INOVA X5 T LED FLASHLIGHT
My INOVAS X5 Tactical are about two years old; I bought them because the futuristic design, quality of materials and workmanship and because of the revolutionary technical advances in illumination was state of the art at the time of my purchases.
The INOVA X5 is a beautiful light, the smooth soft flood provided by the five Nichias 5mm LED’s is unparallelled (or was at the time) in flood light illumination for short range.
Comparing it with others LED lights of the time like the Peltz Tikka (3 LED’s) the illumination provided by the elegant INOVA was far superior in flood and in range.
Probably the reason is the two 123’s batteries that the light works with, we have here 6 volts of power for the five Nichias, providing up to twenty hours of run time.
Physically the light is 865.” in diameter and 4.75 “long and weighs 3.56 oz. the flats along the body provide a nice grip, the tail cap is knurled very finely and it has a transverse hole for a lanyard. The tail cap is a “tactical” one in the sense that it can be pushed momentarily (on the soft pad) for illumination or can be locked steady for constant illumination by screwing it down. It also has a lock up feature (unscrewing the tail cap a little) to prevent accidental activation.
I think that I paid about $37 or so for this light, it is a high quality light and worth the money, it will not have a long range and the stated 120 feet in the literature of the package seems a little excessive to my eyes, in any case it is a flood light and not a light for distance.
For the same reason I am not doing a beam shot to my customary deer target at 26 yards, the camera will not process enough light at that distance.
But this beam shot at 13 feet can give you an idea of the soft even flood illumination with a more intense center.
There are some X5 that have a different switch (one that is not tactical) these lights doesn’t have the “T” denomination in the package.
The user of this light for the first time will be surprised by the arrangement of the batteries. They are installed with the positive going toward the tail cap. The threaded tail cap is butter smooth in the threads, high quality all the way in this light, good solid feel without being heavy and according to the literature, crush-proof to two thousand pounds.
The lights come in black matte anodizing or satin nickel, (called Titanium finish) and I have one of them sporting a RED LED light. This red light X5T for some reason needs only one 123 battery. This is the light I use to drain all capacity from 123’s batteries that can no longer power my incandescent Surefire Centurion III. You can get several more hours of illumination from those “depleted” 123’s when used in this light.
Although we have now more powerful LED lights, the INOVA can provide many hours of illumination from the batteries and is a pleasure to use such a well constructed and designed high quality torch.
Cheers
Black Bear