Review : Manker E14 II , pocket rocket flashlight (+teardown w/ interesting driver !)

LED Flashlights – General Info 18650 Flashlights
26

That’s what I put on my mother’s SRK. I would rather have used Narsil, but I only had a tiny13 available so I went with the closest thing I had.

BTW, Ferrero Rocher still needs a bug fixed… the ramp direction doesn’t always go up when long-pressed from off. And it also otherwise doesn’t reset the direction when off. IIRC, I tried to fix it 3 years ago but it made the ROM exceed 1024 bytes with indicators enabled, so I didn’t keep the fix. So… that’s a thing which could really stand to be changed as soon as I have my office reassembled.

Oh, um, and Ferrero Rocher never did get FET+1 support. It’s so old that those didn’t exist yet. That’s probably a lot more relevant than a minor ramping quirk, and modernizing the code will involve some slightly deeper changes.

27

Thanks for sharing this info mate

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Thank you for information. I hope you are satisfied with your purchase.

I want to buy this too but I have a question.

This is 219c 5000k:

This is 219b 4500k:

Since you have received 219c 4000k. I want to know that which is more similar to that.

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It’s closer to the 4500k of course , and difference will be small .

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I more likely want to find out how its tint is closer to the characteristic 219b tint (some call it rosy tint).

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I’d say it’s between the two of those closer to your 4500k. Your 4500k looks warmer to me and closer to 4000k. It doesn’t look quite as warm as your 4500k example. The S41 with 219b looks like sunlight to me and the 219c warmer. I have an Eagletac MX30L4 with 12x 219b and I believe I figured that out to be 4700k using my camera and an 18% gray card. The E14ii with 219c is warmer than my Eagletac and S41 with 219b is much cooler probably closer to 5500k if I was guess. I’m a photographer and often shoot at night and use flashlights to aid in focusing. I try and match the color temperature of the flash or diffusion material I’m using in case the flashlight ends up effecting the photo. I guess to post photos on here I need to use an image host? I haven’t used an image host in awhile and would probably have to make a new account. Any suggestions on what host to use? I could take some beam shots. Would white wall or outdoors be preferred? I could use a gray card and get accurate color temp readings. I believe that would give me accurate readings someone could correct me if I’m wrong.

32

I did the gray card test with my Sony A7rii and found:

E14ii 219c=4300k +1 magenta
S41 219b =5400k
Eagletac MX30L4 219b=4300k +1 magenta
Nitecore HC30 CREE NW=4800k +3 magenta
Eagletac DX30 CREE XML HI=6300k + 2 magenta

To my eyes the E14ii looks a little warmer than my Eagletac MX30L4 but they show the same readings.

33

Thank you for response. We would love to see photos. You can use “http://pi.gy”. This host does not need account and it does not compress images or alters colors.
Given your specifications, you have a chance to become a very valuable person for this community :slight_smile: Just use that site to upload and do not hesitate opening new threads.

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I have 4000K 219Cs in other lights. They definitely don’t have the rosy tint of 219Bs. I’d describe them as “bright tan”, if that makes any sense, or as similar to sunlight at the start of the golden hour

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If you want really detailed information about tint, look for reviews by maukka. He has a pretty nice tint measurement setup, showing exactly where each light falls in the ANSI color spectrum and what CRI to expect.

36

4000k 219c is more yellow than it is rosy

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Ok took some shots to compare tints. All pics with Sony A7rii, daylight white balance, aperture priority, F2, ISO-100, and center weighted metering. I noted shutter speeds to give an idea of output, however due to the different beam patterns and the center weighted metering its more comparison of lux than lumens. Matrix metering would have given a better comparison of lumens but might effect tint.


