Penlights! Who Else Is Lying About Lumens as Much as Harbor Freight? Part 1

[Music] welcome back to ttc in our sixth light lumen test episode we built a diy light integration sphere to call out overzealous lumen labelers and had a lab qualified for this sort of thing test the same lights and our calibration has been pretty spot on today we test an assortment of pen lights pocket lights sort of long slim edc lights that you might clip into your pocket which is pretty popular among people poking around cars for a living which is our background so we felt it was worth a look basically we took all the top recommended brands from the comment section in our last lighting video and bought those which includes both alkaline battery and rechargeable battery models so today we're going to test their lumen output versus their claims which range massively from 140 to 1200 lumens quote unquote then test their light output across their runtime which usually is the true equalizer here then spike these on the ground to see which fail first not because we want to but because you know science guys we're going in order of advertised lumen output today which means we're starting here with the harbor freight quantum at twenty dollars which is sort of their only rechargeable quantum flashlight for some reason on this channel harbor freights had a bit of a reputation for skewering their stats always in their favor when it comes to numbers on the box some of their cheap lights have been rather spot on but some others and well a lot of their products some rose-colored glasses let's say when interpreting their own data this one advertises 140 lumens which isn't a whole lot and while in person and in an engine bay where we're often using these you need to bring this thing pretty close in to see what's going on once you're not right up in the engine bay things get quite dim but let's see what you can make in episode one we had a lab verify testing down to 127 lumens so we should be within the ballpark here waiting 30 seconds per the ansi f01 standard and we're seeing 120 121 122 120 lumens low is about 45 and high again here at 120. that's 86 percent of their 140 claim i mean not amazing percentage-wise but that is sort of just a handful of lumens though at this level every bit helps hopefully helping out a bit with a bump in the numbers is the next highest rated pen light today the aaa powered olight i3t eos also for 20 bucks this is an extra small edc style light we went with this one because it was one of the higher lumen single aaa lights and we wanted to see if this size and price point are enough to be useful while keeping our shirt pockets free for more leaky pens the olight feels super high quality and the insides and sort of copper tone threads are just frankly really impressive we'll be using a single aaa to match all the others we'll be using today it's on button felt a bit stiff to me and in an engine bay it's similar to the quantum not a ton of light to be sure it's a bit more spot focused and high candela beam style so you can get some range out of it but that spot focus means that spread is quite small and here's how that 180 lumens looks like in the sphere so we're seeing after 30 seconds 156 154 155 so 155 lumens again 86 of advertised so right in with the harbor freight sort of bar that we're setting here and that is high low is only a few lumens we suspect a brand new aaa may get close to 180 but that one small battery doesn't stand much of a chance after any real use we'll have to see in our upcoming run time test next up is the 200 lumen also 20 lumen top iyp 365. inside of its sort of fancy packaging you'll find an also sort of fancy light that looks pretty high quality the top button is aluminum for a change but we didn't like it too much sort of wobbles around and click clacks about but that's purely preference this returns to that sort of true pen shape fitting two aaa's inside this time this also has a sort of spot focus beam but less constrained so than the olight and in person it seems to illuminate an engine bay a bit better than the old light as well it just comes across as a little bit more useful but here's how the 200 lumens measures up though we're seeing 158 157 155 nearly identical output to the olight but advertised as 200 rather than 180 interesting looks a bit better in person but same total lumen output and low is around 40 lumens that 157 is just 79 of their claim in this case next up is the streamlight despite doing three of their lights already on this channel we get a lot of comments about leaving them out anytime we do and it makes sense this model steps things up to 30 dollars now but is rechargeable is rated for 250 lumens and is ranked fifth in sales among all flashlights on amazon making it the first of any rechargeable light so we had to include it for sure this one charges with micro usb and is pretty tiny around the same size as the olight single aaa and after charging it up its light output looks very nice and in an engine bay pretty useful too you can sort of focus its beam if you need some distance or more spot intensity or widen it for more coverage seems like plenty of light for this sort of thing but let's check that 250 lumens we're seeing 229 228 227 yeah that's a solid 228 from us pretty close at least 91 percent and we're not going to begrudge them over 20 lumens in our diy foam sphere okay next up in lumens but down in price is the energizer rechargeable 400 lumen light at only 19 bucks making it the cheapest light so far and 400 lumens for real i mean it does appear pretty damn bright in person with a non-spot focus beam which we personally prefer for this up close stuff and appears they are targeting mechanics after all when you compare it versus the olight it is just putting out a lot more light of course with rechargeable there is downtime compared to quickly swapping out an alkaline battery but there's also no cost and waste associated with it in the engine bay it puts out a ton of light almost more than needed really this is verging on normal flashlight territory and we don't get that wash out from spot focus beams up close but in the old sphere well she's seeing yeah about 400 lumens pretty spot on low is about 140 then there's that useless strobe and 400 again so that's getting full marks from us 100 our next flashlight is just a bit extra in all categories now extra lumens at 450 back up to 30 dollars now too they email us extra times all the time to try to get us to take free products which we don't accept and its size is a bit bigger as well due to taking two double a batteries this is the thrunite archer v3 through knights a much requested brand in our comments section which is why we're including it despite their emailing persistence and this is currently the number one best-selling flashlight on all of amazon so we sort of had to we chose the 450 model rather than their 500 archer because it's neutral white color temperature rather than cool white which if we had to make a choice like we are here we prefer a warmer color like the milwaukee uses this model is a bit bigger due to using double a batteries and is sort of on the upper end of what we consider a pocket light really it was honestly a bit more bulky than we were imagining when we purchased it but it does look bright properly aided in part by having access to three times the battery capacity when using double a's versus triple a's in the old engine bay the neutral white is a little bit nicer but not a huge difference it's bright but also that high candela focus washes out some of the details already at this brightness level might be more of an outdoors camping light if we're honest but we wanted to see how a double-a battery light fit in this lineup so let's see how the bean counter likes its 450 claim so with fresh batteries like the rest it's seeing only 344 342 340 and that is high low is like six lumen mediums 40 and high again that's just 76 percent right for sure but not quite 450 bright but if that sounds bad hold on to your butts because we have the infamous amazon special 1200 lumen rated dual aaa battery-powered pen light from the best life but if we're honest you can find these identical lights floating around amazon rated for 1000 or 1200 all the same thing for a varying cost depending on how many you want to buy at a time ours was ten dollars but you can find them for as low as four to five dollars a piece in the packaging and product feel yeah speaks to that four to five dollar max in the hand as well it does make some light spot focus for sure and in an engine bay passable because of that spot focus area being just bright enough but not going to be impressing the ladies with this one but we're anxious to see how those 1200 lumens from aaa batteries stacks up all right here we go 119 114 yep and it doesn't have any other modes just that 110 or so lumens so just 9.6 of that advertised level and most of these have decent reviews guys this is how much you can trust amazon reviews for this sort of stuff i mean an empty soda can feels more substantial than this so this is how things look so far basically their claims versus what they make out of the box with charged or new batteries so that run time let's take a look up first we have the alkaline battery flashlights so that's olight then lumatop then thrunite and amazon special over here the only light that's supposed to drop out of high is the thrunite which should step down to about 280 lumens the thrunite does drop down just as they say the o light drops out super quick though becoming useless within 10 minutes followed by the amazon 12 hundo and the lumen top holds much more steadily but drops out as well before the hour mark with the rest of the aaa models the thrunite yeah that three times battery capacity being put to good use they said it would step down to 280 and it pretty much does and for a long time settling down eventually after the two hour mark pretty big difference but also pretty decent size difference as well let's take a look now at the rechargeables we got the streamlight energizer and harbor freight over here the energizer drops real fast from its huge 400 figure where it will die off first at about an hour and a quarter the streamlight and harbor freight remain a bit more gradual