Yes, another flashlight review. It’s an illness, but at least it’s a useful illness. And sorry about the image size. Anyone know how to make WordPress resize a featured image so it will be no larger than x * y?
The LA Police Gear Twist Angle Flashlight reminds me of the old OD green right angle flashlights we had in the Army, but modernized-and with a twist. You can twist the top part to make it a straight flashlight, a right angle or any angle between 0 and 90. It’s about 4 1/2 tall in the right angle config and about 5 1/4 if you straighten it out. Diameter is about 1″. Weight is, at a guess 19 ounces.
The light uses an 18650 battery or 2 CR123 batteries. I’ll go into this in a second. The LED is a Luminous SST40. It claims a high setting of 750 lumens for 2.5 hours, a medium setting of 300 lumens for 4.5 hours and a low setting of 25 lumens for 80 hours. It also has a strobe mode at 750 lumens and an SOS mode at 2.5 lumens. There is a magnetic tailcap and a clip. It claims to be IPX 8 water resistant. A memory allows it to turn on at the last power level used. Charging is via a USB cable with a Magsafe-type end for the flashlight.
As usual, I tested it with my not quite lab quality testing setup and obtained the following data. On high, I measured 3634 lumens, on medium 998 lumens and on low, 376 lumens, measurements taken at 3′. All of these are substantially higher than claimed. The high setting is downright painful.
As high as these reading are compared to the light’s claims, I rechecked and got the same readings. Just for grins and giggles, I’ve ordered a more proper light meter. We’ll see how accurate the readings are, I hope.
As for the run time, I got the following at the medium setting.
The light was off at the end of hour 7, but would turn back on with a reading of 2 lumens. The light never reduced power due to heating as far as I could tell.
I’m pretty impressed with the light. The only downside I can find is the charging cord. It isn’t a “normal” USB cord as it has a sort of Magsafe connection at the end that attaches to the light. If you lose it or break it somehow, then you’re down to CR123s for power.
I think this one is going to go in my pickup, and the Fenix light there will go into the Suburban. That gives each vehicle a good quality, bright light.
