Sofirn IF24⌗

Specifications
Introduction
Torch in use
Build quality
Teardown
LED, bezel, lens, reflector and beam
Size and comparison
User interface
Batteries and charging
Performance
Beamshots
Conclusion
Price
Product page

Specifications⌗

Brand/model	Sofirn IF24
LED	1Luminus SST40 6000-6500K, 22CSP1313 5000K, 15*RGB
Maximum lumens	2,000 lm
Maximum beam intensity	15,800 cd
Maximum throw	251 m
Battery	1* 18650 Li-ion
Onboard charging	Yes (USB-C)
Material	Aluminium
Modes	5
Blinkies	Strobe, SOS, Beacon
Reflector	TIR
Waterproof	IP66
Review date	June 2024

Introduction⌗

The Sofirn IF24 is an 18650-sized EDC torch with a spotlight, a floodlight and RGB lights that may be selected by using a rotary switch.

This torch is a smaller alternative to the Sofirn IF23 (a 21700-sized RGB EDC torch).

The IF24 is slightly longer, slimmer, has an improved user interface, and the driver appears to be better compared to the IF23 at first glance.

Sofirn sent this torch for review. I have not been paid for this review nor have I held back my opinions of this torch.

Packaging⌗

The Sofirn IF24 comes in a white box with a magnetic lid. The outer sheath has an image of the torch on the front and details about the torch on the back.

The following was included in the box:

Sofirn IF24
Sofirn 18650 3000mAh cell
Pocket clip
Lanyard
Two spare o-rings
USB-A to USB-C cable
User manual

Torch in use⌗

The Sofirn IF24 is comfortable to hold and easy to use.

The Rotary Switch turns smoothly and clicks into place. The e-switch gives a satisfying click.

There is a hole in the tailcap for the included lanyard to be attached to.

The torch can tailstand.

Build quality⌗

The Sofirn IF24 is mostly made of aluminium and it has a really nice matte black anodised finish. There are no sharp edges.

The frosted finish of the cover for the Side Lights looks and feels nice. It is not a fingerprint magnet.

The one-way pocket clip fits snugly on my pocket. I found the clip useful for hanging the torch out the back of my jeans while using the RGB modes.

The threads are lightly lubricated and there is an o-ring for water resistance. I noticed that the anodising on the threads are started to wear away after removing the tailcap more than a dozen times.

There is plenty of grip on the tailcap to help with unscrewing it.

The magnetic in the tailcap is strong enough to hold the weight of the torch while it is mounted to the side of a fridge.

There are springs at both ends to allow a button top or a flat top 18650 cell to work.

I tested reverse polarity protection (RPP) by putting a flat top battery in backwards (don’t try this at home!). RPP worked as expected.

Rotary Switch⌗

Be careful not to put a magnet near the Sofirn IF24 while carrying it in a backpack or the torch might turn on!

Teardown⌗

The Sofirn IF24 suddenly stopped working so I did a teardown. It would not turn on while using an 18650 cell but it worked when I connected a USB-C power supply.

There might be a connectivity issue between the driver and the ground. The tube is used for the ground connection but it stopped working.

I soldered the driver wires back onto the copper MCPCB with a Luminus SST40 emitter.

I tried to heat up the glue under the frosted glass for the side emitters but I ended up smashing the glass.

The board for the side emitters has a connector with 6 pins to attach to the main board.

The driver has an FMD (Fremont Micro Devices) microcontroller.

There was plenty of thermal paste but I removed most of it while doing the teardown.

LED, bezel, lens, reflector and beam⌗

The Sofirn IF24 has a lot of emitters!

The Main Light is a single Luminus SST40 6000-6500K emitter.

The Side White Light consists of 22*JIN NENG CSP1313 5000K emitters.

And there are 15*FY-1615RGY RGB emitters.

The Main Light has a TIR optic that is held in place by a bezel that has been screwed down. There is an o-ring between the bezel and the TIR optic. There is no reflector and there is no glass lens protecting the TIR optic.

The Side Light has a slightly frosted cover. It appears to be glued in place. The Sofirn IF23 has a cover that can be removed with screws.

Here are some of the RGB modes: Police Flash, Rainbow, Droplets and Neon Fade.

CCT, CRI, and duv⌗

I have taken Correlated Colour Temperature (CCT) and Colour Rendering Index (CRI, RA of R1-R8) measurements with the torch positioned one metre away from an Opple Light Master Pro III (G3).

The CCT is around 5700K, the CRI is around 64 and the Delta u, v is positive (green) for the Main Light.

The CCT is around 5000K, the CRI is around 97 and the Delta u, v is positive (green) for the Side White Light.

The Main Light produces a throwy beam with a narrow white hot spot, a green corona and a slightly purple spill. There are about three rings in the beam if you consider the edge of the hot spot, the edge of the green corona, and the edges of the purple spill. There is a CREE rainbow with a Luminus emitter!

The Side White Light produces a very floody and smooth beam. It is essentially a mule flashlight with the slightly opaque cover in front of 22 emitters.

LED	Mode	CCT (K)	CRI (Ra)	x	y	Duv
Main	Moonlight	5253	61.7	0.3397	0.3797	0.0156
Main	Low	5605	64.0	0.3298	0.3606	0.0108
Main	Medium	5766	65.2	0.3261	0.3530	0.0088
Main	High	5725	65.0	0.3270	0.3547	0.0092
Main	Turbo	5708	65.2	0.3274	0.3549	0.0092
Side	Low	5016	96.6	0.3449	0.3538	0.0012
Side	Medium	5000	97.3	0.3459	0.3605	0.0041
Side	High	5015	97.5	0.3453	0.3584	0.0033
Side	Turbo	5017	97.7	0.3452	0.3579	0.0031

Calculate Duv from CIE 1931 xy coordinates

Dimensions and size comparison⌗

Dimensions⌗

I took the following measurements using a digital caliper.

Measurement	Unit (mm)
Length	125.93
Tube min width	24.05
Tube max width	27.15
Tailcap diameter	24.62
Button diameter	14.84
Pocket clip slot width	4.15

Weight⌗

I took the following measurements using a digital scale.

Weight	Unit (g)
Sofirn IF24	99.69
Battery	46.45
Sofirn IF24 with battery	146.14

Size comparison with its competition⌗

From left to right: Sofirn IF24, Sofirn IF23

User interface⌗

The Sofirn IF24 has a Rotary Switch to select (clockwise):

Lockout
Side White Light
RGB Light
Main Light

An electronic side switch is used to turn the torch on and off, change the brightness or access special modes.

That said, the torch will turn on when rotating the Rotary Switch.

The Main Light and Side White Light have three main modes: Low, Medium, High. And shortcuts to: Moonlight, Turbo, Strobe, SOS and Beacon.

The RGB Light has Police Flash, Rainbow, RGB Waterfall, Droplets and Neon Fade modes. And you can select a specific colour.

Here is the UI diagram from the user manual:

The diagram mentions “Ramping ON” but this is a stepped ramp rather than a smooth ramp.

Rotary Switch	State	E-Switch	Result
Lockout	Off	Press and hold	Main Light Momentary Moonlight
Lockout	Off	Click	Nothing
Main Light, Side White Light	Off	Press and hold	Moonlight
Main Light, Side White Light	Off	Click	On (mode memory)
Main Light, Side White Light	On	Press and hold	Cycle (Low, Medium, High)
Main Light, Side White Light	Off	Two clicks	Cycle (Turbo, Strobe, SOS, Beacon)
Main Light, Side White Light	On	Two clicks	Cycle (Turbo, Strobe, SOS, Beacon)
Main Light, Side White Light	Turbo, Strobe, SOS, Beacon	Click	Previous mode (off or mode memory)
Main Light, Side White Light	On	Click	Off
RGB Light	Off	Press and hold	Nothing
RGB Light	Off	Click	On (colour memorised)
RGB Light	On	Press and hold	Change colours
RGB Light	Off	Click	Off
RGB Light	Off	Click	Off
RGB Light	Off	Two clicks	Cycle (Beacon, Police Flash, Rainbow, RGB Waterfall, Droplets, Neon Fade)
RGB Light	Beacon, Police Flash, Rainbow, RGB Waterfall, Droplets, Neon Fade	Click	Return (colour memorised)

Mode memory⌗

Low, Medium and High are memorised separately for the Main Light and Side White Light when using the e-switch to turn the torch on or when rotating the Rotary Switch.

The selected colour for the RGB Light is memorised.

Moonlight, Turbo, Strobe, SOS and Beacon are not memorised when the torch is turned off or when the Rotary Switch is rotated.

Strobe⌗

Strobe has an alternating frequency.

Main Light: Strobe, SOS and Beacon.

Side White Lights: Strobe, SOS and Beacon.

I measured Strobe, SOS and Beacon of the light with a Zoyi ZT-703S oscilloscope using High Speed mode.

Battery Level Indicator⌗

The indicator LED near the USB-C port will display the following for 5 seconds after clicking the button while in lockout mode or after turning the torch on.

Colour	Battery level
Green	50% - 100%
Red	10% - 50%
Red flashing	0% - 10%

Low voltage protection⌗

There appears to be low voltage protection for most of the modes.

Moonlight does not appear to have low voltage protection.

The torch turned off at the end of the runtimes for: Medium, High and Turbo. I measured a voltage of over 2.90V.

I tested low voltage protection by connecting the driver of the torch to a bench power supply and then by lowering the voltage from 4.2V to 0V. I was not able to trigger low voltage protection for: Main Light (Moonlight, Medium, Turbo) and Side White Light (Moonlight, High) while using a bench power supply. I tried to reduce the voltage slowly from 4.20V to 0V but the light was still on when the voltage dropped below 2.5V.

LED	Mode	LVP?	Cut-off
Main	Moonlight	No
Main	Low	Yes	2.74V
Main	Medium	No
Main	High	Yes	2.73V
Main	Turbo	No
Side	Moonlight	No
Side	Low	Yes	2.73V
Side	Medium	Yes	2.72V
Side	High	No
Side	Turbo	Yes	2.75V

The user manual states that the torch will turn off automatically when the battery voltage is lower than 2.8V.

Pulse Width Modulation⌗

There is PWM but I did not notice any visible PWM (flickering).

I measured the PWM of the light with a Zoyi ZT-703S oscilloscope.

Main Light (Moonlight, Low, Medium, High, Turbo)⌗

Side White Light (Moonlight, Low, Medium, High, Turbo)⌗

What I like about the UI⌗

The Rotary Switch is easy to use.

What could be improved⌗

I do not like how the torch turns on when I rotate the Rotary Switch to the Main Light, Side White Light or the RGB Light position. I would prefer to change the mode and then press and hold the e-switch to access a mode like Moonlight from off.
There is a bug where you can hold the e-switch during lockout mode, to momentarily make the Main Light enter Moonlight, and rotate the Rotary Switch to the Side White Light position while continuing to hold the e-switch. The Side White Light turns on and the Main Light remains in Moonlight mode. The Main Light can only be turned of in this scenario by moving the Rotary Switch to the Main Light position and then by pressing the e-switch.

Batteries and charging⌗

Battery⌗

A button top Sofirn 18650 3.7V Li-ion 3000mAh cell was included inside the torch.

The cell was isolated with a piece of plastic to prevent accidentally turning the torch on.

I tried the following cells:

Cell	Top	Compatible?	Comment
Sofirn 18650 3.7V Li-ion 3000mAh	Button	Yes
Acebeam ARC18650H-310A 3100mAh USB-C 22-J6 Black	Button	No	Too long.
NEXTORCH 18650 3.6V Li-ion 2600mAh	Button	Yes	Protected. No USB-C.
Samsung 30Q 18650 3.7V Li-ion 3000mAh	Flat	Yes

Charging⌗

Power supply: PinePower Desktop USB-C
USB Meter: AVHzY CT-3 (recommended by LiquidRetro)
Room temperature: 13 C

The battery took 2 hours 35 minutes to charge from 3.11V to 4.14V at a rate of 5V 2A.

The charging status indicator near the USB-C port is red while charging and it turns green when charging is complete.

Power bank⌗

The Sofirn IF24 does not have a power bank feature.

Power supply compatibility⌗

I tried the following power supplies with the built-in USB-C charger:

Power supply	USB Type	Protocol	Does it charge?
Apple 20W Power Adapter	USB-C	PD	Yes
Google Pixel Power Adapter	USB-C	PD	Yes
PinePower Desktop	USB-C	PD	Yes
PinePower Desktop	USB-A	QC	Yes
PinePower Desktop	USB-A		Yes

USB-C to USB-C charging works.

Performance⌗

Specifications from the manual:

Mode	Moonlight	Low	Medium	High	Turbo	Strobe	SOS	Beacon
Output (Main)	1 lm	10 lm	150 lm	700 lm	2000 lm	2000 lm	150 lm	2000 lm
Output (Side)	1 lm	20 lm	100 lm	200 lm	550 lm	550 lm	100 lm	550 lm
Beam Distance (Main)	9 m	19 m	70 m	163 m	251 m
Beam Distance (Side)		5 m	10 m	16 m	24 m
Runtime (Main)	20 days	115h	13.5h	2.25h	1.5h
Runtime (Side)	20 days	58h	12h	5.5h	3.5h
Runtime (Color Mode)	30h	30h	30h	30h	30h	30h	30h	30h
Beam Intensity (Main)	6 cd	89 cd	1242 cd	6650 cd	15800 cd
Beam Intensity (Side)		6 cd	28 cd	65 cd	138 cd

There is a typo in the user manual. Moonlight (Main Light) produces 6 candelas with a 9 metre beam distance but Low (Side White Light) produces 6 candelas with a 5 metre beam distance. The beam distance for both should be should be 4.89 (or 5) metres. sqrt(6 cd/0.25) = 4.89 metres. I measured a beam distance of 6 metres for both.

Lumen measurements⌗

I used a bench power supply to measure the current at turn on for most modes. I used a UNI-T UT139C Digital Multimeter to measure the current at turn on for Moonlight and Low modes.

LED	Mode	Amps at start	Specs	Lumens @turn on	Lumens @30 sec	Lumens @10 min
Main	Moonlight	8.1 mA	1	1	1	1
Main	Low	38.2 mA	10	12	12	12
Main	Medium	0.38 A	150	135	132	129
Main	High	1.25 A	700	599	562	530
Main	Turbo	3.06 A	2,000	1,200	1,106	570
Side	Moonlight	8.1 mA	1
Side	Low	86.5 mA	20	21	21	20
Side	Medium	0.45 A	100	97	95	93
Side	High	0.86 A	200	209	198	189
Side	Turbo	1.69 A	550	518	476	283

The Main Light was nowhere near 2,000 lumens at 30 seconds as claimed by Sofirn.

The other modes were pretty close to what Sofirn claimed.

Moonlight (Side White Light) was too low for my DIY lumen tube to detect.

Standby drain⌗

I used a UNI-T UT139C Digital Multimeter to measure the standby current.

Rotary Switch	Current
Lock	17.5 µA
Main Light	56.0 µA
Side White Light	56.0 µA

The standby current was slightly higher when the rotary switch was in the Main Light and Side White Light positions. 56 µA is still very low.

Runtime graphs⌗

I used my own DIY lumen tube with a TSL2591 sensor and forked bmengineer’s project RuTiTe to record runtimes.

Note: Lumen measurements may be off by 10% with my DIY lumen tube.

The room temperature was approximately 13 C.

Main Light⌗

Side White Light⌗

Runtime⌗

Here is a summary of the runtime results:

LED	Mode	User manual	Runtime	Turn off	Final voltage
Main	Turbo	1h 30min	2h 46min 7s	3h 3min 23s	3.11
Main	High	2h 15min	3h 11min 49s	3h 11min 49s	3.06
Main	Medium	13h 30min	14h 24min 33s	14h 31min 4s	2.93
Main	Low	115h	10min+	10min+
Main	Moonlight	20 days	10min+	10min+
Side	Turbo	3h 30min	3h 28min 37s	3h 45min 17s	2.93
Side	High	5h 30min	5h 38min 13s	5h 38min 14s	2.91
Side	Medium	12h	12h 0min 39s	12h 0min 39s	2.94
Side	Low	58h	10min+	10min+

“Runtime” is the time until the output reduces to 10% of the output at 30 seconds (as per the ANSI/PLATO FL1 2019 Standard).

“Turn off” is the time until my DIY lumen tube no longer detects more than one lumen.

“+” indicates that the light remained on after recording had stopped.

Moonlight (Side White Light) was too low for my DIY lumen tube to detect.

Turbo (Main Light) lasted longer than expected but the output was not close to 2,000 lumens at turn on or at 30 seconds. A lower output lasted longer.

The light output for the Main Light on Turbo and High is stable compared to the Spolight of a Sofirn IF23 on Turbo and High. Output still drops rapidly over time, but at least it does not jump up and down like the IF23.

Overall, the runtime results are pretty close to what Sofirn claimed. This is nice to see.

Throw⌗

I took lux measurements with a UNI-T UT383BT at 30 seconds.

Main Light: Moonlight was measured at one metre. Low, Medium, High and Turbo were measured at five metres.

Side White Light: Low, Medium, High and Turbo were measured at one metre. Moonlight was too low to measure at one metre.

LED	Mode	Specs (cd)	Specs (m)	Candela measured (cd)	Distance (m)
Main	Moonlight	6	9	11	6
Main	Low	89	19	50	14
Main	Medium	1,242	70	1,425	75
Main	High	6,650	163	6,100	156
Main	Turbo	15,800	251	13,000	228
Side	Moonlight
Side	Low	6	5	9	6
Side	Medium	28	10	57	15
Side	High	65	16	122	22
Side	Turbo	138	24	285	33

Beamshots⌗

I went to a local park and aimed the Sofirn IF24 at a tree 70 metres away while using Turbo.

Beamshots were taken using a Sony RX100M2 using 3.2", f3.2, ISO 100, 5000K WB.

Sofirn IF24 Main Light (Turbo)⌗

Sofirn IF23 Spot (Turbo)⌗

Sofirn IF24 Side White Light (Turbo)⌗

Sofirn IF23 Flood (Turbo)⌗

Conclusion⌗

The Sofirn IF24 is a good all-in-one spotlight, floodlight and RGB light.

I think that the IF24 is an upgrade over the IF23 due to having a nicer user interface and a more stable driver. The output on High and Turbo is much more stable on the IF24.

The Main Light was nowhere near 2,000 lumens on Turbo. But the runtimes were good.

I recommend putting the Rotary Switch in Lockout mode when carrying the torch in a bag, backpack or a pocket. A magnet could turn the torch on when placed near the Rotary Switch.

Sofirn recently released the Sofirn IF24 Pro. The Main Light has a Luminus SFT40 emitter with a longer beam distance. The Main Light is buck driven so the output is higher for longer and much more stable.

Pros:⌗

Good build quality.
Good beam distance.
Good runtimes.
High CRI Side White Light.
Heaps of features and special modes (spotlight, floodlight, RGB lights).
Built-in USB-C charging.
The Rotary Switch simplifies the user interface.
Reverse polarity protection.

Cons:⌗

Turbo did not reach 2,000 lumens.
Low CRI Main Light.
Output regulation could be improved.
A magnet might turn the torch on when placed near the Rotary Switch.
Low voltage protection did not work for some modes.

Price⌗

The Sofirn IF24 is US$40.99 from sofirnlight.com at the time of writing.

Product page⌗

Sofirn IF24 at amazon.com (affiliate link)

Sofirn IF24 at sofirnlight.com

I may earn a commission if you use an affiliate link or a promo code. This will help fund future torch reviews and tutorials.

Sofirn IF24 RGB Torch Review