in their descent but the harbor freight just being sort of useless most of that time the stream light putting up more of an effort here's how all of them look on screen now obviously the thrunite providing the most consistent light of all of them but it's also getting pretty toasty 132 degrees on the handle at times if we consider everything over 100 lumens to be useful for what we do it weeds out a few lights from the get-go olight harbor freight and the amazon all fall below that within 10 minutes that just seems not super useful to anyone the lumen top lasts about half hour maybe 35 minutes before doing the same about three times more useful than those others the energizer yeah that drops down pretty dramatically unfortunately but looking at the curve that's still more usable time than these others and a lot of light during it but ironically for the brand it's let down by its battery not being able to keep up with those lumens about 50 minutes of usefulness the streamlight was able to keep up pretty good about 70 minutes decent amount of light output for its tiny size pretty impressive overall for charging the three that do charge took very low levels of amperage and all have a similar size battery one and a half to two and a half hours of charging not very interesting there alright last stop before we put all these stats together for you is durability it's not much help if a pen light is bright if when you get it wet or drop it it breaks very easily all these lights today didn't seem to be too bothered by the hose so we'll call that equal but for dropping them yeah that's a whole nother story we drop these all at once each time to try and keep things even and right out the gate the first drop after our dropping intro the through knight is done only light to perish perhaps it's just too heavy for its own good never came back from this and that was about tripod height so three feet four feet and all were fine five foot similar story but the energizer is stuck in low now so sort of not in the mix anymore six foot and same thing energizer working but only in low seven and eight foot the lumen top shuts off each time but is fine after it can be turned back on and we're retiring that low energizer now 10 feet killed the amazon about time if you ask me on that tin can 11 foot in the stream light now turns on when you hold the button but that's about it it won't stay on 12 foot broke the lumen top and the quantum so olight is the champion here that thing is very nicely made just wish it was a bit brighter for longer probably that single aaa's battery fault there and here's all of our data in one sheet of course the amazon made the least compared to their claims in true amazon fashion on this channel the thrunite was a surprise though despite its step down from 280 lumens appearing to be very accurate for those claims run time it runs away with though followed by the other rechargeables up here average lumen output across the run though that's the real dividing stat on this channel through knight double a followed by the energizer due to starting out so high then the impressive tiny streamlight then the luma top the harbor freight amazon and own light and then durability is over here with them being placed pretty much the exact opposite to those average lumens we were just talking about for some reason both of these lights are smaller than an average pen but the stream light far outpacing the olight and well yeah ten dollars more for it as far as our picks this is our number one and what we will be rebuying takes the least amount of space in your pocket and performed well overall we think compared to all the lights today this one would be our choice for camping it's just a bit too big to fit comfortably all day in your pocket without comments from the receptionist and at a similar size just get an 18650 light with more light more runtime and everything but don't take it hiking as it's the most fragile but we'll keep your hands warm on a cold night on the way to the john the energizer gets our best value 19 and a whole lot of lumens if it lasted longer it would have gotten probably number one i reckon but really just buy two of them for 38 dollars and you could be done with it honorable mention goes to the lumen top for just being sort of the best traditional pen size that we tested what are your thoughts peeved we skipped over olights and through knight's traditional pen size rechargeables some other brands in our blinders let us know click some stuff to catch the next one and thanks as always for watching [Music] you

Channel: Torque Test Channel

Views: 153,822

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Id: _CvTJJgAMC8

Length: 15min 26sec (926 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 21 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/Inverse_Cramer]

Would have been nice to see milwaukees pen light in there. I'd like to see how it stacks up, especially runtime.

[u/JKBFree]

Nice, although my olight i3t and i gonna have a talk.

[u/-Stereodude-]

But they tested all the AA and AAA lights with Alkaleak batteries, not with NiMH. That's a rookie move there.