The Wurkkos TS12 will feature the following:
- 14500 cell
- YLX N3535B emitter
- 1050lm with 432m throw on Turbo
- side e-switch
- USB-C charging port
- magnetic tailcap
Video link:
https://youtu.be/nby6hIdPVE0
(Saw on BLF)
The Wurkkos TS12 will feature the following:
Video link:
https://youtu.be/nby6hIdPVE0
(Saw on BLF)
To each their own, but I see no practical use for AA. In fact, I see AA-compatibility as a relic of the past, just like insisting that gasoline needs lead or PC’s need floppy drives. It makes some people feel better, so it’s a nice marketing tool, but I’ve moved past 2005. The only thing I have in my house that can even take AA’s is my Rider RX.
For me, it’s not about the lumens. At least not with 14500 lights. No 14500 can match my 18650 lights there. That’s not what smol-lights are for. But 16340 lacks the runtime of a 14500, and when I carry a 14500 instead of an 18650, it’s usually more a matter of girth than length so 18350 holds no appeal for me.
To head off another argument I’ve heard, my experience is that any alleged runtime advantage AA has over 14500 is only because of lower lumens. A light that can run at the same lumens regardless of battery, whether due to step spacing or ramping, will last longer on a good Li-ion. Those Vapcell F12’s will outlast two white Eneloops, so 14500 beats NiMH. As for alkaleaks, I’ve been in exactly the sort of situations that many AA-lovers think dual-fuel is required for and been left in the dark, sometimes for days, as a result. Plentiful? Not in a natural disaster. If you’re the type that only keeps a couple dozen around, you’ll run out by the fourth day. And when I tried to use the infinite supply of AA’s at work to get out of charging a 14500, I was so disappointed by having to swap batteries so much more often than I needed to charge that “all the AA’s you can eat” was not worth it. That was the final nail in AA’s coffin for me.
Experience guides opinion, and my experience has been such that pretty much every pro-AA/pro-dual-fuel argument I’ve heard has been debunked. Or at least deprecated since 14500’s broke the 900-mAh mark. I do not thinking a larger, less efficient, more complicated and expensive light is worth a feature I will not use. If I wanted a(nother) oversized, expensive light that could take 14500’s, I’d get a fourth D2.
I agree with ditching the USB-C port, but there’s enough folks that find external charging to be blasphemous and immoral that I can see why they included it. Besides, the optics/reflector requirements of a thrower give it a bit more “wasted” space than a floodier light like the TS10, so it’s less of a hassle.
16340 and 14500 should be about the same in terms of volume, weight, and capacity. I do understand that the 16340’s extra thickness isn’t always a good thing.
14500’s hold a bit more energy than white Eneloops, and weigh considerably less, so I don’t claim Eneloops are superior, but only that they are sometimes more convenient (they run almost any AA-powered device). 14500’s used to actually scare me because of the possibility of some idiot (most likely me, but maybe someone else around the house) putting a 14500 into an AA powered device by mistake.
I’m not that keen on the AA format for flashlights in general these days. If I want something slender I probably want an AAA light. Their main drawback is I don’t know of any with Anduril, while for AA there is the SP10 Pro (or the DW4 which is 14500-only). The main attraction of the AA format for me is generic batteries or dual fuel. The ability to use L91 lithium AA’s is also nice for some purposes, since they are very light (around 15g), have super long shelf life (decades) and work in very hot or cold weather unlike most rechargeables. CR123A cells are also like that, so if a 16340 light can also use CR123A (i.e. it has a boost converter), that is a good feature.
I’m using an AA powered computer keyboard right now, normally run with Eneloops, but they went flat and I didn’t have my charger nearby, so I put in alkaleaks and kept typing, very handy.
For lights, as mentioned, high lumens in small lights are basically a gimmick, useful for quick bursts at most. At lower lumens, runtime is generally not an issue once more than a couple hours are available. You can always bring a spare cell.
I will probably get a Nitecore HA11 (very lightweight 1AA powered headlamp) sometime, partly because there is no decent 1AAA light in the same style.
