Imalent SR16 Flashlight Review

The Imalent SR16 is a flashlight using 16 Cree XHP50.3 HI emitters. Those are great for throw and 16 of them make great output, too! Read on!

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Official Specs and Features

Here’s a link to the Imalent SR16 flashlight product page.

Versions

I believe there’s just one version of the Imalent SR16 flashlight. 

Price

MSRP is $369.95 but there’s a sale right now that brings the price down to $332.92. 

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Short Review

The light claims 55,000 lumens and according to my tests comes very near that. Close enough, anyway. Throw is great, and I really think Imalent has stepped up their engineering game here – once the light steps down (a fact that is really inevitable), the output is very stable. Stable output at these levels is really something we’ve only seen out of Acebeam, so it’s nice that this light does it, too. I really like the Imalent SR16 flashlight!

Long Review

The Big Table

Imalent SR16 Flashlight
Emitter:	Cree XHP50.3 HI (16 emitters)
Price in USD at publication time:	$332.92
Cell:	Internal
Runtime Graphs
LVP?	Yes
Switch Type:	E-Switch
Quiescent Current (mA):	?
On-Board Charging?	Yes
Charge Port Type:	DC Plug
Power off Charge Port	[works while charging]
Claimed Lumens (lm)	55,000
Measured Lumens (at 30s)	43,069 (78.3% of claim)^
Candela per Lumen	13.8
Claimed Throw (m)	1715
Candela (Calculated) in cd (at 30s)	13670lux @ 6.278m = 538780cd
Throw (Calculated) (m)	1468.0 (85.6% of claim)^
Claimed CCT	–
Measured CCT Range (K)	6500-7200 Kelvin
Item provided for review by:	Imalent
All my Imalent reviews!

^ Measurement disclaimer:  I am an amateur flashlight reviewer.  I don’t have $10,000 or even $1,000 worth of testing equipment.  I test output and such in PVC tubes!!  Please consider claims within 10% of what I measure to be perfectly reasonable (accurate, even).

What’s Included

• Imalent SR16 flashlight 
• Wall wart (with 19V barrel plug)
• Spare o-rings (2)
• Hex wrench
• Spare handle screw
• Spare metal washers (2)

Package and Manual

Build Quality and Disassembly

The Imalent SR16 flashlight build quality is great.  Unlike some other models Imalent has released recently, this one has the fans built in.  There are two fans and they work in unison.

And check out that handle… it’s fantastic! (but doesn’t have a fan). I prefer for my handles to not have fans, so this works out nicely. 

The head has a lot going on – I haven’t really adequately shown it here, but under hose fingers that come off the sloped head is a large piece of what appears to be brass fully encompassing the head. It’s a big chunk of metal and likely interacts with the circulation caused by these two fans.

The SR16 also features built-in charging, which we’ll talk about more later. This metal (different metal than the flashlight – probably stainless steel) tailcap covers the charging port.

The tailcap unscrews easily.

Only the head and body come apart, really. Nothing else is accessible – the battery/body is sealed and the cells are not accessible.

Imalent uses some beefy contacts!

The light will not rest on the handle – the head’s just too heavy (probably because of that big brass part I mentioned above).  This isn’t a deal breaker of course, but I’d love for the handle to have a little ledge on the “head side” that would allow the light to rest fully on the handle. (The balance is very close.) I bet 8mm or so would do it perfectly.

The fans seem to work well. They turn on automatically in any output level from the 4th highest and upward. The fans can also be turned on manually.

Size and Comps

158mm (length) x 109mm (head diameter) x 56mm (body diameter), and 1180g.

If the flashlight will headstand, I’ll show it here (usually the third photo).  If the flashlight will tailstand, I’ll show that here, too (usually the fourth photo).

Here’s the test light with the venerable Convoy S2+.  Mine’s a custom “baked” edition Nichia 219b triple.  A very nice 18650 light.

Also above is the light beside my custom engraved TorchLAB BOSS 35, an 18350 light.  I reviewed the aluminum version of that light in both 35 and 70 formats.

Retention and Carry

Unlike some other Imalent flashlights recently that could have used a handle, the SR16 has a great handle! I love it! It’s quite like many of the Acebeam handles (which I also love).

In use, it’s perfect, too.  

That’s it for carry of the Imalent SR16 flashlight. There’s no pouch or anything else. There’s also no lanyard, but like other similar Imalents, the removable charge port cover will accept a lanyard easily. The handle also has holes that would be a secure place to attach a lanyard, too. 

Power and Runtime

The Imalent SR16 flashlight runs on a “4000mAh 21700 Li-ion battery pack” which ships covered with a little plastic shield.

Here are a few runtime tests.  The light does shut off when the voltage is low, and when the light shuts off so do the fans. Y

Charging

The SR16 has built-in charging. There’s a charge port in the tail end, covered by the metal disk we talked about above.

