Thanks Maukka for your work you put in reviewing this flashlight.
Contrary to a few definitely attractive properties of the MF02S, with this aggressive gluing + dull and unusable emitter (Sorry Cree, I have to be honest) regarding tint and beam quality + limited driver UI, I have no current interest in this light.
Astrolux, please:
don’t glue the bezel (deal breaker because of the 2.)
forget XHP70.2 AND 70 CRI (probably the worst combination for a ‘mainstream’ emitter) - plenty of light without proper color fidelity is not that useful, even less useful, when it is far from consistent across the beam
if XHP70.2 is necessary for a given flashlight, use M4 binned 90 CRI emitter (M4 is available for 5000K CCT and above XHP70.2 - and is just 3 bin lower, than P2), as besides the better color rendering ability, they suffer still much, but noticeably less from tint shift
implement ramping, or provide more even mode spacings for the driver UI (e.g. 15 lm, 120lm, 600lm, 1800lm, 3500lm, 6000+ lm)
also, please provide at least two different presets for heat management (e.g. the current cautious, and one with +10°C limits)
I am still happy with my NW MF02 purchase, as XHP35 beam seems to suffer much less from tint shift - but unless these issues won’t get addressed, the MF02S would be a step back from MF02 for me.
Thanks for posting the review! I just got mine in today and was a bit sad I didn’t have one of your amazing reviews yet.
I have to agree on all points. I will certainly be breaking in to mine and either hacking on the driver in-place or doing a custom driver at some point.
I also got it in my head this was a 1x26650 light, so you can imagine my surprise when I opened the package. . .
Thanks for the review… so mf02s do 7570 turn on and 7180 @ 30 sec… thats crazy… are you sure banggood didnt send you a special version of mf02s ? Just kidding.
I have a modded mf02 xhp70.2 and it only do 5800 lumen… mf04s is doing 6230 lumen.
If this mf02s is doing 7000 lumen, then i might have look into it.
I have one on the way, bought directly from Mateminco on Aliexpress. I also have a driver coming from Lexel so it will be interesting to see what I can manage to do stock and modded, maybe I won’t have to switch the emitter but I have a few 5000K 70.2 sitting here ready. Plus way better firmware so I am excited!
I had a go at removing the bezel today, took a mini butane torch to the bezel and got it pretty hot. No Joy. The strap wrenches just twist eventually. I even checked if it was a sneaky left hand thread!
I’m not giving up, but it certainly is on there tight. I’m willing to ding the finish, especially on the bezel, as the light really does need a new UI.
I put my flashlight head in a vice and used an oil filter wrench. I folded a few paper towels to protect the stainless steel from the oil filter wrench and the finish on the head from the vice. I also had to grind down a spot weld on my oil wrench so it would not damage the head. It still took considerable force.
That’s what I’m thinking I’m going to do, too. Did you still have to heat yours? I have a 3000K 80+ CRI 70.2 on the way from mtn, and i’m planning my own custom buck driver for Narsil/Andruil.
Yeah, totally marred the F out of the head. Guess I’ll just file it down and move on. I’d rather have a functional UI with a good emitter than a shelf queen I dislike using.
I’m thinking I’ll just sand it down and maybe do a “contrast” plasti dip in orange where I dug in. For those in the future. I’d recommend a thin sheet of plywood as a guard. My vice didn’t have teeth, it was just that stuck.
Does anyone have info on the MCU on the driver? Markings say 8208SRBN and 1715 below that. I can probably find an Atme chip to swap if not. I’ll probably end up doing a custom driver anyways, but a 4-ch buck driver isn’t bad as is.
Don’t worry about it! This is going to be a more utility light after I’m done modding it. It’s going to get banged up anyways. Besides, I think an orange contrast band wouldn’t look bad either.