I agree with people who think using an external charger ala Hanklights is a pain. 3.6 volt 16340’s with built in USB charging exist, though (example). I don’t know if there are 3.6 volt 14500’s like that, only those silly 1.5 volt ones with built in voltage stepdown.
I can fit a 14500 light in my watch pocket, but not an 18350, and few 16430’s. It’s just those extra couple of millimeters. If I really want slender, I still have a couple old 3*AAAA (8420) Streamlight Stylus lights kicking around. Low-CRI and only 11 lumens, but thin AF and intrinsically safe (Class I, Div.1/Zone 1 ATEX). There simply aren’t any AAA/10440 lights that pique my interest, and the only 10180 that does is already in my collection.
Acebeam and Lumintop have them in USB-C. I don’t know the CDR on the Acebeam, but the Lumintop is rated 4A and I suspect Acebeam uses the same battery with a different wrap. There’s also a few micro-USB one’s, but they suffer a combination of lower mAh, micro-USB, and low CDR that I’d go with the Acebeams in anything that wouldn’t be better off with a Vapcell H10.
The TS10 can draw up to 7A on Turbo, and a D2 running both channels at once will draw 5A, so I wouldn’t use them in a light over 800 lumens. However, most other 14500 lights, or a D2 in pure channel-switching mode will do just fine. You’ll need to ask Hank to tweak the D2 to be able to take a button-top though.
Oh that’s interesting about the Acebeam and Lumintop 14500’s. I had looked on the usual battery vendor sites and didn’t see them, or 3.6 volt 16340’s either. I remembered the Fenix 16340’s though.
The AAAA is too exotic a cell and it would surprise me if they are available rechargeable. If you don’t mind an internal lipo, the Nitecore Tube is also a very thin light that fits in a watch pocket easily. It is about 9mm thick, though 20mm wide.
Regarding the 7 amps, I just don’t have enough lumen obsession any more to particularly want that in a small EDC light, though of course that is just me. There are some relatively thin but very powerful pouch cell lights from Nitecore and others if those interest you. They don’t excite me very much.
Hank has generally been unwilling to accomodate any but the shortest possible cells, and makes other compromises in his lights (like the flat springs for the boost driver configs) to make the light as short as possible. Imho this is unfortunate. He is also lumen obsessed. I was mostly into flashlights during CPF’s heyday in the early 2010’s, so I’m still used to the idea of 200 lumens being very bright for a small EDC. These days, Anduril and being able to reflash the light is of more interest to me than raw power.
I actually found some NiMH ones.
Though my 14500 lights are my most-used, I usually also have an 18650 light on me; usually my D4V2, but sometimes my DT8 that runs cooler than my D4V2 at a given level. One is more comfortable in my pocket, the other feels better in my hand.
We have a lot of other makers that are like, “Bulk be damned”, or who make flashlights that are the equivalent of a base model Toyota. At that point, just get a Streamlight. That market segment is oversaturated. One needs to stand out unless they can make it up in volume.
Hank stands out by making lights that are more like roadsters, and doing it well. No back seat, designed a bit more for performance than economy, and basically geared towards a different demographic than those looking for a 40 MPG grocery-getter sedan that will never see a freeway. Nobody buys a Miata for the trunk space or seating capacity. And how many people buy a Ferrari for it’s MPG? Those who value efficiency over power will likely go Zebra anyways.
Everyone has different needs and desires, and Hank fills a niche that other makers ignore, even if the lights he makes are not ones that suit your tastes/needs. Zebra builds objectively-good lights that I would never consider, and it’s for reasons other than lumens or being as finicky about batteries as a Hanklight.
I know many people who think nobody needs a car with more than 50 HP, and it’s telling that most of them don’t drive. Driving an old 70-HP Toyota on the 405 has taught me the importance of having more power than you think you might need even if you don’t often use it, and how what was more than enough 35 years ago isn’t always enough just because it was the best we had in the past.
