AstroLux A01 AAA Nichia 219B Review - Winner winner, chicken dinner. An excellent, Neutral tint High CRI LED keychain light!

Snow is usually better than grass, when it comes to not losing stuff. The only downside to snow is that (if it’s fresh) an item dropped into snow can fall through quite a distance. But at long as the surface hasn’t been disturbed, it’s usually pretty easy to see the hole, and find the item that way. In the woods, it can be tricky, because lots of stuff drops off trees to make little holes everywhere.

I’ve lost way more stuff in the lawn during summer, than I have in the snow during winter.

I don’t much like cold winters, but it does have the nice effect of killing off all insects and most other pests.

The downside to winter, when it comes to flashlights, is that most flashlight buttons are designed to be used with bare hands. Thick gloves make it almost impossible to turn on some flashlights, and removing them when it’s –20 or –30 is not something I like to do (especially if the flashlight metal is also –20).

Ridiculous…… I went to have a look at the lanyard on my dead A01 to transfer it to something else…. It was actually on in moonlight mode…. All modes work, no problem. It just needed a few days to dry out. Cockroach torch.

along with rodentia (rats/mice) one of the most adaptable critters to coexisting with exterminus maximus (humans)

the fittest might be the coyote due to its higher intelligence (tho some might count that as a minus)

For me after EDC for years. build and LED is good.

Only complaint for this light are the rubber ring hardly in place that impact water seal and mode change.
Time to time need to adjust it back to it position.

Anyway i may not recommend to my friends anymore if new batch have more issues.

I’ve had a bright orange A01 for 6 months now and it’s performed flawlessly. I’d order more in a heartbeat if needed. I hang mine on my standard neck lanyard, run it on Eneloops (get some good run times out of them) and find it perfect for EDC use.

One modification I did which improved the light for my use was the addition of some clear PVC tube around the waist of the light. Cut to length, heated in boiling water and then slid on with some soap, it has shrunk into place and gives my teeth something soft to bite into when I want my hands free. It also really does help my fingers grip too the barrel too, and you can also slide the PVC down over the end to give yourself a much better tail-standing ability.

I’ll add that since I thought of the tube trick, I have modded my Olight i3S similarly. I do enjoy chip-free teeth :slight_smile: . I suspect there are several lights out there that would like the PVC tube treatment

PS: before anyone asks, I can’t remember what size tube it is, sorry - easy enough in a store to try a few until you find one that is hard to get on - that’s the one you want as with some hot water and soap it will slide on easily.



That is a clever idea,! Thanks for sharing

I really like the A01, for the colors, sturdiness, moon, high output and the high-CRI Nichia.

But the next-mode-memory of the later versions makes them rather stupid. (In over 66% of the time they don’t start in the mode you want and you need to cycle. Which is not a big problem during daylight but VERY annoying at night, when you want to preserve night-vision and don’t want to disturb others !)

Gladly, I finally found the “pencil mod” which eliminates the NMM perfectly !!

Now, I am happy again. :laughing:

Before, I modded two of my A01 into 1-mode by shorting the two connectors between the PCB. By this, you get a VERY bright AAA (even brighter than the high mode in the original setup). They then draw 2.2 amps from a fully charged eneloop. :smiling_imp:

Welcome to BLF!
& I’m so glad you mentioned this. I’m going to grab my NMM A01 out of the drawer & try to make it a 1 mode too. I actually didn’t bother with trying the pencil trick to get rid of the NMM b/c the mode changing on my A01 seems too inconsistent (modes periodically change whilst turning the twisty.) By making it a 1 mode at least this light can be of some use as a keychain light. The other EDC on me can be the light to serve lower levels. Thanks again!

So does that completely bypass the driver and make it direct drive? So it gets dimmer as the battery voltage drops?

Can it direct drive on a 1.2v battery? There’s got to still be a boost circuit in the chain, doesn’t there?

Good point. I don’t understand which two connectors are being short-circuited on the driver PCB.
Can you take a picture?

I’d given up hope about buying more of these when they cheapened them, but this might be worth looking into.

I got a few of each (2-3pcs each kind) of the Astrolux A01 / CPF Italia A01 / BLF A01 copper during BG’s Christmas sale, which just arrived recently.

All of them definitely use the Nichia 219B LED (none of them used 219C).

But other than that similarity, there are differences:

1) driver:
The Astrolux A01 aluminum uses a non-Manker driver, and has PWM (tested using digital camera and also shining light through rotating fan blades of a small portable fan — PWM shows as some kind of pattern). I haven’t completely checked if it uses the dreaded NMM (Next-Mode-Memory).
(Nothing is labeled on the head)

The CPF Italia A01 aluminum uses the Manker driver (NoPWM). (“Manker” is labeled on the head)

The BLF A01 copper also use the Manker driver (NoPWM). (“Manker is labeled on the head)

2) tints:

Now this seems to be where they really differ. While all use Nichia 219B (supposed to be 90CRI — but I don’t know of a quick way to check 90CRI), the tints differ noticeably.

The Astrolux A01 aluminum ones have neutral white tint (almost similar to the Astrolux S41S, which also use Nichia 219B).

The CPF Italia A01 aluminum ones have slightly warmer white (is that called 4500K?), but has a slight yellowish tint.

The BLF A01 copper ones seem to be a tint lottery — there’s a neutral-white (almost similar or just slightly less warm than the Astrolux A01 aluminum), and there’s another that’s warm (with a very slight rosy tint), plus there’s one that has a noticeably rosy tint (is this called 4000K?)

Here’s a picture of them:

Again, I don’t have a way of measuring color temperature, so I’m guessing the neutral white is 5000K, while the rosy one is 4000K, and the warm white in between is 4500K?

To add two more I like:

The CPF Italia A01 Copper has original Manker non-PWM driver high CRI 219B and of them all mentioned above has warmest CCT bellow 4000K IMHO nicest tint of all A01/E01 versions.

Manker E01 Aluminium sold now by Mankerlight has non-PWM original driver, has 219B high CRI and neutral tint about 5000K (similar to CCT of neutral copper BLF A01). Its body has the best quality and never flickers when turning on-off skipping modes like many Astrolux versions. Manker claims (in included paper manual) it has the 219C like E02h, but while mine E02h really has 219C, E01 is definitively 219B.

I went crazy :stuck_out_tongue: last year and bought every possible version (except the Astrolux fiasco) of this light I could find anywhere, before the 219B versions are replaced with 219C like in recent Lumintop Tool AAA and Lumintop IYP365 :person_facepalming: And fortunately the Aluminium CPF versions with original Manker driver on Banggood were just US$3.97 during December, that was basically less than buying the emitters alone :slight_smile: And at US$8.66, the copper CPF version was cheaper than Aluminium Manker E01 (US$ 9.89 on Aliexpress last month), but all of them are nice and nothing like the dreaded Astrolux A01 version.

I got a copper BLF edition in the BG xmas sale, just arrived.

To be honest it does not look ‘new’, the outer plastic packaging is very scratched/dirty, the inner cardboard was torn (as though light had been removed many times) and the light itself was scratched a lot in several places. The barcode label says Test so I am wondering if it was a review model.

For €7.40 I don’t complain …. but I would prefer if BG were honest about selling returns/grade B products.

The Copper A01 has been my keychain light since the group buy and is still going strong!

A word of warning. The lanyard broke the 4th time I used it. Fortunately the torch fell on my dog’s head so it was not damaged.

Hi, I’m looking for some clarification.

I’ve read through the thread, and as far as I understand, the Astrolux A01, as it is being sold on

Banggood now, is no longer the “winner winner chicken dinner “ that it used to be?

Thanks. :D

I used to like a lot this light but got bitten with a recent (well that was last year) batch of A01 which had cold tint, PWM and NMM.
I grabbed a copper CPF Italia end of last year for an insanely low price, but i wish i could still get the fancy color Al versions to gift away.
Does anyone know if the ‘old’ or ‘classic’ A01 can still be bought?

PS: i’ve edc’ed a copper BLF Special Edition for a few years now… Love it with a leather lanyard and custom wood bead. :slight_smile:

you can still buy the Manker E01 in colors

afaik
Astrolux A01, NO!
Manker E01, YES!

Manker no longer makes the Astrolux A01, and now the A01 has NextModeMemory (NMM), because it no longer has the Manker driver

this post explains more details

for those interested in the rundown on the Copper models (I hope Im remembering correctly):
the BLF A01 and the CPFitalia A01 have the good Manker driver… neither is available afaict
the Old-Lumens A01 and the Astrolux A01 have the bad Astrolux driver… the Old-Lumens model is available on banggood

The dog or the light?