Control shot external flash (1/200, F22, ISO-100. Flash at 1/128)


4Sevens QT2L-X, CREE XML, Cool White, 1/250


Nitecore HC30, CREE XML, Neutral White, 1/320


Astrolux S41, Nichia 219b, 1/250


Manker E41 II, Nichia 219c, 1/500


Eagletac MX30L4, Nichia 219b, 1/800

I thought I’d do something a little more colorful to show the color reproduction. This is a painting by Inga Rausch and done as fan art of my cat (I have a famous internet cat). She was nice enough to send it to me from Germany all the way to Pennsylvania.

Control shot external flash (1/200, F22, ISO-50. Flash at 1/128)


4Sevens QT2L-X, CREE XML, Cool White, 1/125


Nitecore HC30, CREE XML, Neutral White, 1/125


Astrolux S41, Nichia 219b, 1/200


Manker E41 II, Nichia 219c, 1/200 (looks like my camera over exposed this by a stop. 1/400 would be a better comparison in output)


Eagletac MX30L4, Nichia 219b, 1/640

To me the Astrolux S41 is just a beautiful tint and color reproduction, its like sunlight in your pocket. But I like the higher output and UI of the Manker E14 II better. I haven’t spent enough time with either light to chose what one will be my EDC or my walk around the woods light. For photography the S41 wins for sure, I was watching a turtle lay eggs today and had the E14 II with me. I used the it to shine under its body to get a better shot of the eggs but the mismatch in tint between the 219c and sunlight just ruined the photo. Any ideas on what would happen if I swapped emitters between S41 and E14 II?

38

Thanks we’ll see I’ve been into flashlights, lasers, and other things light related since the days when it was cool to have a Surefire hotwire light. I often ended up building my own stuff. I can remember I was part of the group buy to get the first batch of Nichia HCRI emitters when they where released. Nowadays I get an itch about once a year to get back into it and caught up on the new technology and buy a light or three… or build one.

39

professor_pouncey on Instagram??

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Haha the one and only. I can’t believe anyone on here would catch that, you just made my day :slight_smile:

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My Manker E14II arrived today.

I got the XPG3 version.

The output on turbo is amazing. The tint is a nice pure white without noticeable green.

On turbo on a fresh 18650 cell the head becomes too hot to touch in seconds. This is the disadvantage of having a big chunk of direct copper in this kind of light. Heat transfer is just a little too good. The LED can withstand much greater temperature than your hand. Sometimes it’s better to have less effective heat transfer that lets the LED get hot, but then takes longer to radiate it off the light resulting in a cooler exterior body housing.;

42

It looks like there is no further stepdown from High @ ~850 lumens. Are there heat issues with sustaining that brightness with this light? Comfort-wise or otherwise?

43

Just tried letting it tailstand at 850 lumens high for several minutes with a fresh 30Q inside.

Even at just 850 lumens the head of the light was too hot to comfortably touch, though not burning hot. You wouldn’t want to rest your hand there, but you won’t hurt your thumb operating the control. If you were using it to go for a walk at night at that setting you’d either need to use a glove or hold the light by the body tube.

For comparison, I also tried tailstanding my modded Jaxman E2L 3xXPL HI 5A2 with H17F driver with temp sensor and an 18500 IMR cell. After running about the same period of time on 100% FET power with the temp sensor activated, the E2L was producing substantially more lumens than the E14II, while remaining much cooler than the E14II. This result is not too surprising given the E2L’s aluminum construction, dark-colored anodizing (better emissivity than polished copper), and much larger surface area from the more numerous and deeper heatsink fins.

44

Can you hold it OK until the 40s stepdown?

Come-on Tuff guy! :smiling_imp:

sorry, guess it was answered while my 1 finger typing was in progress

45

Definitely not by the head. It gets burning hot in much less than 40 seconds. Can probably still hold it by the body though.

Incidentally, the threads on the head match those of the Convoy S2. A convoy S2 battery tube will screw right into the E14II’s head. It isn’t long enough so won’t make battery contact and won’t work out of the box, but it does actually screw in.

This does open up the way for modders who want to use the E14II as a mod host. You could add a tailcap mechanical clicky. Or maybe use the E2L’s 18500 body.