When it comes to lights, I prefer something that barely feels 500 lumens over something that pukes it’s guts out trying to do 200 even if I only need 50 most of the time. I do more with my lights than just look for pens under desks and try to not trip over my cat on the way to the bathroom at 3am. There’s enough times where I need 1000+ lumens to be glad I have that option. I like being able to take any light I have and shine it across my parking lot in case someone (usually a racoon) is messing with my car.
There’s more to lumens than just marketing, and there’s enough folks who need power and would rather carry get it from smol-lights.
As one who grew up when 64KB RAM and 170KB storage was a lot, and 8 MHz was fast. I remember when 1200 mAh at 3.6V took three sub-C’s instead of a single 14500. My tastes have evolved too much over the decades to say I’m used to that though. I was at one point, but there’s also a point where I was three feet tall and didn’t need to pay bills. Time changes many things. Having used (and broken) many 14-lumen 2*AA Maglites when it was among the best small EDC lights available, I’ve really loved how far we’ve come.
Interesting about the NiMH AAAA’s. The 200 lumen lights of 2010 were because of LED limits back then. Batteries are a little bit better now, but LEDs are ridiculously better.
I don’t see Hank as trying to make the smallest possible lights, given that the D4v2 and D4K are almost the same thickness, and the D2 is huge for a 14500 light. He is trying to make them as short as possible, but doesn’t care that much about diameter. He also ships a rather gaudy Anduril setup, so the first thing I had to do when I got mine was figure out how to set it to something a little more sedate.
Of course everyone has their own usage patterns and obsessions. I do like very small lights, like the Skilhunt E3A that I carry most of the time. I sometimes think of dialing back its power level (by changing a resistor) to get more runtime, but in practice I’m not likely to bother.
The 2AA Minimag was supposedly the most popular flashlight of the 1980s-90s. It might have gotten 14 lumens with brand new batteries and bulb. Over most of its runtime and bulb life, it was more like 5 lumens. It was focusable, but still, people hugely underestimate what a few lumens can do in a dark environment.
If the D2 were a single-channel light, used smaller-than-3535 emitters, or had uselessly-small/bad optics, I’d be more inclined to agree. It’s still smaller than my Rider RX though, while having the choice between twice the power or twice the functionality. And it’s definitely smaller than carrying two separate 14500 lights, which is basically what it is. As one who uses UV for work, I rather like needing to carry just one light.
I’m not sure what you mean by “gaudy” here. Do you mean, “capable of going past 100 lumens”? I’m not the type to run my flashlights at the ceiling any more than I drive with my gas pedal slammed to the floor, so I just leave Turbo enabled and the ceiling at default so I don’t need to reconfigure when I need more than 35/150 delivers.
That’s why I love ramping UI’s like Anduril, and wish Skilhunt, Zebra, and Convoy had better mode spacing. Skilhunt’s not bad though. Well, at least the M and H series that have multiple levels.
That Maglite was only really enough in a “better than nothing” way. Yeah, I could walk around the ship without tripping over the lower lip of watertight hatches, but between the low lumens, low CCT (with resulting drop in CRI), and narrow beam even when set to max spill, plus the ringiness, found it difficult working on live circuits due to the beam quality. For things like working inside a live breaker panel or going through an unlit hangar bay without tripping over tiedown chains, it really helps having a bit more flood, and enough lumens to support making an entire circle evenly-bright. Between that and breaking at least a dozen of them doing things that my Hanklights didn’t even feel despite their reputation for fragility, I actually stopped caring about flashlights for a while until technology evolved. But that’s what the ship store had, and with no internet and the nearest store (or land) thousands of miles away, I used what was available. It’s also why I prefer high-CRI flooders in the 4500-5700K range; to make up for years of using low-quality lights.
The main thing I remember prompting the word “gaudy” was the setting of the aux leds to some kind of breathing, color-changing mode. I changed it, like I think most people do, to show the battery level. I also set the ramping to 7 steps instead of stepless, though that’s a matter of preference. 2 click turbo is there but until a few days ago I hardly ever used it for real (as opposed to impressing myself by lighting up trees while outside). Instead I generally use level 1 (supposedly 10 lumens) or click up to level 3 or so if I want more illumination. Ironically, the thing I now use turbo for is charging up GITD tape from a distance of about 3 inches. I don’t know the lux level, but a few seconds is enough to fully charge the tape.
