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Lupine Betty TL
The World's Brightest Flashlight
2,600 Lumens, MADE IN GERMANY
© 2012 KenRockwell.com. All rights reserved.

Intro   Compared   Specs   Performance   Usage   Recommendations   More

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Lupine Betty TL

Lupine Betty TL-S (2,600 Lumens, 8.9 oz./252g including battery, about $750 with batteries and charger). enlarge. This free website's biggest source of support is when you use these links, especially this link directly to them at Amazon (Betty TL-S and Betty TL), when you get anything, regardless of the country in which you live. Thank you! Ken.

 

November 2012  Lupine Reviews   Fenix   Nikon   Canon    Fuji    LEICA   All

Lupine Piko TL Mini review.

Betty TL-S at Amazon (short version seen here)

Betty TL at Amazon (longer version with same light but bigger battery)

Spare Long TL Battery at Amazon

Spare Short TL-S Battery at Amazon

More products from Lupine.

 

The World's Brightest Flashlight         top

Intro   Compared   Specs   Performance   Usage   Recommendations   More

Adorama pays top dollar for your used gear.

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I use these stores. I can't vouch for ads below.

The Lupine Betty TL is the size of a small C-cell flashlight, but weighs less, and is brighter than any other flashlight. "Flashlight" is defined as a hand-held, battery operated light that fits in your pocket (lights that hook a car battery to a searchlight are almost as bright as this, but those don't count as flashlights).

This Betty TL is five times brighter than a car headlight, and can be hidden in one hand. It uses a 26-Watt LED head, which makes about as much light as a 250 watt incandescent light.

Unlike other lights, the Betty TL is on at full brightness the instant you hit the button. Nothing has to warm up as it does with HID or other kinds of lights.

There are two different batteries available, and three different beam spreads. Each beam spread draws the same power.

I have the Betty TL-S shown here, with the "short" 2.5 Ah battery. The regular Betty TL uses a longer 5 Ah battery.

These lithium rechargeable batteries have the advantage of holding charge for many, many months if left unused. I get months of use out of each charge, and I've got the small battery. Honestly, I'm writing this review at the end of November, and I last charged my Betty TL-S back in May!

This crazy little flashlight is as bright as the sun, and is much smaller than the classic Maglite classic 2-D flashlight. The Betty TL is over one-hundred times brighter than the Maglite classic 2-D flashlight! Unlike the D-cell lights, I can hold this thing in my mouth, but it's not comfortable.

It's like having a tiny, weightless piece of superior alien technology that blasts out a beam brighter than the Sun. Shined into a shadow from two or three feet, it is as bright as direct sunlight!

It's got the same lighted power switch and programming lights as the smaller Lupine Piko TL Mini.

It's a little bigger than I'd want to carry in my pocket everywhere; for that, I prefer the Lupine Piko TL Mini.

It uses a dedicated rechargeable Lithium-Ion battery and includes a plug-in charger.

The Betty TL is a lightweight, marvelously well-made and very practical light for professionals, and priced fairly. You can buy crappy lights with exaggerated specifications that seem almost as good on paper, but they are either adolescent toys like the "Wicked Lasers" Torch that only has a few minutes of life on a charge and uses a primitive halogen bulb that makes more heat than light (a 100 W halogen bulb with 2,000 hour life really only has about half the output claimed by the Torch, hee hee), or the lights are too big and heavy to be classified as a "flashlight, " like the otherwise excellent 4-D cell Fenix TK70.

The Betty TL is the real thing, in a class by itself, and so small and lightweight that you'll actually take it out and use it. It's a fraction of the size and weight of everything else, and brighter, too. It's a tool you'll actually use — a lot.

Great also about the Betty TL is its wide beam, which is far more useful than the pencil beams of other lights.

 

Compared         top

Intro   Compared   Specs   Performance   Usage   Recommendations   More

Lumens define how much light leaves a flashlight. How far it shines also depends on how tightly this light is formed into a beam. Tighter beams shine farther, while broader beams make it easier to see what's around you. Lumens are the best measurement of total light output; while candlepower (not shown here) will vary as you focus a beam.

Here are lumen ratings of some other popular small, tough flashlights:

Betty TL: 2,600 lumens.

Piko TL Mini: 550 lumens.

Fenix LD41: 520 lumens.

Maglite 3-D LED: 131 lumens.

Fenix E11: 115 lumens.

Maglite XL50 3-AAA LED: 104 lumens.

Fenix E05: 29 lumens.

