Tank007 PTL01

Tank007 PTL01
LEP classN/A
Distance / intensity? cd / 1,400meters
Lumens500 lumens
Modes3 + strobe
Avg. Price$359

Tank007 PTL01 is their first LEP flashlight

As far as I know, this is the first LEP flashlight built by Tank007. Yeah, it’s a bit of an unusual brand name, but has been around for probably 2 decades.

The first time I was introduced to the brand was probably around 2009-2010 when I first got really interested in flashlights.

And since they priced the PTL01 at over $300 (and over $400 for EU customers) there must be something special going on.. Well, let’s find out.

First of all, I wasn’t highly impressed by the packaging of it. It’s using a pretty standard cardboard box, with a flashlight, a 21700 battery, a lanyard, a USB-C cord, and a manual.

Not that this is bad in any shape or form, but for the price, I had expected a bit more.

Use, batteries, and more

For carrying you can use the lanyard, or just hide it in a large pocket.

It has 2 switches, with 1 at the rear and 1 on the side. And although the price would let you think it must be very high quality, I was a bit disappointed. It doesn’t look bad, but I probably expected a bit more.

The UI is relatively easy to get used to.

The rear switch is used for power, while the side switch is used for changing modes.

Please keep in mind that a double click brings you to Strobe, and not to turbo mode. 3 clicks does the same. 4clicks however, will turn it into standby mode… go figure..

So that makes it a little unique.

When it comes to batteries, they included a USB-C rechargeable 21700 battery. And you can use a USB-A to USB-C as well as a USB-C to USB-C cable. There is a red light while charging, and turns green when finished. It’s relatively slow though, and charges from empty to full in 4 hours and 15 minutes. I’d recommend getting a separate charger for it.

In case you own any non-protected, flat top 21700 batteries, you can use those as well.

Performance

First, let’s see how many lumens it can produce.

ModeSpecsMeasured at startAfter 30 secondsAfter 10 minutes
Low60 lumens 68 lumens68 lumens64 lumens
Med200 lumens141 lumens139 lumens132 lumens
High500 lumens452 lumens441 lumens181 lumens

As you can see, the measurements were higher in Low mode, but lower in Medium and High modes, compared to specs. And unfortunately, the output dropped relatively quickly in High mode.

But let’s look at the beam distance measurements..

ModeSpecsMeasured candelasin Metersin Yards
Low65,600 cd512560
Med130,000 cd721789
High1400 meters390,400 cd1,250 meters1,367 yards

Unfortunately, it doesn’t really reach 1400 meters.

The dark blue line is for the Tank007 PTL01. It performs better than the Lumintop Thor1 (18350), Jetbeam RRT M2S Raptor (21700), Nextorch T7L (18650), but is outperformed by the rest. If you look at the line, you can see it throws about 150,000 candelas for most of its runtime. This is about 775 meters or 847 yards. Not that bad when you compared it to a similar-sized LED flashlight. But if you are looking for one of the best performers, perhaps look elsewhere, or check out the list of best LEP flashlights.

Get the PTL01 here:

Further reading: