Part 2: Expensive PenLights! Are They Lumen Lying Even More than Budget Ones?

[Music] welcome back to ttc this is our seventh episode in our lighting test series we built a sort of bargain bin light integration sphere then sent samples to a lab that does this sort of thing professionally to calibrate our own with some encouraging results so far on our last episode we tested popular 20 to 30 dollar pen lights the sort of pocket light that you keep on your person for a quick flashy flash which for us is usually an engine bay or under a car but i'll admit we were sort of leading the witness a bit in that episode milwaukee's 2010 r new pen light had not dropped yet so we felt was a bit premature to be testing maybe more professional options in the 50 range without including that new milwaukee and we didn't know quite which ones you'd want to see either at this price point well both problems have been solved today because we do get to take a peek at and test the all-new milwaukee pen light and as we can always depend on you guys vehemently advocating for your favorite version of lights we foolishly forgotten each episode we rounded up the top most mentioned brands and models from the last episode in the comments purchased them to the sum of around 300 bucks for these tiny flashy boys to test their lumen output lumens over time and ultimately throw them onto the ground until they fail i mean sometimes we wonder how life has led us to these things but you know science anywho we're going in order of advertised lumens today which starts out with the led lenser p4r core for 50 it advertises 200 lumens on high the lowest today but comes in the most substantial packaging the p4r is like most lights today in that it has a separate 10 850 size lithium ion battery though this being the only one that charges exclusively outside of the light by plugging a micro usb into the battery itself which has its pluses and minuses if you have a spare one of these i suppose you could have no downtime though charging it requires opening the light each time versus the others today its 200 lumens has a very nice even spread good for those close-up stuff in our experience in an engine bay at least when fully charged this light output feels pretty adequate but not super bright and well since most of these lights lives are not going to be spent exclusively in your hands let's face it this one's length weight and aluminum body scores a mouth feel yes mouth feel rating of 7 out of 10. pretty good all said but let's see those 200 lumens are 50 lights fibbing as much as bargain bin ones after the 30 seconds we wait per the ansi f1 standard the p4r seeing once in high again 185 183 181 just 183 lumens of the 200 advertised okay not criminally overrated at all but maybe off to a rocky start our next pen light on the day is that new milwaukee 2010r we were waiting for this one wasn't for sale yet for most retailers so we did find a private seller who was willing to let it go for 65 and we snagged that up but you should be able to find these for 50 even this one advertises 250 lumens and it's that signature milwaukee trueview color temperature which we've grown to like it is a bit spot focused maybe catered to construction where stuff is further away and has an integrated micro usb in the body which is the only location you'll be charging this thing as it does not open up milwaukee feels that if a battery can't be proprietarily designed and shaped for them you shouldn't have access to it oh well it does however have a cool red dot laser pointer button up front which is sort of neat for pointing things out to your customer that yes in fact a water pump spewing out coolant all over the floor is something they should address now even though they just came in for an oil change the tail end is a dense rubber material that should do well for its biting down mouth feel score in an engine bay that spot focus does well to make use of those 250 lumens in a convincing way though maybe washing a few things out despite that nicer light hue and yes his mouth feel gets a 10 out of 10 from me can imagine how you'd improve it without the material being softer and then maybe becoming spongy and soaking up oils and such it's honestly just really comfortable in the old pie hole but 250 lumens milwaukee has had a hit and miss reputation on this channel for those claims so let's see it so we're seeing 261 263 266 264. yeah we'll call that 266 very nice and low is about 50. nice though above its advertising you love to see it our next pen light is a bit out of left field i know we said 50 pen lights today but you know us we had to include an amazon special except this time we actually tried to pick something that might be good a reasonable 300 lumen claim uses an osram led chip we've heard of and quite good reviews not that that often means anything on that website this is the max just 22 but advertises lumens right in there where you'd expect them to be a 10850 cell like the others and a 750 milliamp hour one at that tied for the largest on the day and well yeah super bright a nice even spread but yeah maybe it's my eyes but this one appears very bright in person it's double o-ring seal on each end though is a bit cheaply made the o-rings sort of smoosh out a position really easily and it is micro usb rechargeable it even has a twist focus and an engine bay looks like plenty of light for this sort of thing for us mouthful gets a 6 out of 10 okay but not great it's a little longer so that leverage is working against you though it's not very heavy either but this is a sort of no-name amazon special and that plus lumen claims is a tumultuous relationship around these parts let's see those 300 lumens so waiting 30 seconds and 386 386 yeah 385 lumens not only is that not the usual outcome for amazon no names flashlights on this channel that's 22 over their 300 claim which means that's a record for underrated flashlights on this channel damn we know how to pick them our personal shopping services can be made available for a nominal fee from now on back in high this light is even briefly hitting 400 lumens that's just crazy all right time to circle