Lumintop Petal LEP and LED Flashlight Review
The Lumintop Petal LEP and LED flashlight, is a dual-output light that can do both at once, too! Read on for some testing on this neat light.
Official Specs and Features
Here’s a link to the Lumintop Petal LEP and LED flashlight product page.
Versions
There seems to be just one version of the Lumintop Petal LEP and LED flashlight at the moment, but Lumintop is friendly to special metals. It’s not impossible that we could see a titanium version of this light.
You’ll also remember this body from use in the Lumintop Thor 1, though, so you might consider this Petal to be a version of that light. It’s a body style that Lumintop has used often.
Price
This neat little 18350-cell light that has many features comes at a price of $189.99. You can buy the Petal now at FlashlightGo.com!
Lumintop sent a 25% off coupon, which you can copy here:
TPJS3
and use at lumintolighting.com. This brings the with-cell version down (after shipping) to $115.33. Very reasonable!
Short Review
The name might not make sense, but check out those beam photos – it’ll click right away. That might just seem like a gimmick (and I’d accept that assessment), but those auxiliary lights are fantastic in both CRI and CCT as well as being deceivingly bright. This is a very fun light, for sure.
Long Review
The Big Table
| Lumintop Petal LEP and LED flashlight | |
|---|---|
| Price in USD at publication time: | $189.99 at flashlightgo.com |
| Cell: | 1×18350 |
| Runtime Graphs | |
| LVP? | Yes |
| Switch Type: | Mechanical |
| On-Board Charging? | Yes |
| Charge Port Type: | USB-C (on cell) |
| Charge Graph | |
| Power off Charge Port | – |
| Emitter: | Both |
| Claimed Lumens (lm) | 500 |
| Measured Lumens (at 30s) | 370 (74% of claim)^ |
| Candela per Lumen | |
| Claimed Throw (m) | 1056 |
| Candela (Calculated) in cd (at 30s) | 9660lux @ 6.222m = 373970cd |
| Throw (Calculated) (m) | 1223.1 (115.8% of claim)^ |
| Emitter: | LEP |
| Claimed Lumens (lm) | 250 |
| Measured Lumens (at 30s) | 234 (93.6% of claim)^ |
| Candela per Lumen | |
| Claimed Throw (m) | – |
| Candela (Calculated) in cd (at 30s) | 9720lux @ 6.295m = 385175cd |
| Throw (Calculated) (m) | 1241.2 |
| Item provided for review by: | flashlightgo.com |
| 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 Petal LEP and LED flashlight
- 1100mAh 18350 with built-in USB-C charging
- Spare o-rings (2)
- Manual
Official documentation indicates that a cell and o-rings might not be included. My package had them, and they seemed comfortable in the package, so I would guess those items are actually included in all packages. If that’s really important to you, you should ask before purchasing!
Package and Manual
Build Quality and Disassembly
Those familiar with Lumintop will recognize this as a Lumintop right away. These gold bands have become very recognizable. The Lumintop Petal LEP and LED flashlight also has a bunch of other interesting features, like these glow tubes in the tailcap. Also, this light sports a “pineapple” body design.
The head end has a nice beefy spring.
On the tail end (the one you’ll remove to charge your 18350 cell) is also a beefy spring. These threads are smooth but unanodized – it’s not really possible to mechanically lock the light out!
The bezel does come off, exposing the LEP module as well as the ring of 6 LED emitters.
Size and Comps
SIZE: 96 x 32 x 25.5mm (Length x Head Ø x Tube Ø)
NET WEIGHT: ~102g (Aluminum, battery excluded)
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 titanium Todai 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
Nothing is actually included for carrying the Lumintop Petal LEP and LED flashlight. I wouldn’t say that’s the worst thing – this may just not really be a “carry me around” type of light.
Power and Runtime
My package included the cell that’s required for powering the Lumintop Petal LEP and LED flashlight. That’s a single 18350 (despite some of Lumintop’s official documentation saying 18650. This could hint at a longer body or extension tube – both things that are familiar to Lumintop.)
This is a standard button top 18350 with a capacity of 1100mAh.
Install the cell into the light in the usual orientation: positive end toward the head.
Below are a few runtime tests. I might not have picked the best three outputs – I didn’t test the runtime of the highest LED-only, but that’s sort of captured in the “Both” graph anyway.
The Lumintop Petal LEP and LED flashlight does shut off with low voltage protection. The lines you see at the end of each graph is the emitter blinking 3x to show that the cell voltage is low (<3.2V)
Charging
While the Petal itself does not have built-in charging, the cell that was included in my package does. The cell has a USB-C charging port on the positive end.
A cable for charging is not included.
Charging with USB-C and USB-A both work just fine, and finish in a quick ~1 hour.
Modes and Currents
| Mode | Mode Claimed Output (lm) | Claimed Runtime | Measured Lumens | Tailcap Amps |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Combo (High, Both) | 500 | 2m+40m | 391 (0s) 369 (30s) |
4.16 |
| LEP High | 250 | 5m+1h | 234 | 3.12 |
| LEP Low | 60 | 2h | 59 | 0.65 |
| LED High | 300 | 5m+1h20m | 170 | 1.63 |
| LED Low | 40 | 3h | 28 | 0.34 |
Pulse Width Modulation
The mode order below is not the same as in the table above. Below (and in all other sections below), it’s LEP Low, LEP High, LED Low, LED High, and Combo. The LED uses PWM, which is also seen in the Combo chart. I was not able to see the PWM happening while I used the Petal.
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
A single switch controls the Lumintop Petal LEP and LED flashlight. The switch is mechanical but has a backlit/indicator/locator function.
Because the switch is very proud, tailstanding isn’t easy (or really “reliable”). The switch is actually flat though, so if you’re careful, you can get the light to tailstand.
Here’s a user interface table!
| State | Action | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Off | Click | On (Mode Memory) |
| On | Click | Off |
| On | Tap | Mode advance (LEP Low, LEP High, LED Low, LED High, Combo) |
| On | Tap 2x | Strobe (seems to be strobe of the current output) |
| On | Tap 6x | Police Output (seems to be strobe of the current output) |
LED and Beam
As stated many times throughout this text, the Lumintop Petal is a LEP and LED flashlight. I’d say it’s more of a “definitely LEP” with a side of “let’s add some LEDs” but it turns out very neat!
I haven’t mentioned it yet, but there is a pretty huge chunk of turbo glow in the head. It glows very actively after just about any usage of the light.
As shown above, the bezel can be removed, exposing the LEDs.
LED Color Report (CRI and CCT)
The LEP is just too intense to be measured by my devices, but the auxiliary emitters are quite nice! They have high CRI (over 90) as well as a CCT of around 4500K. They’re deceivingly bright, too.
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
- Petal-shaped LED output
- High CRI LEDs
- Very throwy LEP (not extra throwy for a LEP, just LEPs are ridiculously throwy)
- Fairly good user interface
- TurboGlowww Let’s Goooo
What I don’t like
- No good way to carry the light (needs a bag or something, maybe)
- Petal output is maybe not all that useful.
- Production text is unclear (calling it an 18650 light, unclear on package contents, etc).
Notes
- This content originally appeared at zeroair.org. Please visit there for the best experience!
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