FandyFire 5 x Cree XM-L T6 4000LM 5-Mode White Light Flashlight – Dark Grey (4 x 18650) $71.40 

Initial Impressions:

Compared to most of the items I’ve received from DX, the packaging of the Raging light consists of a decent box with closed cell foam insert protecting the light well, so first impressions are good.

The 4 x 18650 format is quite common now, and the Raging has a handle to make handling the light easier than gripping the body.

Lifting the Raging out of the box and the overall construction feels solid with plenty of metal to help keep those 5 XM-Ls cool. The thinness of the metal used to make the handle is the only slight disappointment.

I like the different look of the five distinct reflectors and black background separating them. This is a different approach to the compound reflectors more commonly seen in multi emitter lights.

What is in the box:

Closed cell foam protects the light. Included with the light is a lanyard and spare o-ring.

Taking a closer look and looking inside:

The business end with the five distinct emitters with dedicated reflectors. The black ‘fill’ piece acts to locate the reflectors.

Looking straight into the array of reflectors and they appear yellow as the emitter surface is evenly reflected. The reflectors are well finished and you can just make out the lines in the emitter surface in the reflections.

The battery tube has a square section echoing the square battery 1S4P layout.The graphics are printed onto rather than etched into the surface.

The tail has a single reverse clicky switch with the fixing point for the bolted on handle.

The contacts in the head for the positive battery terminals and the negative contact ring for the body. The only flaw in the finish is a bit of epoxy resin left on the head (visible at 1-2 o’clock in the photo). Removing this would most likely result in damage to the anodising so I’ve left it. Once the body is fitted this is barely noticeable.
The negative terminals are springs, The threads are well formed and anodised. As supplied the threads and o-ring were dry.

Modes and User Interface:

The FandyFire Raging has a typical five mode driver with memory. There is a physical make or break switch (unlike the majority of lights like this that use electronic switching) with reverse clicky action.

Click-on to the last used mode, then half press the switch briefly to change mode. Modes are High, Medium, Low, Strobe, SOS back to High etc.

As long as you leave a second or two between turning it off and on again, it will remember the last used mode.

Batteries and output:

The Raging, uses four 18650s but due to the positive contact design, button top cells are needed for reliable operation.

The negative contact springs allow for a range of cell lengths to be accommodated. The cells shown here are the long Xtar 3100mAh and are easily accommodated.

Unlike many of the incarnations of multi cell 1S4P configuration, the Raging has no central battery separator. This means that you need to use 4 cells or when you screw the body onto the head, the batteries can move sideways and not make contact properly. If you really needed to use this light on less than 4 cells you would need to use spacers in place of the other cells.

As the Raging uses a make or break clicky switch there is no parasitic drain to worry about, so leaving this light fully loaded and ready to go is no problem, the only drain being the cells own self discharge.

To measure actual output, I built an integrating sphere. See here for more detail. The sensor registers visible light only (so Infra-Red and Ultra-Violet will not be measured).

Please note, all quoted lumen figures are from a DIY integrating sphere, and according to ANSI standards. Although every effort is made to give as accurate a result as possible, they should be taken as an estimate only. The results can be used to compare outputs in this review and others I have published.

The output measurements were made using the Xtar 3100mAh cells.

Strobe frequency is 7.8Hz

Considering it is likely the users of this light would also buy their batteries from DX, I chose to run the output runtime trace on Ultrafire 2600mAh red protected cells.

The output does steadily decline, but remains over 1000lm for 1.5 hours and due to the size of the head never runs overly hot.

In The Lab

NEW for Winter 2012 ANSI standards include maximum beam range. This is the distance at which the intensity of light from an emitter falls to 0.25lux (roughly the same as the lux from a full moon). This standard refers only to the peak beam range (a one dimensional quantity), so I am expanding on this and applying the same methodology across the entire width of the beam. From this data it is possible to plot a two-dimensional ‘beam range profile’ diagram which represents the shape of the illuminated area.

In order to accurately capture this information a test rig was constructed which allows a lux meter to be positioned 1m from the lens and a series of readings to be taken at various angles out from the centre line of the beam. As the rig defines a quadrant of a circle with a radius of 1m, all the readings are taken 1m from the lens, so measuring the true spherical light intensity. The rig was designed to minimise its influence on the readings with baffles added to shield the lux meter from possible reflections off the support members.

The distance of 1m was chosen as at this distance 1lux = 1 candela and the maximum beam range is then calculated as the SQRT(Candela/0.25) for each angle of emission.

In this plot, the calculated ANSI beam ranges are plotted as if viewed from above (for some lights there may also be a side view produced) using a CAD package to give the precise ‘shape’ of the beam.

Starting with the 5m range grid you get an idea of the broad spread of light pushing forward into the distance.

Then zooming out to the 50m range grid showing the extent of the beam’s range. Even with the broad beam and wide hotspot, the ANSI beam range still reaches 300m.

What it is really like to use…

Including a handle in the design of the Raging makes a real difference to regular use of this light. The handle makes it easy and comfortable and even large hands don’t feel cramped.

The clicky tail switch combined with the size of this light make it a two handed operation design, but the complete lack of parasitic drain (due to this switch), without having to unscrew the body to lock it out, somewhat makes up for this.

Unfortunately due to the lack of central cell support you must have at least one complete set of four well-matched cells, as you cannot easily run this light on less than four cells.

Being quite a big light it is a bit too big and powerful for everyday general use, but as a big light to grab and light up the neighbourhood it is spot on.

Unfortunately the PMW at 125 Hz on the lower output levels is quite noticeable to me, but this is typical in lights like this, so not unexpected. It means I prefer not to use this on the lower levels, instead enjoying the maximum output to its full effect.

The manufacturer lists the light at 4000lm (hence DX quoting this figure), but as the output tests showed, this is an actual ANSI output of 2118lm. This is still a very respectable output despite the 5 XM-L emitters unfortunately not being driven that hard with each one only giving around 400lm. Given a better driver this light could achieve a much higher output.

Not to go on about this feature too much, but simply incorporating a handle does make for a really well handling light. I have large hands, so could easily grip the body, but find the handle makes this light easy to hold for long periods with no fatigue at all. If needed you can even hang it off a single finger to allow you to use both hands to carry something and still hold the light.

The FandyFire Raging has good ergonomics and provides respectable performance at a good price. Although having the side by side 4×18650 configuration it also has a distinctive styling.

FandyFire 5 x Cree XM-L T6 4000LM 5-Mode White Light Flashlight – Dark Grey (4 x 18650) $71.40 

Review by “Subwoofer” originally posted on CandlePowerForums 12.29.12