Zanflare F2

Saw this while browsing Amazon today for $7.99. Advertised as IP68, 200lm and both neutral and cool white options while running off 2xAA batteries. Figured for $8 what the heck so I’ll try ot snap some pics and post a small review when it arrives. Can’t expect MUCH for that price but it will be neat if its a bit of a diamond in the rough!

For 8$, I’d buy 2 of them.

Wonder how this compares to the Spfirn SF13 that cost just a bit more. Does this have pwm?

This is a nice light for $8. I got 1 last year to have a 2x AA format light. Liked it enough I got 2 more later for gifting. Switch maybe a tad finicky but for price a solid deal.

If it has PWM it must be implemented well.

Mine is nice tint indicated as NW 4500 to 5000K.

2630cd but “200m beam distance”? :person_facepalming:

Yeah, I got a coupla them. Quite nice. About on par with my SF13s.

Just beware that strobe is in the main cycle. Quite annoying.

Also, I think I got the original F2 and not the F2S, which was different (in a bad way?).

looks as good as a (2) AA light I purchased from Four Sevens ages ago, it was on sale for about $35 as I recall.

Think I remember they start on low mode so you never have to cycle thru the strobe if you remember to just shut it off and start afresh ...( I think ??)

Oh wait now I remember why I disliked the light ..that horrible spiral knurling ..just feels odd

Jaxman M2 2xAA is much better.....but at 8$ it's a nice light to let your relatives leave leaking alkalines in .

Strobe is in the main mode order and it has memory. Two negatives in my book. Although for $8 for some reason I’m still tempted to buy one.

Yeah, at least my LuxPro, while it has strobe in the main cycle, always starts on high.

For a 2×AA donk it’s not bad (ie, not painfully bright that it even has to be stepped down at all), and happily eats moribund alkaleaks for breakfast.

Hideous beam from the G3, but some ’Fix cleans it right up beautifully (all the LuxPros, in fact).

Using G3s in reflectors should be outlawed. Damned flip-chips…

Yea. Before I knew better I bought a little Wuben E01. XP-G3 with a tiny little SMO reflector. The beam is the most miserable thing I’ve ever seen. I also have a Lumintop AAA tool with the G3, but they used an OP reflector, which makes a much nicer beam. The Wuben is glued (bah…) but the Lumintop isn’t, so I may change the emitter on that one.

Yesterday I put XP-G3 into T20 zoomie. I was close to viomit. It’s doesn’t look good in asphericals as well… Actually it looks much worse than bad.

Should be salvageable. I think the ’20s use the same pill as cheepcheepcheep C8 clones (ie, the truly crap versions you can buy on Amazon for 5bux a pop in a 3-pak). So you can drop that pill into the crappy C8 and use plenty of DCFix on the glass to blend the beam.

Won’t be a thrower anymore, but will give you a nice even blanket of light without the hideous piss-yellow corona of the G3-in-reflector (or aspheric).

Then use the C8 pill in the ’20 with something else as far as LED/driver.

Fasttech has the nice (big beefy brass) C8 pills if you want better quality.

Also, check the lens on the ’20, make sure there’s no “bellybutton” at the top. I got a couple of Ahorton deep aspherics and spacers from Illumn to fit into/onto a ’502 drop-in. Horrible horrible “smear” of the image, couldn’t focus any better than, say, a 30° TIR lens. Actually worse than a reflector.

Cleaned top and bottom of the lens to make sure zero dirt, grime, fingerprints, anything… same smear.

Placed it flat atop my cellphone’s display, and slid it around. Instead of a nice clean magnification of each pixel, you could see the hideous distortion where the very top of the lens had a “bellybutton” indentation, ie, slightly flattened.

It wasn’t worn down or scratched or anything like that, just molded that way. No way to fix it. Haven’t touched it in probably over a year, but was hoping to fit a spacer under the LED to raise it up, right to the bottom of the lens, at least get a nice flood beam out of it, like a fully retracted zoomie.

Oh yeah, 2 of my 3 Cometas have the same distortion, ’though not nearly as bad as the Ahortons. Can still see the “dots” on the projected LED image, ’though with a bit of “smear” in one/more directions.

The Ahortons, though… can’t even get close to a projection, even handheld above the LED to vary the center/height/tilt. Just… yecch.

Well, received my F2 yesterday and got to play around with it just a little. Overall I’m pretty impressed! Especially for $8. Switch has a great feel, body is well finished and threads are smooth. A little lip on the tail threads that could be sanded but nothing that affects function or feel. Ano looks great, too… though I cannot say for sure its HA3 as advertised or not.

The beam itself is quite nice. Good, tight hotspot with nice even spill. Definitely a thrower. Maybe not as much as my C8+ with XPL-HI in a SMO reflector but the most throw I have out of a light this size for sure. Actually, IMO its a little too throwy for a 2AA but thats a matter of taste. Only complaint I have is losing the tint lotta. I got a CLASSIC Cree “cat pee green” tint on my neutral emitter. Not sure the visual difference between XPG2/3. Packaging does say XPG3 but the literature in the box (ie owners manual) says XPG2…

Overall very happy. Will make a great back up glovebox light, loaner light or maybe I’ll just give it to my kid to enjoy…

Yeah, forgot which it is offhand, but you’d know a G3 when you’d see it. All yellow under the dome, not just on the chip itself, and no visible bond-wires as it’s a flip-chip. Just goggle some pix of G2s and G3s and match up which one you got.

My 2×AA lights I “converted” to flooders with diffusion film. They’re rather anæmic as throwers anyway, so are best suited for close-in work, so why not make ’em flooders and get a useful spread of light vs a teeny-tiny angry bright hotspot and nigh-useless spill, eh?

Looks like my sample is an XPG3… Dunno what the fuss is about, beam looks good to me (as noted above).

I’ve had mine for a while now, it has an XP-G2 in it and I like it, haven’t even bothered to modify it. :smiley: