“REVIEW”: Wuben E05 V1.0 – AA/14500 battery – XPL2 LED - 900 lumens [PIC HEAVY] [***MODDED WITH Luxeon V]***

Im still not a total fan of the beam and color, but as an EDC light in general, its REALLY growing on me.

If you dont whitewall hunt its perfectly usable.

Hey man, it surely is, as the beam is much nicer! About the skills, well, mine are few and scarce compared to so many people here!
I’ve just tried to practice the (un)soldering process in different lights and LEDs! For this mod, I used my “normal” soldering iron, flat tip tweezers (to focus the iron on the solder and protect the LED, and some solder fluid + wire + thermal paste! After taking the reflector and gasket out, all gets easier :wink:

Trust yourself and practice in “less” good lights or components and you’ll get the hand calibrated :wink:

Wow, thanks for that data moderator007!! They surely are reliable and not only in this light! I remember the GB from the (wuben TO46R and TO10R) and maukka’s tests also shown that reliability in numbers (IIRC)!
And I do agree with you a better UI would make this light a brilliant EDC, namely direct access to Low :wink: Thanks for the data again!!!

Yup, the white wall hunting is something we should not do with this light :stuck_out_tongue: A NW XPL2 LED would make its beam better and less “shifted” and, as mentioned above, a different UI would also improve it! It is still a really well made light with good output and reliability!!
:+1:

Do you have any idea how thick the factory MCPCB is? Im wondering if MTNs would be a drop in.

Right now I can’t be sure, as I’m not at home! I can measure it later!
What I know is that it is slightly thinner than the MCPCB from Led4Power that I used with the LuxeonV.
The material is copper, but I am not sure about the exact thickness! I’ll tell you later :wink:

I’ve just compared the 2 MCPCBs (the stock and the one from Led4Power): the stock one is 0.9mm - 1mm and the one from Led4Power is 1.5mm! So, there is quite a diference on these!
What happens on mine is that there is a <1mm gap between the bezel and the head, while screwed in! Nothing grave! It you want an o-ring can be placed there to keep on assuring waterproofness :wink:

If you want, sanding or filing the bottom of the MCPCB will help adjusting / reducing / eliminating that gap!

Very nice mod. Great beam tint photos.

Thank you mate :wink: I hope you like yours as well :wink:

Some night beamshots using the Wuben E05 with Luxeon V:

And a beam and tint comparison from this Wuben E05 (right) with the On The Road M3 Pro (XPL-HD CW + Frosted Tir Optic) (left) :

House - 65-70 m


Please note that the LEDs produce quite different tints, but both provide a good distant illumintation. Obviously, the Luxeon V is not reaching the 900 Lumens that stock XPL2 produced, but it has a nice range, still!
The OTR, having a frosted lens, has a slighly diminished throw (if compared to the reflector) but it’s still very nice at distance!

Thanks for the review.

I also would prefer direct access to low, but may get one of these, anyway.

Really appreciate your review, many thanks. Can you please tell what are the led pad and driver diameters? I assume these might be 16mm and 17mm, but rather to be sure.

I put a 4000k 90+ cri Nichia 219c and a mild diffuser in my E05. Much better. The Mt Electronics 16mm mcpcb’s drop right in like they were made for it.

I did the same thing but at 5000K. Found I wasn’t using it at all because of the tint. 15 minutes later it’s one of my favorite lights.

I bought one on Amazon for 1/2 price using the coupon code listed in a post above.

We’ll see if I can tolerate not having direct access to low from off and not having a 5 or 10 lumen low for a 1AA size light. I’ve been used to the Utorch UT01.

I’m expecting to like the two-way pocket clip and magnetic tail.

This will be my first 14500 light. And I won’t have any extra betteries, but have several AA NiMh batteries and some Energizer lithium primaries.

What impresses me with this light is that the lower levels are the same on 14500 or AA and it actually has longer runtimes on 14500, rather than higher and shorter, as on most other duel fuel AA size lights that I’ve read about.

What’s the cost of these parts and how long did it take to receive them after ordered?

I’ve never nodded a light, but might consider it on this one, if cheap enough and easy enough.

Thanks.

Thanks for your words!
Yup, direct access to low would make it (almost) perfect! That is the one thing that Manker E11 has advantage on this one. A UI similar to what Olight uses would be great on this E05 beauty! Still it is gorgeaus and an awesome flashlight :blush:

Thank you 1stein!
If I understand correctly you are asking about the emitter plate diameter, right?
I am not with the stock MCPCB/Led but I guess it is about 16mm diameter. The one I used with the Luxeon V is 16mm and fits perfectly and as RobertB mentioned above, the ones with 16mm will fit :wink:

About the thickness, as I mentioned here , the MCPCB from Led4Power is thicker than the original one.

-

I also wanted to inform about the mod I made.
Using the Luxeon V with the SMO reflector actually produces some shifts or at least some artifacts!
At first I was excited because I didn’t have the greenish tint, but now I notice that the overal configuration actually has some “things” that don’t produce a completely homogeneous beam.

It is hard to capture in a photo due to balance, but here is an attempt.

Note that the spill is homogeneous, but the hotspot has 2 or 3 different “rings”! I don’t know if with other LEDs there is this effect as well, but if so, I suspect the SMO reflector may be the cause for it.

Using a diffuser sheet will even the beam and will produce a great beam. I guess that is what RobertB talked about too. Would be nice to find a Orange Peel reflector small enough to fit the head, though :wink:

I received mine today. I’ll likely return it because of the mode memory and no direct access to low, unless it was the last used mode. I much prefer the UI on my Utorch UT01.

In addition to not liking the lack of direct access to low, I’d also prefer that the 300 lumen level be available in the normal cycle, rather than having to select turbo and wait for it to drop down to 300.

Other observations. My efforts to lock out the light using the switch results in the strobe function, more often than lockout, but I’ll experiment with that some more. It’s possible that the light is actually in low mode some of those times, rather than off, since triple click when on goes to strobe and the low mode is low enough that one might think that the light is off, when it’s actually in low.

The switch is very stiff and requires being pressed below flush with the surface of the light, so perhaps accidental activation would be unlikely, even if the light is not locked out.

I do appreciate that the blinky modes are hidden, unless you mess up trying to put the light in lockout mode.

I’m charging the battery now and will mess with the light more later.

Edited to add that only about 25% of the time can I successfully lockout or unlock the light with the side switch. I just can’t seem to the the three fast clicks correct with the very stiff switch.

Been EDC’ing this for a couple weeks and it has never turned on in the pocket so don’t think you should stress over the lockout timing.
And I do have other items in the pocket.
HTH

I also noticed that it appears to be relatively low CRI compared to some other lights - reds and yellows appear washed out.

I still haven’t adapted to the very long press to turn the light off. I frequently change output levels unintentionally, instead of turning the light off. This is especially irritating when I was in low mode and have to cycle through all of the modes to get back to low before attempting to shut the light off again.

I really wish that it had direct access to low, then it wouldn’t matter as much if I mistakenly increased the output level when attempting to turn the light off.

I think the CRI thing depends on the individual. Red & yellows in no way appear washed out to me when using this light.

Long press to off does take some getting used to…. and I still have not got used to that completely.

With a small bit of practice I found triple click to lockout very easy to achieve almost every attempt.

For the price with the Vipon Coupon & what you get for that price, I think this light is a great deal. :+1:

Are you saying you did not remove the emitter board and just un-soldered/soldered from the top?
Did you remove the white plastic disc and if so did it screw out or just pull out using the notches?
Edit: Re-reading your post it sounds like you changed the board and the LED as one piece, I am going to try to swap just the LED.
Going to try emitter swap tomorrow with the new Lumileds Luxeon V2 in 5000k or maybe 3000k.

Thanks!
Keith