Don’t get me wrong, I love my D2v4, but I feel like there is some design confusion to Hank lights in general, with the D4v2 being a lucky hit. The battery crushing, too-short tailcap spring in the boost converter configs, the battery fussiness in the M44 per the recent review, the inability to accomodate protected cells (which would take a slightly longer battery tube and allow the use of cells with built in USB charging), etc. It’s not about minimizing the size or weight, as we see with the D2 or the rather heavy DW4. The D2 design has its attractions but I’d frankly prefer an 18650 version.
I liked this old Jim Sexton CPF post about different types of flashaholics (flashlight enthusiasts):
(Edit: wait a sec, had the wrong url, looking for right one).
I went through most of those phases, and eventually withdrew from the hobby because of a firmware bug in my Spy 005. Anduril got me back in, but I still mostly refuse to buy microprocessor lights with closed firmware. I think of reprogramming my D2v4 as a one level light of around 100 lumens, with some kind of “secret” escape code if I want to access the rest of the modes. In the sense of that CPF post, it seems to me that Hank’s lights (and today’s BLF-style lights in general) have not yet really matured.
Ah, “Disco Mode”. Yeah, it impresses the Normies, and everyone else will just 7H regardless. I’m a ramping Mode guy, and wish Zebra would put in a ramping mode. I find Turbo nice as a party trick, hand warmer, or improvised heat gun, but rarely as a light source. My UV D2’s are better at charging GITD stuff than ungawdly lumens of white light.
I consider the D4V2 to be the Gold Standard. Not the best, but as a light to compare others to. I’m not sure if the KR4 is really all that different from the D4V2, but my KR4, D4V2, and DT8 all have the same dent despite the KR4 being my only boosted Hanklight. As for not being able to use protected cells, I see no sense in allowing a light that will draw 18A to be able to take batteries that max out at 10A. And I have opinions about USB charging that make me consider being unable to use things of questionable quality and reliability a plus. I simply never trusted mini-chargers even before USB existed.
The weight of the DW4 actually makes sense to me. Aside from the actual metal portion of the head and the bezel, it’s a D4V2; same parts bins and all. Simplifies logistics. Pretty important for any business doing less than a billion dollars a year. Potentially being over 4000 lumens with a Linear+FET driver as opposed to the boost driver of the TH30 or the (far less powerful) Zebras and Skilhunts has some thermal requirements that can’t be met with thin metal. It takes thicker, heavier metal to transfer the heat from where it’s generated to where it can be shed. Then there’s the layout required to use the same boards and optics as the D4V2. To my mind, it’s as small as can be without requiring more DW4-specific parts, and as light as it can be to maintain thermals comparable to a D4V2. Now, if manufacturing were entirely “Print on demand” and all that was required for different models was changing a program in a 3D printer, then I’d fell differently. But I worked manufacturing (mostly as a CNC machinist) for long enough to understand the engineering. The D2 was entirely new from the ground up, which allowed for greater freedom of design.
I don’t see myself there. The closest is #3, but even that isn’t really close. And it seems outright derogatory towards those who aren’t, “A 3D-cell Maglite was good enough for my grandfather, so it’s good enough for me and is the only light anyone should ever need!”, folks. I’m honestly surprised he didn’t yell at the kids to get off his lawn.
That really depends on one’s idea of “matured”. I’ve been a bit of a technophile and neophile for half a century. I do not see “matured” as “becoming closer to my tastes as I, personally, get older”. My definition is closer to, “Expansion of capability”. It’s the ability to meet the needs/desires of a wider market, even if that requires a bit of a learning curve to configure it to one’s personal tastes. Anduril seems pretty close, and I think Hanklights do as well when you consider how many hardware options he offers. What you describe seems to me to be a simple matter of setting Simple Mode to a single step with Floor and Ceiling adjusted appropriately, then hitting 10H as needed. No need to edit source code and reflash.