back around to a brand that maybe did the best last time streamlight we really liked their micro stream for just 30 and based on the comments we tried taking the rear cap on and off of that one again and ours got to be working again after it's drop testing so that ultimately matches the best from that episode in durability this is the stylus pro usb for around 50 we paid 47 advertises 350 lumens and is a sort of just bit longer 10850 battery style version of that micro stream we tested lots of you guys wanted to see this one in the comments and after how the last one did us too it's got a sort of spot focused sort of not light output design which is a nice balance between the two is micro usb rechargeable and battery removable like most of these and inside an engine bay it's more than capable from various distances as well it gets a middle of the road 6 out of 10 mouth feel hard aluminum body but not bad otherwise it claimed 350 lumens and does appear pretty bright in person looks like it's seeing though 366 365 yeah i solid 365 there or 15 over for four percent up on their claim very nice low is about 90 100 110 good stuff our next most powerful pen light was the most requested model and brand from our last episode the coast hp3r coast is known for being a higher value option among lights but their pen light specifically is the most expensive on the day for us being 57 with that you do get an advertised 385 lumens a nice twist focus and some of the nicest spread of light we've seen in this class the milwaukee color temperature wise is nice but this one in particular is just super crisp and clean in my opinion at least the top button aluminum housing though a bit too proud compared to the button my thumb's not abnormally large but still hard to press down sort of requires a more pointed effort it takes usbc which we like to see just more pleasant to use and the build quality on this one is super nice everything is just buttery smooth like the usb cover the twist focus as well and in engine bay it does look bright that uniform lighting makes more sense for how we use it and that twist focus is there to hone in on smaller areas without bleeding over when you need to the coast also gets 6 out of 10 on the mouthfield nothing remarkable a little bit shorter but also a bit heavier than some of the others in the old integrating sphere we'd like to see 385 so let's take a look it's seeing 380 376 375 yeah about 378 close enough to be spot on for our bargain pin sphere here nicely done last up and highest lumen rated is the nebo this is their latest penlight offering and had some monster specs for lice of the size so we wanted to give it a go this is their inspector 500 plus a 500 lumen pen light just for around 40 to 45 dollars we picked this one up for 40. it's metal power button at the top sort of jiggles around but it does serve as a small magnet when needed so that's kind of cool this one has a few tricks up the sleeve this shroud when pulled down offers a small area light like a 360 degree mini flood and while 250 lumens on high you can hold down the button for turbo which reaches as much as 500 lumens i guess for signaling batman or something it's micro usb and its ends are a bit more bulbous than the rest of the field not that it can't fit in a pocket though obviously in an engine bay this thing is bright enough this little area light might prove useful for your application who knows it's sort of cool either way you're not exactly paying extra for it but it's 250 lumens on high plenty workable for this sort of thing and 500 lumens turbo yeah reaching flashlight levels and almost too bright when up close to things given that it's a bit spock focused as well this one however gets our lowest mouthfeel score of three as the clip is in the back it's solid aluminum and the larger diameter bulbous back housing not very pleasant to use in the old tooth town it's got some serious lumens to put up though so let's see so we're experiencing 487 506 500 498 yeah 500 lumens on turbo and on high where it's going to live most of its life it's seeing 245 241 240 259. yeah for your eyes that's going to be a solid 250 as well pretty surprised really this has been the most honest class and group of lights we've ever tested though that so far just lumens out the gate performance over time is what separates the useful from the useless up first we have the first three we tested in order lumens the led lenser milwaukee and amazon special both the covmax and milwaukee fall out the gate as flashlights tend to do the cove max falling further from its super high 385 these three meet up around the hour mark all making about the same here 100 lumens or so useful but not super bright the led lenser takes a fall and conks out first around the hour and a half mark followed by the milwaukee and the cove max holding on pretty good actually though not very bright levels and dies at two hours and ten minutes now let's add the next three to see if those were good or poor performances we'll have the streamlight here then the coast and then the nebo the nebo is going to be tested in high not turbo as that's closest to match the others all of these high lumen guys fall out of their high lumens within 10 minutes or so and settle down here but the nebo then just falling most sharply the streamlight holds on quite strong but then also moves down to join the nebo as well just past the hour and a half mark milwaukee and cove max remain the standouts for a bit until they pass out and nebo is left to remain around 30 lumens much much longer admittedly this is not really how penlights are used for longer periods usually short bursts but no real way to do short burst tests and show that comparison in a meaningful way this does however give you an idea of how many total lumen minutes let's say you'll get from each light and how quickly they would turn into not super useful levels of light output people often ask us to test these lights maybe in lower settings but they basically become all lower setting lights very quickly the led lenser just not bringing a ton of area under the curve here for duration or lumen level the coast