A wall wart is included.

I would call this Imalent’s standard wall wart charger – it’s 19V at the barrel and in the normal polarity configuration (which I don’t know how to put in text form.)

I am not able to log charge cycles for this type of connector, but a couple of tests indicate it charges fully in around 2 hours. It’s quick!

When charging, a LED beside the charge port is red. When charging is complete this LED turns green.

Modes and Currents

Mode	Mode Claimed Output (lm)	Claimed Runtime	Measured Lumens	Tailcap Amps (@16.8V)
Turbo	55,000+11,000	42s+43m	45,769 (0s) 40,343 (30s)	>18
High	23,000+11,000	3m+48m	21,549 (0s) 20,653 (30s)	>18
Middle II	11,000	52m	8787	4.32
Middle I	4,200	1h54m	3981	2.02
Middle Low	2,800	3h	2771	1.27
Low	1,200	7h	1431	0.65
Moonlight	50	98h	87	0.04

Pulse Width Modulation

PWM is a bit of a surprise here since Imalent doesn’t always use PWM on their big lights. It’s fast though, but you might be able to notice it on the lowest mode (far left, below).

For reference, here’s a baseline shot, with all the room lights off and almost nothing hitting the sensor.  Also, here’s the light with the worst PWM I could find.  I’m adding multiple timescales, so it’ll be easier to compare to the test light.  Unfortunately, the PWM on this light is so bad that it doesn’t even work with my normal scale, with is 50 microseconds (50us).  10ms.  5ms.  2ms.  1ms.  0.5ms.  0.2ms.  In a display faster than 0.2ms or so, the on/off cycle is more than one screen, so it’d just (very incorrectly) look like a flat line.  I wrote more about this Ultrafire WF-602C flashlight and explained a little about PWM too.

User Interface and Operation

There are two switches on the Imalent SR16 flashlight. Surprise! They are both e-switches and very much like many other similar Imalent flashlights.  First is the head e-switch.  The switch is “textured” and has a nice positive clicky action.

The action is very low.  This switch can be rotated too.  Not that you’d ever need to or that it serves any purpose to do that, but you might find it rotating under your finger, and be surprised by it.  It doesn’t hurt anything, though.

Next up is this e-switch on the handle. Functionally, it’s exactly the same as that other switch. When the light is held in your right hand, the switch falls in the perfect spot to be hit with the inside of the right thumb. It really is set up perfectly.

The flip side is that it might not be perfect for lefties, but with the right grip, the switch is about right for left index finger usage.

Here’s a UI table!

State	Action	Result
Off	Click	On (Mode Memory (excluding Turbo/Strobe)
On	Click	Off
On	Hold	Mode cycle (low to high order)
Off	Triple Click	On in Low
Any	Double Click	Turbo
Turbo	Double Click	Strobe
Off	Hold 3s	Manually turn on (or off) the cooling fans
Off	Click 4x	Iterate Lock (indicated by switch indicator light blinking a few times)

The Triple-Click to Low is an interesting (but not new) choice, and while unusual, I’m pleased that off-to-Low is possible!!

And because I don’t really know where else to put this, there’s an indicator LED where the handle attaches. Below you can see it indicating in green. This indicator seems to stay on and not shut off after some given amount of time (usually that’d be 5 seconds). When the battery pack voltage gets low (somewhere around 13V or so), this indicator switches to red.

Imalent really makes gorgeous emitter arrays.

The reflectors that each emitter has is smooth and the outside emitters (10) have a slightly bigger reflector.

The lens seems to have AR coating.

Pleasantly, the bezel has a bit of a shape, so light escapes when headstanding. You won’t want to do this on anything other than Moonlight or Low, though, unless you like 18 emitter-shaped burn marks on your surface.

LED Color Report (CRI and CCT)

This light is so bright that on the higher modes my sensor was saturated. So on those modes, it’s not center-of-beam as usual. That also explains why the CCT on those higher modes drifts downward. In reality, it’s a cool beam all the way up in modes. Even the lowest level is around 7000K. CRI is low, at around 72.

Beamshots

These beamshots are always with the following settings:  f8, ISO100, 0.3s shutter, and manual 5000K exposure.

Tint vs BLF-348 (KillzoneFlashlights.com 219b version) (affiliate link)

I keep the test flashlight on the left, and the BLF-348 reference flashlight on the right.

I compare everything to the KillzoneFlashlights.com 219b BLF-348 because it’s inexpensive and has the best tint!

Conclusion

What I like

• Great handle!
• Massive output
• Simple (and Imalent-consistent) user interface
• Shortcut to low (triple click)
• Impressive throw
• Fans are built-in and not attached via a “heat shield”
• Fan control is automatic (but can be controlled manually, too!)
• Very high sustained output levels

What I don’t like

• Barrel plug charging – (could use USB-C as it has the same 19V charge capability)

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Notes

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