torture,. My mini wont break, or expolde or..... It just gets hot. When i feel i cant hold it anymore, i dim down to medium mode for a short cooldown.

glockboy said:

Quark Mini X 123.

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Not in stock at 4sevens though might be available elsewhere.

The mini X definitely worth checking out... However 210 OTF lumens is about the same I get from the "J2" using XP-G R5, I'm looking for less conservatives numbers, maybe not as much as those 500lm XM-L AA Xeno lights, but 330-380 sounds perfect.

The Neutron C1 is too big for a keychain light, I'd prefer twist instead of clicky for this application

Any other opinion is welcome!!

richardcpf said:

Definitely worth checking out... However 210 OTF lumens is about the same I get from the "J2" using XP-G R5, I'm looking for less conservatives numbers, maybe not as much as those 500lm XM-L AA Xeno lights, but 330-380 sounds perfect.

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210 OTF is probably what you get with regular CR123 batteries. If you use 16340 you probably get higher. Not sure how much higher though.

I would guess my mini-x running dd on 16340 is in the 4-500 lumens range.

Do you have any flashlight in the 250-300 lumens range to compare with? Now you got me really interested

The Neutron 1c will also run in the 450 lumen range with li-ion. Just check out Selfbuilt's review.The XM-L's have some serious punch if you give them enough juice.

Got a beamshot comparing it with a "1000 lumen" moddoo triple xp-g here : http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?304342-Quark-MiNi-123-XM-L
It has a really floody beampattern and will light up the whole room, no need to wave that little gem around when searching for someting inside (when running on rcr).
It beats my malkoff''s, quark turbo, aurora ssc p7 18650, dx p60 mc-e modules ect, so im happy with it.
I dont think you can get any brighter than the mini-x in dd in a keychain sized light.

SirJohn said:

The Neutron 1c will also run in the 450 lumen range with li-ion. Just check out Selfbuilt's review.The XM-L's have some serious punch if you give them enough juice.

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Yup the Neutron 1C has great output. It's my current EDC. It's too big for a keychain light though. Your best bet is probably the mini-x... which is over an inch shorter.

jorn said:

It beats my malkoff''s, quark turbo, aurora ssc p7 18650, dx p60 mc-e modules ect

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Ok I'm sold.

And the price on amazon and other websites is actually $5 cheaper than ordering directly from 4sevens..

SirJohn said:

The Neutron 1c will also run in the 450 lumen range with li-ion. Just check out Selfbuilt's review.The XM-L's have some serious punch if you give them enough juice.

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The floppy head issue kind of ruins it for me.

I like the idea of the mini X. My only concern is that I am wondering about using a RCR123. They specifically say not to do it. Will it damage the driver? I also heard that it goes into unregulated direct drive above 3.0 volts.

Would this mean that an IMR would pull more current than a regular RCR123 due to lower resistance? How much more?

I use an itp A1 and really love it. But I am tempted by the double-the-lumens promise even though Id have to live with a clickey instead of twisty.

recDNA said:

The floppy head issue kind of ruins it for me.

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The floppy head is a problem some users have reported with the Neutron 1A. I don't think anyone has reported it with the 1C. I have a Neutron 1C myself and the head isn't floppy at all. It's a very nice light actually.

joe1512 said:

I like the idea of the mini X. My only concern is that I am wondering about using a RCR123. They specifically say not to do it. Will it damage the driver? I also heard that it goes into unregulated direct drive above 3.0 volts.

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it will get really hot, and both the LED and battery will degrade faster than in normal use, and you will lose your warranty, and if you use a low quality battery it might go I don't know if it will damage the driver, I don't think so because it is probably turned off when the voltage rises to a level it can't handle.

Would this mean that an IMR would pull more current than a regular RCR123 due to lower resistance? How much more?

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definitely more current, how much is hard to say and will vary heavily on your specific light due to LED tolerances.
be aware that even more current means even more heat, and at a certain temperature the LED brightness will stop to increase, so more current doesn't necessarily mean more light!

I don't see any difference in output using aw imr vs normal aw 16340 rcr's with the mini-x. Even my camera cant pick up any difference on stopped down photos. I guess all the components inside the driver might have some resistance, and might act like some kind of bottleneck. (It's not thick wires going criss cross inside that tiny driver, so i think the extra current from the imr has a hard time pushing trough that driver).

I just added artic silver and taped one of the temprature sensors from my pc on to the mini-x so I could monitor the heat build up. It was tailstanding on top of my pc ( It's a fan on the top of it, so it was a good place to tailsatnd it, kind of safely) There was no big temprature difference after a 2 min run between normal aw and aw imr.

Too keep it short: The normal aw rcr messured 40.7 celsius after 2 min, imr 40.5 celsius @ 2min :huh:. A 4sevens cr123 showed 32,6 celsius @ 2 min and 40.7 after 5 min 30 sek. The temprature at the led itself is unknown, temprature on every startup was 23.5 C.

The light is hotter than the sensor claimes because it's thin as a hair, and only 2 layers of tape was insulating the thin sensor from the "cooling enviorment". A laser might give accurate readings, but i just wantet to see if I could messure any difference between imr and a normal 16340

Yeah I also don't think IMR cells would make any difference, at least not at this current draw. Any high quality li-ion cell is capable of doing 2C, or even 3C. I tried using cheap li-ion in my hobby RC cars and they ran fine, and the difference was very subtle compared to the regular lipo cells I use, rated 25C...

Anyways I just ordered the MiniX, don't really believe to manufacturers when they say not to use RCR, I've been using 10440s in my Fenix LD01 for 3 years now, not a single problem.