Wuben X-3 EDC Flashlight Review
Check out the Wuben X-3 EDC, an interestingly designed flashlight that offers wireless charging, powerbank capabilities, and two emitters.
Official Specs and Features
Here’s a link to the Wuben X-3 EDC flashlight Kickstarter page.
Versions
There are at least a couple of versions of the Wuben X-3 EDC flashlight. There’s this black version that I have, and also a white and blue fade edition. I believe it’s possible to get this with two emitter setups – two white or one white and one red as I have here.
Price
The Wuben X-3 EDC flashlight is (or will be) available on Kickstarter soon. Wuben’s requiring this link and really really pushing this Kickstarter affiliate thing.
Short Review
This is a neat light and I love neat things. I even love weird things. This light is weird, too. It has a twisty head, which means it can be an out the front style or right-angle style. Wireless charging is an interesting feature and I’d love that if the light itself also had a charging port. More on that below. I love how absolutely red the red emitter is.
Long Review
The Big Table
| Wuben X-3 EDC Flashlight | |
|---|---|
| Emitter: | Samsung LH351d |
| Price in USD at publication time: | $59.00 on Kickstarter |
| Cell: | Internal |
| Runtime Graphs | |
| LVP? | ? |
| Switch Type: | E-Switch |
| Quiescent Current (mA): | ? |
| On-Board Charging? | Yes |
| Charge Port Type: | USB-C |
| Charge Graph | |
| Power off Charge Port | – |
| Claimed Lumens (lm) | 700 |
| Measured Lumens (at 30s) | 157 (22.4% of claim)^ |
| Candela per Lumen | 4.8 |
| Claimed Throw (m) | 102 |
| Candela (Calculated) in cd (at 30s) | 30lux @ 4.827m = 699cd |
| Throw (Calculated) (m) | 52.9 (51.9% of claim)^ |
| Claimed CCT | – |
| Measured CCT Range (K) | 4900-5100 Kelvin |
| Item provided for review by: | Wuben |
| All my Wuben 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
- Wuben X-3 EDC flashlight
- Charging case with USB-C charging
- Lanyard charging cable
- Manual
Package and Manual
Build Quality and Disassembly
What a bunch of interesting features here on this Wuben X-3 EDC flashlight. First and probably most notably – well it’s a tie. Wireless charging and the rotating head. We’ve seen the rotating head before on lights (for example) made by Nicron. This one feels … more interesting… somehow. It’s a very neat feature!
Also above you can see the wireless charging connection.
Build quality on the X-3 is about like you’re probably familiar with from some RovyVon lights – this is a plastic flashlight. It does have quite a few metal parts, though, and that’s nice.
Twisting the head does not affect the light’s ability to operate – it’ll work straight through twisting.
On the other side from the emitters are these two things – a big metal-cover e-switch and a small OLED display (or “probably OLED”).
I didn’t disassemble the light at all and I’m unsure about emitter swaps, too.
Size and Comps
“Portable Lamp” (the flashlight part): 70mm x 35mm x 21mm and 70g.
“Energy Storage Bin”: 85mm x 47mm x 40mm and 102g.
If the flashlight will headstand, I’ll show it here (usually the third photo). If the flashlight will tailstand, I’ll also show that (usually in 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 on the left is a new feature light!! Laulima Metal Craft sent this Todai in tumbled aluminum for some size comparison photos like the ones above. Laulima has a bunch of incredible items. I’ve tested one (the Laulima Metal Craft Hoku) (the official site for Hoku is here) that was a Friend Fund Friday review. I was impressed enough by that Hoku that I bought a Laulima Metal Craft Diamond Slim (also in tumbled aluminum) (review is upcoming!) These lights by Laulima have impeccable build quality and not only that, they’re quite configurable. There are some (great, actually) default configurations, but Joshua Dawson (of Laulima Metal Craft) is open to ideas and emitter options and the like. I haven’t reviewed this Todai, but I have to say, it feels absolutely fantastic and I love it thus far. (Notably, I love how warm and eggy those emitters look through the TIR.)
Retention and Carry
Let’s start with the pocket clip. This pocket clip is a big affair, probably more suited to belt use.It screws in and so is removable and also trustworthy for lanyard attachment.
It’s fairly slim but the X-3 is all angles, and you can feel all these edges (including those on the pocket clip).
Next up is the lanyard, which attaches on the screw-in pocket clip or more ideally, through this little loop on the bottom of the case.
We’ll talk more about the lanyard later but just check it out a bit here.
I like extra features, and this lanyard has them. Check out the ruler.
Next up is this set of magnets on the bottom of the flashlight. There are two, and they are very proud and quite large, too. The light isn’t otherwise too big so these aren’t extra but they are – again – just more edges that you’ll feel when holding the Wuben X-3 EDC flashlight.
These magnets work very well, of course.
One more thing that came with my X-3 is this case. It appears to be a headphone case. As far as I know, Wuben doesn’t make headphones, so I guess this is just a gift? I can’t see the Kickstarter yet but maybe there’s an option or package that includes this.
I suppose these pockets are reasonable for carrying the X-3.
