Pre production sample [Review] Astrolux MF-01 4x18650 flashlight supplied by Banggood

the production lights have modified battery carrier to allow protected calls and handle reverse protection with plastic discs

4P battery carrier is even worse if you insert one battery reversed while 3 normal are already in it
Mixing full and empty cells in 4P also leads to bad things to happen, while in 2S/2P you wont ever reach reverse charging like in 4S possible, just if you over discharge a cell recycle it

Ok. Thank you for the information. I’ll most likely get this light sometime soon. I have some friends who are afraid of flashlights that use Li-Ion cells because of the bad rep of exploding. I tend to think the technology is generally safe, so long as you know what you are doing, and respect the tech. Safety first!

Seen the Nichia measured from as little as 8000 lumens, my XP-G3 MF-01 measured around 10,500 lumens, but it appears brighter as there’s not much spill. Just a big wide hotspot.

It seems that banggood is selling the LED’s MCPCB separately for 30$ but the picture is showing the spring side of the driver.
Is it a sign that BG is also going to sell the (lastest) TA’s driver ?

Wut the? They must have shlapped something up quick for someone... Probably to appease someone that had a defective LED and/or MCPCB. Can't imagine them charging $30 for a driver, but they could have provided a coupon code to a customer.. Strange though.

It seems they loaded the wrong picture.

Since Astrolux is the Banggood brand, it makes sense they can get parts from the factory like mcpcb, but they can’t get Texas Avenger drivers.

they are violating the open source license for sure
And this is my edited SRK design and noone asked me about it

even worse that design is so old that its missing also the ground only coming from one source so noise on LDO is reduced and it does not freak out
additional caps missing stabilising the Batt voltage
AMCs dropped for small FET and resistors

What they did is utter laziness.

I mean, they could’ve just taken a picture of the blank MCPCB in the factory.

But nooo.

At times, I do wonder if they check what kind of pictures they post.

and they even do not tell if it fits V1 or V2 of the driver
but seriously a MCPCB for 30$ that you already got, no other optic will fit, so it is kind of pointless

still the question is why a BG employee has my driver picture from Oshpark

A mcpcb loaded with Nichia emitters.

I am surprised that this was spotted and it made me chuckle. They created/sent me this link when I inquired about getting another MCPCB since one I modified has an issue. I am waiting for confirmation that it is in fact a MCPCB and not a driver as pictured.

Hi Everybody,
I bought the Astrolux MF 01for this application:

drone test astrolux light
is a total disaster , this light on high or turbo what I need the most works only 1 min,
Than is getting extremely hot and turns down the ligh to about 1000-1500 lumens (estimate )
Anybody any ideas how to cool it down to stay on for about 20 min ?
On a drone 1000 lumens is useless.
I do not know much about lights, but obviously the fake advertising get to me, I bought it from bangood.
Thank you guys, any ideas will be highly appreciated.

It is not fake advertising.

It is very hard for a light to stay cool at 100W outputting close to 10000 lumens.

However, to help it out, you could put a small fan besides the light to help cool it.

Well is saying on their website runtime 3.5 hours.

I am a photographer not a flashlight specialist, so I believed them.
What I cared about more was the 5000K natural light with high CRI.
Than why they will make such an insane claim if they know the flashlight will run for 1 minute only?
Thank you for the idea but I think a small fan wont help much on the drone as the flashlight is “burning”, and it already have enough airflow from the drone propellers.
Thank you again. Anybody any other ideas ?

Yeah, 3,5 hours is with the stepdown.

The ANSI standard means that if you can maintain that brightness for at least 30 seconds, you are good to go.

You want a high CRI light, yes?

Are you willing to go beyond flashlights or not?

I can help you if you want.

I will try to help you understand a bit better. The very biggest lights, like Acebeam X65 and Imalent DX32 can only sustain 5,000 to 6,000 lumen continously. That is about the limit. A smaller light, like the MF01, might be able to sustain about 2,500 assuming it has a setting around there (it doesn’t) and it’s temperature protection circuitry is working properly.

If your looking for high continous output you need to use a light with a built in fan, but those are rare and expensive.

You can check my thread on actively cooled lights here.

As far as what’s currently on the market and is not overly big and heavy, the PowerTac X10 at $600-$700 might work. The Storm of Ra at $354 is a cheaper contender.

Thank you very much guys for the answers.
Sincerely I took literally what says on their advertising the 3.5 hours runtime at max brightness.
Is nothing mentioned about the ANSI standard, how I was supposed to know about some standard?
Translate it in “car” terms is like advertising a Toyota that max speed is 100km/h but actually after 1 min will throttle to 10km/h.
As a consumer I will calculate that from point x to point y will take me 3 hours to rich destination, will never cross my mind that will take me 3 days :slight_smile:
That is just about the novice principle.

Yes I was looking for high CRI for filming purposes, high brightness, and in the same time keeping in mind “weight” so the drone can carry safely.

I will look at the Acebeam X65 and Imalent DX32 what you mention, but the MF1 was the only one with 5000Kelvin daylight, high lumens what I could find at that moment.
5-6000 lumens might be to low, I do not know, but as you saw in the video

The Astrolux steps down to about 1500 lumens after 1 minute, rendering it for me as dead weight, basically just wasted money.
Guys any of the lights what you mention is Daylight 5000K with CRI 90 or above? I chose the Noctua LED solution for that purpose.
At the moment, I am still looking for a solution to cool down this light, but the cooling solution to not add more than 1 kg extra.
Ideas ?

Maybe rig up a remote switch to turn on the MF01 when it is in the air and in position then film it in 50 to 60 second increments and then edit the footage to seem like much longer continous output?

the problem is that it lasts 1 min when is cold, once is hot in few seconds lowers the light to about 1500lumens, so that wont help me much :-). Thank you for the idea.

Many other manufacturers like olight or Acebeam writes e.g. 5 + 200minute or similar for the output of 7000 / 1500 Lumen. So from other flashlights you can clearly see the stepdown.

If you look at the output levels and runtimes, yo see with little math that there must be a stepdown.
Output: 1100LM, 6800LM, 11526LM
Runtime: 4.7h, 4h, 3.5h
The ratio from 6800lm for 4h to 1100lm for 4.7h does not make sens, if it has no stepdown.

Sorry, that you have to learn it that way.

I think the best solution for you would be to build a flashlight with large 100W cob-led, a big passive CPU Cooler and a lipo-battery.