Lumintop FW 18350 Body Review

Lumintop FW 18350 Body Review

The Lumintop FW 18350 Body shortens the FW series lights from being an 18650 size flashlight to an 18350 size flashlight.  Read on for photos!


Official Specs and Features

Here’s a link to the Lumintop FW 18350 Body product page. (referral link)

Versions

These shorty tubes are available in a variety of metals – copper (seen here), brass, aluminum, and titanium.  Titanium’s even available stonewashed or polished.

Price

The copper goes for $9.95, but the price varies for other materials.

You can view and buy the Lumintop FW 18350 Body here at Nealsgadgets.


Short Review

If you find the 18650 size too long, then this shorty tube might be just the thing.  This makes a great little pocket weight since there’s no pocket clip.  Performance (with regard to output) doesn’t really suffer much, so it’s reasonable if an 18350 sized (capacity) cell is enough for you.

Long Review

The Big Table

Lumintop FW3C (18350 Tube)
Emitter: Tested with Cree XP-L HI 5000K Triple
Price in USD at publication time: $9.95 at NealsGadgets.
Cell: 1×18350
Turbo Runtime High Runtime
LVP?
Switch Type: E-Switch
Quiescent Current (A):
On-Board Charging? No
Claimed Lumens (lm)
Measured Lumens (at 30s) 687
Candela per Lumen 5.3
Claimed Throw (m)
Candela (Calculated) in cd (at 30s) 464lux @ 3.355m = 5223cd
Throw (Calculated) (m) 144.5
All my Lumintop reviews!

^ Measurement disclaimer:  Testing flashlights is my hobby. I use hobbyist-level equipment for testing, including some I made myself. Try not to get buried in the details of manufacturer specifications versus measurements recorded here; A certain amount of difference (say, 10 or 15%) is perfectly reasonable.

What’s Included

Lumintop FW 18350 Body

  • Lumintop FW 18350 Tube
  • Spare o-ring

Package and Manual

Lumintop FW 18350 Body

Build Quality and Disassembly

Lumintop FW 18350 Body

Lumintop FW 18350 Body

Lumintop FW 18350 Body

Lumintop FW 18350 Body

Lumintop FW 18350 Body

Size and Comps

Lumintop FW 18350 Body

Retention and Carry

Lumintop FW 18350 Body

The 18350 body offers a spot for a clip, but to my knowledge, Lumintop does not offer a shorty clip for these bodies.

I do recommend if you go with this body, also grab a $2 lanyard ring.  It’ll sit in the groove intended for a pocket clip, and won’t be in the way like a pocket clip would be (being too long).  It’ll fill that annoying gap, whether you use it as a lanyard holder or not.

Update!  There is actually a clip for this little guy.  Here’s a link.  It’s one of the two-way type clips which are absolutely not my favorite, but it looks pretty slim.  Still, I think the lanyard loop is a better option!

Power and Runtime

This section is a little bit arbitrary since you could put the 18350 body on just about any 18650 FW light you own (except the FW3E).  But I’ve tested here on a standard FW3A, which I reviewed here.  Yes, I tested this copper body with an aluminum head/tail.  I did this because my FW3C doesn’t work reliably enough for testing.

I reset the light to Turbo a couple of times toward the end – you can see the performance lowers as the cell voltage gets lower.

Lumintop FW 18350 Body

High, with a bunch of resets.  More relevant is that the runtime is noticeably shorter than with an 18650 cell.

Lumintop FW 18350 Body

Pulse Width Modulation

We know Anduril has PWM.  Since this is just a body and has no electronics, I won’t add images here.

Here you can see a “baseline” – a chart with almost no light hitting the sensor.

Then there’s the Ultrafire WF-602C flashlight, which has some of the worst PWM I’ve seen. It’s so bad that I used a post about it to explain PWM! Here are multiple timescales (10ms, 5ms, 2ms, 1ms, 0.5ms, 0.2ms) to make comparing this “worst” PWM light to the test light easier. That post also explains why I didn’t test the WF-602C at the usual 50us scale.

User Interface and Operation

The interface for this light is a tail clicky, but unusually, it’s an e-switch.  That’s a bit of a coup, and something not many manufacturers are doing (in tail-switch form).  Lumintop actually has the Tool AAA, which has a tail e-switch option.  And at least one more option I can’t think of right now.

The button itself is metal (with that rubber cover under it), and has a very minimal amount of travel (1mm or less).   Despite being a very big switch, it’s possible to actuate from anywhere on the surface – even the tiniest fingernail on the very edge will still work.

Lumintop FW 18350 Body

It should absolutely be noted that there are replacement switch covers.  For example, Neal sells turboglow options (which I’ll be ordering obviously [r/GITD!!]).  There are a bunch of color options.  Here’s that option.

This chart will probably be more useful for you right brain users….

Lumintop FW 18350 Body

But here’s a UI table anyway!

State Action Result
Off Hold On (Low)
Off Click On (Mode Memory)
Off Click 2x Highest Hybrid Mode
Off Click 3x Blinkie Mode Group
Off Click 4x Lockout
Off Click 5x Momentary
Off Click 6x Muggle
Off Click, Click, Hold Strobe Group (Mode Memory Strobe)
Strobe Group Click 2x Strobe Cycle (Candle > Bike Flasher > Party Strobe > Tactical Strobe > Lightning Storm)
Blinkie Mode Group Click 2x Blinke Cycle (Sunset > Beacon > TempCheck > BattCheck)
On Click 3x Switch between Stepped and Smooth Ramp
On Click 4x Ramp Configuration
TempCheck Click 4x Thermal Configuration
Beacon Click 4x Beacon Configuration
Lockout Click 4x Off
Strobe Group Click Off
(Basically) On Click Off
Candle Click 3x 30-minute timer to off
Strobe Group Hold Heighten selected mode (Make faster or brighter)
Strobe Group Click, Hold Lessen selected mode (Make slower or dimmer)
On Click 2x FET Turbo
Ramp Configuration [Wait for Single flash] Click N time for level N. Selection of the “Low” you like best by clicking 1, 2, 3, etc. where 1, 2, 3, etc are different levels of low.
Ramp Configuration [Wait for Second flash] Click N time for 1+Turbo-N. Selection of the “Ceiling” you like best by clicking 1, 2, 3, etc. where 1, 2, 3, etc are different Ceiling levels.
Ramp Configuration [Wait for Third flash] Click for how many steps you want in Stepped mode. Sets Number of Steps.
Thermal Configuration [Wait for First flash] Click for N times for N degrees C. Displays Current Temperature.
Thermal Configuration [Wait for Second flash] Click for N times for 30C + N. Sets Temperature Limit.
Beacon Configuration [Wait for First flash] Click for N times N seconds per flash Sets Beacon Speed.

This is a second pass on a table for Andúril, and it might still be incomplete.  It’s also the longest UI table I’ve done, which highlights the versatility of this UI.

LED and Beam

My review copy of the FW3A (which I’ve used on the copper 18350 body) has the Cree XP-L HI 5000K emitter option.  It’s a triple, so there are three of them in there.  They are behind an optic – in this case, a Carclo 10511 (matte), which gives a fantastic, even beam profile.

Lumintop FW 18350 Body

Conclusion on the Lumintop FW 18350 Body

What I like

  • Great short option, on the already-short 18650 light
  • Build quality is great (fits all the FW series lights it’s supposed to
  • Provides adequate and expected runtimes from 18350

What I don’t like

  • No pocket clip option updated above – there is a clip!

Notes

  • This light was provided by NealsGadgets for review. I was not paid to write this review.
  • This content originally appeared at zeroair.org.  Please visit there for the best experience!
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1 thought on “Lumintop FW 18350 Body Review”

  1. Great write up! I just got mine in and paired with the clip from a BLF A6 it’s a great tiny EDC light with stupid power. Next purchase will be another copper 18350 tube and an fw1a.

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