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.
What is in the box:
The R7 arrives in a plain oversized cardboard box.
Inside the box the R7 is in a small zip-lock bag. There are no spares.
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.
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.
The tail-cap contact.
The threads are standard and fully anodised.
Peering down the battery tube shows the first hint of gold contacts. The positive contact is actually a small metal post.
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)
There is a small diameter lanyard hole in the head.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The Rustu R7 is a right-angle light that will run on all 'AA sized' cells, though is optimised for 14500 li-ions.
What is in the box:
The R7 arrives in a plain oversized cardboard box.
Inside the box the R7 is in a small zip-lock bag. There are no spares.
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.
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.
The tail-cap contact.
The threads are standard and fully anodised.
Peering down the battery tube shows the first hint of gold contacts. The positive contact is actually a small metal post.
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)
There is a small diameter lanyard hole in the head.
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 R7 | I.S. measured ANSI output Lumens | PWM frequency (Hz) |
|---|---|---|
| High 14500 | 305 | 0 |
| Low 14500 | 33 | 125 |
| High AA | 88 | 0 |
| Low AA | 5 | 125 |
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.
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.
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.
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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