Blast from the past the Xeno E03 flashlight.

So far no one has said it was a piece of #$%^. Might buy a blue one then.
:+1:

the first flashlight i moded,later i bought 5 total moded the all for friends.still have them good quality.
the only bad about it ,it was the stock driver modes which was medium/low/high.

Moddable, say with a 17mm driver?

Gotta grab 1 for nostalgia.

I love my E03 that I’ve had for about 5 years. Mine is the NW XM-L T-5 and I’ve recently been playing with it again.

No clip for it, but it’s a favorite of mine. Blue. I’ve toyed with getting a red one, just because…

Chris

it uses a 16mm driver,so you will have to do a bit work with the brass pill to fit a 17mm driver.

I purchased 2 years ago. Both are still in mint condition and still in use around the house.

Its claim to fame was current control in all modes, without PWM. With the low frequency PWM that most flashlights from that time had that was a big deal.

I still have mine, I modded it it with a XP-G2 3C and it was my first neutral white flashlight. :slight_smile:
I find it slightly too large for a AA flashlight, but I think the finger cutouts are cool.

That red light in the op is exactly the same light I gifted to my sister way back then… the Xeno brand is very well-made, I consider it one of the most under-rated brands.

Special mention was my favorite Xeno G42: (photos extracted from Selfbuilt’s review)

Take a very close look at the details: knurling, machining, anodisation, bulletproof clip and rotating stainless lanyard (anti-roll?) attachment:

( Can you name an existing brand that has these features now?)

I’ve had a blue one and a “red” one for several years. The red one was from a special run with Nichia, my first high cri light and was really wowed by it. Forget what emitter is in the blue one.

The mode order isn’t optimal but I still liked them a lot overall. Have Fenix clips fitted to mine, they work great.

The big downside for me is that my red one developed an intermittent connection issue in the head. I saw it described in another review and tried contacting Xeno a couple of times with no reply. I probably would have moved on from them by now anyway, but it was a bummmer and made me hesitant to use them due to the reliability concern.

Are you sure it’s the head? There were known issues with the switch. That’s why I purchased spares. Lucily I never had to use them.

I picked up 3 when they first came out. A red WW, Purple NW, and black CW. I think they were about $31 7 years ago. I use them often since I don’t care about scratching them up. Would I buy them again, no…the lack of mode memory and the UI starting on medium every time or the mode spacing are turn offs. They do make good candles though.

Yep, I picked up a couple of EO3’s several years ago & still use them. Nice little light IMO. :+1:

I remember paying msrp on my first one because it was that well rated. It was my first real finger burner: my first real light that got super bright and super hot. I bought the pink one on sale just to make sure i had a backup to my original blue one. I was able to change the tailcap switch and thought this is a real enthusiast’s light.
I just put a gitd cone on it for nightstand use

Yeah pretty sure, tried it with the tail from the other light and it didn’t make a difference. Sometimes you can slap the light against your palm and get it to fire up, but over time that’s worked less and less often. Probably someone more savvy than me could fix it, but I haven’t really modded or worked on my lights before.

I have a couple around somewhere.

They're great little lights.

I don't use AA or 14500 flashlights very often anymore.

I still have my purple one. Still running the same decade of Trustfire “flame” 14500. It was a mini-lumen monster back in the day!

I remember when TrustFire flames were considered a good budget battery.

Nowadays there are better choices, and a lot of fake flames around.

Xenos were a little under powered but built like tanks.

was one of the first 5 lights I ever purchased as I recall. I think I paid something like $33. Just sits in a pile now, unused, with the others :frowning:

very nice construction, knurling, etc. in my opinion.