I don’t know whether to include the Energy Storage Bin here, but it’s reasonable. You can carry the light in that, and it does have a lanyard attachment too.
Power and Runtime
I couldn’t see Wuben really promoting the flashlight battery capacity but I happen to read it in some corner of the manual – it’s a 1000mAh battery.
1000mAh is bigger than I’d have guessed. Here are a couple of runtime graphs.
Since I can’t access the battery, I can’t tell what the shutoff voltage is. The light does shut off though, and when it’s shut off, the display shows some level of battery percentage.
Charging
To charge the light, you’ll need to take advantage of the wireless charging feature. You can see the connection on the X-3 below.
The wireless charging doesn’t seem to be proprietary. I don’t have a bunch of wireless charging items but I did throw it on my hobby charger. This seems to work but with no way to log, I can’t really say for sure. The display on the light responded but didn’t stay on steadily to indicate charging was ongoing.
To charge, put the X-3 in the X-3 case and wait! The display on the X-3 will report battery percentage as the light increases in charge. It’s possible to put the X-3 into the case frontward or backward, but it’ll only charge the way seen below. It’s not completely obvious that that’s the case. (I will add that the light fits less perfectly when installed the wrong way.)
The X-3 light has a 1000mAh battery and this wireless case has a 3000mAh battery. I don’t know how inefficient wireless charging is but I’d guess you can fully charge the X-3 twice in the case.
Charging the case is different. To charge the case, you’ll use USB-C, and there’s a charge port on the front. It has a nice press-in cover and under this cover there’s and e-switch, too.
As I said above, when the light is charging, the display gives a report.
Here we talk again about the lanyard. The lanyard is actually a charging cable, too! It’s USB-C to USB-C.
Charging is quick and high current! It’s charging at nearly 1C, which this LiPO can certainly handle.
Powerbank
The case can also be used as a powerbank! That’s pretty impressive I think, and despite you probably guessing the battery in there is tiny, it’s actually plenty reasonable. At just 3000mAh, you might not charge your big phone fully, but it’ll certainly do in a pinch.
I will say that on that second (longer) graph when really pushing the output hard (high current) the case output would shut off. I’d need to bump it a bit with USB-C power and then it’d carry on for a while. That’s unlikely to be a problem when charging a device.
Modes and Currents
| Mode | Mode Claimed Output (lm) | Claimed Runtime | Measured Lumens |
|---|---|---|---|
| Extremely Bright | 700/200 | 1m/2h | 475 (0s) 157 (30s) |
| Highlight | 150 | 2.5h | 144 |
| Medium | 50 | 10h | 62 |
| Low | 0.5 | 30d | 2 |
Pulse Width Modulation
Every mode uses PWM. It’s not the best PWM, too. But I will say that I didn’t notice it. Below from left to right are low to high white and then low red and high red.
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
Just one switch controls the X-3. It’s an e-switch on the head. Depending on the head setup, it can be on the top or side.
It’s a good e-switch with very low action.
Clicking through the modes you can observe the level on the display. Red high is 70 lumens (low is 1, not pictured). Red strobe is 20 lumens.
Here’s a user interface table!
| State | Action | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Off | Click | White on (Mode memory, excluding turbo and strobe^) |
| On | Click | Off |
| On | Hold | Output advance (LMH for white or Low High Strobe for red) |
| Off or on in White | Double Click | Turbo |
| Turbo | Double Click | Previous state^^ |
| Off or on in White | Triple Click | SOS (white) |
| SOS | Hold | White + Red SOS (actually it’s red steady but possibly iterating intensity, and blinking white)^^^ |
| Off | Hold | Red (Mode memory) |
| Red | Double Click | No change |
| Off | Click 5x | Iterate indicator light (This is the blue light in the body). The light doesn’t respond in any way when this action is made. |
^ The manual says “flicker mode” can’t be memorized but it does seem to be memorized, actually.
^^ The manual says “previous mode” but double click in Turbo seems to always go to Off for me.
^^^ There doesn’t seem to be a way to get advance out of this mode without just turning the light off.
LED and Beam
Wuben opted for a Samsung LH351d for the white emitter. Red is very red!
Both use a TIR – in fact it’s probably the same TIR for any emitter setup.
Below you can see red on but also note the “indicator” LED in blue – that can be turned off.
The lines below aren’t PWM (though they could be; this light uses PWM) – the diffuser has lines like this.
LED Color Report (CRI and CCT)
CCT is around 5000K, which is great. CRI is even high too, so that’s also great! Red was so red and intense that even on the 70-lumen output, my sensor was saturated and couldn’t read. Low is seen below, though.
Beamshots
These beamshots always have the following settings: f8, ISO100, 0.3s shutter, and manual 5000K exposure. These photos are taken at floor level, and the beam hits the ceiling around 9 feet away.
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
- Interesting design
- Wireless charging is neat
- Good powerbank
- Rotating head can be forward or side output
- Reasonable cost for such an unusual design
- Good user interface
- Nice switch!
What I don’t like
- Light itself does not have any way other than wireless to charge
- Stepdown on the highest output
- Doesn’t come close to claimed output (maybe 700 lumens is for the two white emitter option?)
Notes
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