had the most dramatic tail spin down from where it was to lower lumen levels milwaukee bringing one of the most consistent outputs per the usual with their offerings streamlight had a pretty strong showing though it joined the nebo quicker than some others cove max a surprising maybe borderline standout for just not being trash and that's pretty good top two even maybe nebo even despite starting out in high rather than turbo had a very quick descent into not super useful territory when we're talking charging it's not super interesting here as they are all similar but led lenser takes the least amps and charges the slowest and the milwaukee the most amps and charges the fastest followed by costa nibo we'll include all this data in the roundup chart in a bit now durability oh yes this is the type of light you're going to be dropping into everything including plenty of liquids when sprayed with the hose for five minutes none of these seem to be carrying too much it's cool to see that light color temperature difference that we're showing here though we're talking about impact testing though some differences become clear the first handful of drops were pretty uneventful four five six seven eight feet no issues so already more stout than the budget group for the most part at nine feet the amazon special codemax takes her last hit the first to go out it's got thinner aluminum on the housing and lens shroud i guess something has to give when you're talking about saving some money these days at 10 feet no news 11 feet also at 12 feet the nebo's off and she's not coming back on nebo's out but we got four more 13 feet 14 feet 15 feet and still nothing so here's 20 feet finally too much for one pen light the milwaukee it still works in fact but it's front lens cover shot out and that's enough to be sidelining it here so yeah these last three the coast led lenser and streamlight these are sons of basically had to resort to spiking these things on the ground with increasing amounts of anger let's see that and to no avail these three deserve a viking funeral if they ever kick the bucket well done to these guys so here's where you can see all the results we got brand image model number price advertised lumens and measured lumens only the led lenser today came out under and i mean even that would be hard to notice when putting out a clean 200 versus this 180 185 impressive category especially for amazon not letting us down for once their run time can be seen here there are battery capacities here the led lens are having the smallest battery likely because of that micro usb slot they needed to make room for that's a shame because it's also charging the slowest over here not super impressed with that design and here we're going to be using lumen minutes a common suggestion from the comment section and a good one average lumens might favor a light that dies quickly maybe it only lasts let's say two minutes but makes 800 lumens in the first and 400 lumens in the second minute that's a very high 600 average so this is more like lumens per minute totaled boom lumen minutes how much light it can put out before dying the cove max somehow takes this that large battery helping followed by the streamlight then coast in milwaukee nearly tying despite that milwaukee starting out much lower then the nebo and then the led lenser again likely from that small capacity battery charge time here the milwaukee being short as usual the led lenser being the longest most of them being in the middle and here we have durability out of 10. while the cove max was first to die it lasted longer than the majority of our budget penlight testing mouth feel is highly subjective and a bit silly but also not a lot of variation on these lights either the milwaukee is best because they tried to be and the nebo is lowest because they needed a wider base for that magnetic use but not great for the old cornhole that leaves us with our picks the streamlight again getting our auto technician recommendation for just being all around good never bad plenty of light and nearly indestructible remember to tighten that rear cap when the thing stops working though even for a tech it would be hard not to also suggest the winner for features overall than milwaukee you can tell they just tried a bit more at every corner 10 out of 10 biting on the business end because they tried and added a rubber shroud to do so only light to charge faster than it drains because they tried has a laser pointer and is very durable the permanent battery though always a downtime and no quick swap battery action which for auto tech favors that stream light again then value i mean come on covemax what a guy 22 bucks basically half of most of these you could buy two and have a backup crushed it here with over delivering on lumens which helped it here to make the most lumen minutes and this group maybe not as durable but still more durable than the average in our experience you can't be mad at that but when we're talking about that value our last budget pen light episode had some standouts here's how the 18 energizer and 30 dollar micro stream match up in black and orange on the graph that micro stream still just looking pretty good even compared to its bigger brother if you want to save 20 bucks and it's 8 out of 10 in mouth feel for being shorter plenty to like from the offering today not a ton of disappointments the coast looks and feels like a very good light and has a very pleasant light quality but in this group just didn't stand out as much in the specs as some of the others especially for 57 see our link below for the ones that made the cut into our storefront that only includes winners from these episodes click subscribe to join us for our next lighting episode and make those recommendations below for what we should be testing thanks as always for watching you

Channel: Torque Test Channel

Views: 53,767

Keywords: milwaukee 2010R, 2010R, penlight, pocket light, ECD light, P4R, 66134, HP3R, stylus pro USB, Nebo, Coast, ledlenser, inspector, 500+, covmax, amazon

Id: OKmL2nZsM9g

Length: 18min 59sec (1139 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 14 2022