Earlier this year I wrote a couple articles about the Scangrip lights, Multimatch and Sunmatch. I wanted to do a quick follow-up article on these two and how they’ve been of use to use over the past few months.
Scangrip Multimatch Light
The Multimatch light has mainly been used to light up a large area as I originally shared in the initial article. It greatly helps when positioned to light up the entire side of the car, so we can see both the swirl marks as well as the general work area better. For close up inspections it’s not great, especially on lighter colors, but that’s to be expected due to the high power and wide beam. It does show pretty much everything but very light buffer haze/marring in some paints. We also use it to really well light up an area when installing PPF/clear bra and it’s a great tool for it.
Durability wise, it’s been as or better than advertised! Unintentionally, we’ve dropped it, kicked it, pulled it, pushed it, dragged it on the floor and even dropped some stuff on it. I don’t have photos at this time, but the only result from all this abuse was a small 1/8″ tear in the red rubber surrounding the light. Of course I don’t endorse this kind of treatment and we do baby it as much as possible, but it can definitely take some regular shop abuse without skipping a beat.
Charge time is fairly quick on it and the battery life is as advertised at about 1.5 hours on the higher setting. We use it on the high setting most of the time and never for 6 hours, so I haven’t been able to really test the 6 hour lower setting, however I have no doubt in it. I’ve also used it many times for 3-5 hours on high while it’s plugged in and it runs like a champ. It does warm up a bit, but never too hot to touch.
Overall I’m greatly impressed with the Multimatch light and still highly recommend it.
Scangrip Sunmatch Light
I could pretty much copy/paste the same text from above, but I’ll add in a few things particular to the Sunmatch. Like the Multimatch, the performance and durability of the Sunmatch has been great. It didn’t take nearly the amount of abuse as the Multimatch, but it definitely gets used and never shows any wear.
Unlike the Multimatch, we do use the Sunmatch for up close inspections when checking for defects. Also used for PPF, mainly when cutting along an edge to light it up well. The magnet feature comes in very handy and I’ve used it more than expected. When working in a tight area, I place some tape on the paint and put the Sunmatch on top of the tape to protect the paint. Swivel the head as needed and you can work without touching the light at all.
Again, it’s a great tool and highly recommended.
As a bonus, I wanted to mention the new Scangrip I-View. I only recently got my hands on one, so no chance to test it thoroughly yet. However, I’m already GREATLY impressed and will be buying a few more very soon. I’ll definitely do a separate article, but the build quality is amazing and you can turn it on/off with a wave of your hand! I’ll leave you with that for now.