Inspection lamps are a particular piece of kit in the Motor Verso garage that often goes unappreciated, but comes in super handy when I do need one. We’ve covered a lot of inspection torches in the past, but Ryobi’s RLI4-120G inspection light is rather unique. For one, it’s a part of their 4V Lithium range of tools, which uses a 4V 2Ah USB-rechargeable battery that’s interchangeable with the other tools in this line-up.
The battery itself is accessed through a cap at the bottom of the RLI4-120G inspection light, right where its magnetic base is, which could be mounted magnetically to metal surfaces. Thus, this ought to allow you to work hands-free, and there’s even a little metal clip that could hook onto your belt. Also, about the battery, a single 4V 2Ah battery is included as standard with each tool.
However, you can opt for the optional 3Ah battery, which is plug-and-play, but it comes with extra battery capacity, so you could work for longer. Furthermore, these batteries could be used as an emergency power bank for your phone. They’re also tough and tiny enough that you could chuck a few of these in your pocket or toolbox, and it’s just as pocketable as the RLI4-120G inspection light itself.
The Power And Brightness Of A Thousand Suns
Crucially, being an inspection light, of course, the most important thing that you need to worry about is the quality of the light. Thankfully, Ryobi’s compact RLI4-120G inspection light works really well; it’s bright, and maxes out at 650 lumens. There are two additional brightness settings, which let you tone it down to 250 or 125 lumens, in case you don’t need that extra brightness.
As for the rest of the specs sheet, the Ryobi RLI4-120G inspection light has a rated colour temperature of around 5,000K, in addition to a colour rating index of 90. For the most part, the illumination that you get from it is on par with most other inspection lamps in its price range and size. Nonetheless, for inspection and work lights, brightness is just the start, as you also have to assess the light dispersion.
The way it disperses light is equally as impressive, allowing a comparatively small inspection torch to light up a large area very evenly, which is what I’m looking for, given how much time I spend within the innards of a dark, greasy, and gloomy engine compartment. Speaking of, it’s noteworthy of how compact and tiny Ryobi’s RLI4-120G inspection light is, not to mention being quite lightweight.
The slim adjustable head can easily slide into most nooks and crannies inside an engine compartment. This is made all the more versatile when you consider that it can pivot all the way around, a full 360 degrees of rotation. If not, you could also fold the head into a stubby hand-held torch, which should ergonomically be as comfy as the single button press to cycle through brightness settings.
A Bright And Shining Spot In Our Toolkit
As such, the Ryobi RLI4-120G inspection light has no problems with helping you to illuminate tight working spaces. When it comes to automotive work, whether it’s tearing open the entire dashboard to work on the wiring, or showing me where the OBD-II port is, or having it jammed straight into the engine compartment to find small, hidden sensors and connectors – it did it without a fuss.
Plus, another added bonus is that you can keep on doing this for a long time, because when you knock the brightness to its lowest setting, it’ll keep lighting up for around 32 hours before you need to swap it out for a new battery or recharge it. Those 4V 2Ah or optional 3Ah batteries do have a built-in LED status indicator to make it easier to track how it’s topping up – pulse for charging, solid when it’s done.
For £54.99, Ryobi’s RLI4-120G inspection lamp isn’t necessarily the cheapest price to pay for an inspection light of this calibre. However, it is a really good light, and the added bonus of being able to readily change and swap out the batteries with a fully-fleshed out ecosystem and a complete range of other great tools is just the cherry on top, so it gets a thumbs up from me.