Maglite classic 2-D flashlight: 19 lumens.

All-time Classic 2-AA "Super-Bright Xenon" Mini-Maglite: 14 lumens. (3.870 oz./109.8g w/2-AA alkaline.)

Classic 1-AAA Maglite Solitaire: 2 lumens.

The only lights that might be brighter than this Betty TL use car batteries, and/or HID bulbs that take time to warm up. Who wants to wait for their flashlight to warm up? HID car-battery lights aren't that much brighter, either. Fenix makes a TK70 with 2,200 lumens, but it's not a flashlight; it's 16 inches long and runs on four D cells, with only the same battery life!

 

Specifications         top

Intro   Compared   Specs   Performance   Usage   Recommendations   More

More details at the end of the Betty TL User Manual.

 

Quality

MADE IN GERMANY.

 

Betty 26 Watt Lamp Heads

Betty TL 26º Head

Betty TL 26º Head. bigger.

16º (2,050 lumens).

22º (2,300 lumens).

26º (2,600 lumens).

While the broader beams make more ultimate light (lumens), the narrower beams have higher peak luminance (candelas or candlepower).

I have and prefer the 26º lamp.

 

Betty TL Batteries

Long TL Battery (not shown here)

5 Ah, 7.2 V.

Run time: 1.7 hours at full brightness, 37 hours at minimum brightness.

Charge time: 2.3 hours with Charger One.

 

Short TL-S Battery (shown here)

2.5 Ah, 7.2 V.

Run time: 0.75 hours at full brightness, 17 hours at minimum brightness.

Charge time: 1.75 hours with micro charger.

 

Betty TL Heads and Batteries Combined

Betty TL-S flashlight

Rated 8.8 oz. (250 g).

Actual measured: 8.880 oz. (251.8g).

 

Betty TL flashlight

Rated 13.6 oz. (385 g).

 

Performance         top

Intro   Compared   Specs   Performance   Usage   Recommendations   More

 

Overall

It's tough, bright, small and light.

It's easy to use: press the button for ON, press again to dim, and hold for a second to turn off. You can change this.

Compared to a car headlight, it puts out five times more lumens, however, the car headlight spreads more horizontally and less vertically. The car headlight usually has a hotter hotspot in the middle, while the Betty TL has a broader bright section of the beam.

 

Brightness

Better than just having a spot pencil beam like so many "bright" flashlights like the Fenix LD41, the broad 26º beam lights up everything, not just whatever's straight ahead. There is so much extra brightness that it's much better to get the broadest-beam option as I did.

It's so bright that its range isn't limited by its own brightness; it's limited by how clear is your air! Dust and humidity kicks-back light scatter that obscures your vision.

I was able to illuminate objects 1,000 feet (300 meters) away with the light in my hand, but farther than that, the light kicked-back from the dust in the air obscured my view. It's exactly like the cone of light we see coming from a slide projector on its way to the screen in the dark; a load of light is coming out the front of this. The farther away you can get it from your eyes, the farther you'll see in the dark.

So much light comes out the front that there is a little recoil. For bicycle competition, you might want to dim it a bit, or shine backwards through a mirror if the sanctioning body permits that (you'll get a little free "push"). Don't leave it on a table on BRIGHT, because it might shoot itself off the side!

It does not flicker when dimmed, as do most lesser lights.

 

Heat

It gets hot if left on for a while at full brightness. This is normal; it's dissipating 26 watts of power. The beam of light isn't that hot (it's cool light), but the case heats up.

 

Light Distribution (Beam Spread)

It has a smooth beam with a smooth, even center circle around which the light gets dimmer.

This beam pattern is great for all general use, as well as for off-road riding.

For road riding, you'd want a beam more like an automotive headlight: wider horizontally, and brighter at the top than the bottom.

 

Beam Color

It's reasonably white, not blue like the crappy lights.

The beam is very slightly greener than the Lupine Piko TL Mini.

 

Beam Afterglow

There is a little afterglow. If you look into the light after you turn it off, it glows for a bit after you've been running the light.

 

Charge Life

Used intermittently on a daily basis, I've been going a few months and the battery meter still says I'm at 90% charge!

 

Death Ray

I'm amused at how some people who sit at desks all day think that blinking flashlight beams can disorient, disable or kill a man. Even funnier is how these folks think that rapidly blinking lights are some sort of PSYOP secret, and speak of this feature in only the softest of voices among members of their inner circles so that these secret weapons they carry (their flashlights) don't start getting regulated and registered, just like firearms.

