Review: XinTD C8 (SC-82)

XinTD C8

Reviewer's Overall Rating: ★★★★★



Summary:

Battery:

1 x 18650 Protected & NON-protected

Switch:

Reverse Clicky

Modes:

High - Med - Low

LED Type:

Cree XM-L T6 NW

Lens:

Glass

Tailstands:

Yes

Price Payed:

$31.94

From:

Intl-Outdoor

Date Ordered:

25/2/12 (Received – 13/3/12)

Pros:

  • Price, imo this is the new best VFM 18650 available

  • No Flashy modes

  • Well spaced High and medium, sensible 2.8A drive on high

  • Good tint

  • High frequency PWM

  • Tailstands

    Low voltage cutout at ~3v

Cons:

  • Finish a little rough

  • Low could be lower

This light will obviously be compared to all the other C8 lights but in my collection it will be mainly compared to what i considered the next step up, the Ultrafire 980L as reviewed by the master of reviewers on here, Foy (https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/2284).

Features / Value: ★★★★★

Compared to a average C8 so well liked by budget flashaholics this refines the genre by doing away with bad PWM and flashy modes but adding a tint to your liking.

This shows the PWM difference:

This compares the tint:

Tried to do the mouse over but failed lol, this is colour comparision with ceiling bounce (not sure if this is useful but i was interested how it would turn out), 980 first:

This is control, lit by several 60w household lamps

Design / Build Quality: ★★★★

Emitter is well centered, and an almost flawless reflector:

The driver and spring which seems to be upside down but im sure its meant to be this way so hey (ignore the random bit holding it up):

Build quality is OK, this is the biggest nod to the budget nature of this light, a few marks on the body, infact enough that I get the impression most will be suffering some flaws but you may get lucky.

Threads feel good and come lubed, everything was tight and rattle free on delivery.

The tailcap has a small lanyard hole (no good for Paracord, sort-of cocktail stick sized) in one location only so use may interfere with tailstanding.

Battery Life & Heat managment: ★★★★☆

[Added 1-5-12]Full run on Panasonic 3100mAh netted a 76minute runtime to cut-off, noticeable dimming occured in the second half even by eye alone. The test was fan cooled and head of light peaked and held around 30C

Sanyo unprotected 18650, start at 4.18 down to approx 3v (cutout flashed by torch) was a few minutes under an hour on full.

20C = 68F

45C = 113F

55C = 131F

60C = 140F

This is a few seconds after the light dropped output and started flashing, the battery voltage was 3.05 seconds after removal (so you'll have to guess the voltage underload(sag) it cut-off at im afraid)

Light Output: ★★★★☆

Output is going to be similar to any other C8 driven to 2.8amps, which is probably the sweet-spot to keep heat to a manageable level and minimise sag. Other cheaper C8s may compare favourably for short time driven at 3+amps but I have bigger lights for hot-rod performance that will not suffer with the heat/time constraints thus caused.

Unprotected Panasonic 3100mha @4.185vdc h=2.78a m=0.88a l=0.15a

Protected Senybor 2600mha @4.164vdc h=2.79a m=0.88a l=0.14a

DMM calibrated

Summary: ★★★★★

A light that imo earns a stunning 5 star review due to the value for money, it is simply the EDC budget light of this size/battery class. I urge anyone in the market for a C8 to stump up the extra few dollars and plump for this one, you wont regret it!



Thankyou for reading

Please rate the light if you own it :

nice review! thanks..added the mouse over you wanted lol..980l off, xin on..

Thanks Pounder, I went to advanced and put the URLs in, what else am I missing?

that's all I do..put the original image you want mouse off for in the first field..then hit advanced and click the box..then put the original image in the mouse off field and put the other picture in the mouse on field..click save or insert or whatever it says..I find I need to refresh the page before it actually works though so maybe you had it right and just had to refresh..

An I wasn't far off then, I'll try again next time, thanks again :)

there's an edit button lol..

Thanks!

Nice review there Jeansy!

Very nice pics - thanks for the review!

Great review of what I consider to be one of the best budget flashlights that I own.

Nice review, thanks!

Thanks for the review .

Nice review.

I used to screw in/out reflector for better spot or remove green ring.

I did it all up on a PC but 90% of the time I use my tablet and that's a pita to do anything other than read on. I'm waiting on a Intl-outdoor drop-in for my L2T so I'll do a beam comparison then hopefully, they should be very similar but in a lovely compact P60 :)

Thanks for a great review, Jeansy. Love that light. Your pictures illustrating tint are something I haven't seen in a review before - nice touch.

Thanks BetweenRides, as you can see not much difference but i was interested how it would turn out.

I was just playing with my Fluke 123, connected directly to a XR-E to see if i could measure the flicker induced by the driver at lower modes (refered to by most on here as PWM)

Here are the results with the light details photoshopped onto the display:

As you can see the sample rate and scales were altered to best suit, i am not 100% about the readings and if anyone has advise please feel free to add. It seems to add up tho, the 980 has by far the worst PWM, closely followed by the 3T6, the XinTD is almost not visible. I tested my Crelant 7G5 but could not measure or see PWM(low is not very low tho), the same with the cheapo DX 5 Mode XM-L 501b!

Edit: Still cant get the mouse over working :(

lol sucks man..it can be tricky..

also the nangj has great pwm..great driver..the 980l has the same driver as the uf 3 mode drop-in found at manafont..it's bad pwm, but a nangj can fix it also if it bothers you..luckily for me i'm not highly succeptible to pwm and wouldn't even know to look for it if it wasn't for this site lol..damn you all! ;)

Hi Pok,

I did the same thing with mine when I first got it, until I found my favorite "sweet spot" for the beam.

Missed this previously, im gonna give that a try, cheers :)

Jeansy -

Good job and this looks like a great flashlight, especially for the money.

I keep my eye out for XinTD reviews to see if the quality I experienced is consistent across models. For example; an UltraFire MCU-C88 or the UF- 980L are both top quality pieces but the UltraFire WF-502B is not. (at least the few I've seen)

This XinTD C8 looks exactly like a Palight and any number of other C8s. Which is not necessarily a bad thing but other XinTD designs appear to be more exclusive to the brand. (if it is a brand)

Am I making any sense?

pleaseignoreifnotFoy