Taking one for the team, I tried staring at the "disorientation flash," both at the beam as shined on a wall, and then when that didn't kill me, I stared right into the beam.

I lived long enough to write this.

In fact, the blinking modes are dimmer than the BRIGHT mode simply because they flash on and off, instead of staying on steadily. Big deal.

Criminy, if I need a flashlight for self-defense, it's my 6-D cell Maglite, not a blinking flashlight. If you need protection against wild animals in the woods, bring your bear rifle. Back when I had a pacifist for a girlfriend, even she warned me to bring a BIG gun in case of rowdy bears while hiking in the back woods of Alaska. All that shining a blinking light into an enemy's face will do is remind him to take your fancy flashlight after he kills you.

Yes, rapid blinking annoys, but it doesn't disorient or harm unless someone's got epilepsy. I haven't tried it on trail animals or skunks.

 

Usage         top

Intro   Compared   Specs   Performance   Usage   Recommendations   More

 

Charging

To charge, plug it all in.

It works while charging, if you have enough charge.

It's OK, but not necessary to leave it on the charger if you're not using it. It's best to disconnect it, but nothing will happen if you leave it.

The charger lights blink when the battery is plugged into unplugged charger.

When you screw-in the battery, it blinks to tell you the voltage. Mine read 8.4V when full.

The manual says disconnect battery for transit to avoid slow discharge, and says store with the battery in the charger.

 

Usage

Click to turn on.

Click again to alternate between DIM and BRIGHT. By default, the DIM value is the 3 Watt 480 lumen level, which is perfect and still brighter than I usually need for anything.

To get the dimmer beam immediately, just click twice quickly.

To turn off, hold the button for one second. If DIM, it will flare-out to BRIGHT for a moment before it turns off.

 

Heat

At full power, it becomes too hot to hold after 10 minutes, after which it reads 0.45 Ah drawn. All is cool 20 minutes later.

 

Battery Meter

After you turn it off, red and blue LEDs blink tell how many Ampere-hours have been used since the last full charge.

Each red blink is 0.1 Ah, and a blue blink is 1 Ah. Add the blinks, and that's how many Ampere-hours have been used since the last full charge.

Three red blinks? That's 0.3 Ah. Four red and one blue? That's 1.4 Ah.

To get charge percentage, divide how many Ah you've used by the battery's rated capacity. The TL-S has 2.5 Ah, and the larger TL battery have 5 Ah.

So, if four red blinks is 0.4 Ah and you have a TL-S holding 2.5 Ah, you've used (0.4/2.5), or 16% of your capacity, so you ought to have 83% charge left.

Hey, not bad for having only one control and two LEDs as read outs.

 

Programming

It's perfect as-shipped. Don't waste your time with this, but if you want to change things, the manual isn't very helpful.

I couldn't figure it out, but my 5-year-old did. To program it, with power OFF, hold the button until the red or blue LEDs blink. Hold the button until a certain number of red or blue blinks happen, and let go. What each of these settings do is laser-engraved on the side:

Lupine Betty TL-S Instructions

Lupine Betty TL-S Programming reference.

You hold it and see the red blinks to set what sort of light options it makes, and hold it longer to get to the blue blinks to set overall response to button clicks.

If you want it to turn on with two clicks for safety in a pocket, or to start dim, you can program that, too.

 

Recommendations         top

Intro   Compared   Specs   Performance   Usage   Recommendations   More

I prefer the broadest 26º option; it's more than bright enough for anything, and the wider beam lets us see so much more in the dark.

Likewise, the small TL-S battery has lasted me for months of use, and I've still got 90% of charge left. I'd only get the long TL version if you wanted a longer handle to hold, or if you're making a long bike commute every night.

Personally I don't need this much light, so I find the Lupine Piko TL Mini more than bright enough, and it fits in my pocket.

The front of this Betty is too big for comfortable carrying in my shorts every day, but as a light to pop in a bag or mount on a bicycle, it's crazy.

If you've found the effort and expenses I incur researching and sharing all this information for free, this free website's biggest source of support is when you use these links, especially this link directly to them at Amazon (Betty TL-S and Betty TL), when you get anything, regardless of the country in which you live.

Thank you!

Ken

 

More Information         top

Intro   Compared   Specs   Performance   Usage   Recommendations   More

Betty TL User Manual.

More products from Lupine.

Lupine, Germany (English Version)

 

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Mr. & Mrs. Ken Rockwell, Ryan and Katie.

 

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