Well yeah I mean the snugness fitting isn’t the only aspect that tells me E07 has a better quality. I’m satisfied w/ the light overall but I don’t see any significant advantages over the E07 now that I’ve got it in hand. I have a Emisar D18 and that has the highest subjective quality of all of my multi-emitter lights. I’m sure the D4S is of the same; Maybe that’s why it’s much more popular than these. But it’s ok cuz these Mf01’s are $44 so they’re cheap, hence why I bought 7. Planning to give them out as gifts.
I’ll mostly use 26650’s in these lights but occasionally will put my P42a to impress my friends, although like I said you can barely see the difference, but the heat difference is easily noticeable in the first 30 seconds.
That just blows my mind. I got one of the FF PL47 lights and it was one of the worst designed and manufactured lights I’ve ever owned. I won’t buy any more of their products, but has FF really improved that much?
I cannot speak for the FF but this Astrolux (especially for the price) is great. I thought the FT03 was nice but this is even better. Hope it stays that way. The fit of the battery is not that bad either. My Shockli has a bit of wiggle room but some paper (as mentioned) is a cheap fix. BTW - that battery fits the same in the FT03. Didn’t add paper there and won’t here either.
FF sadly has lots of QA issues and i wouldnt go that far to say, i have a one ff 07 its a nice light, but quality wise compared to the astrolux lights i have i would say they are equal more or less…
I have a FF E07 and Astrolux MF01 Mini. What makes the FF a better quality light? They are both pieces of machined aluminum with a driver, MCPCB, optic, and stainless steel bezel. What can be “better” about the E07? It’s ultra thin tube around the clip mounting area?
LED (and in the case of FW3X driver) centering, overall finishing/machining quality, thermal paste or other crap where it shouldn’t be, just well how the parts fit together (like threads especially), quality of soldering on the board, springs, etc. are just a few things to compare. I have owned lights that were absolutely more cheaply/quickly made by both sight and feel.
I think those are purely subjective issues. My MF01 Mini LED’s are centered really well, and the soldering is excellent. I dropped my E07 once while walking and the switch wire broke lose from the driver. I was so unimpressed by the soldering on the driver that I ordered a FET+6+1 driver from Lexel and installed it. Not to even mention the thermal paste on the MCPCB. As for the springs, I’m sure Astrolux would have put in other springs if they designed the light to take a very specific cell size like the E07. Besides, the dual springs handle 21A current well ENOUGH, and the light can easily take many different cells. Different horses, different courses in that aspect.
I’m not saying that Astrolux lacks in any of those areas (since I haven’t even bought or used an MF01S or Mini) but rather that those are pretty good metrics for “build quality” on any light. Not all of them are objective and quantitative, but some are.
The issues with many of the Fireflies lights (since remedied AFAIK) is a great example of lights that are obviously of a lower build quality, as was thermal paste on the board and emitters + boards so badly seated the light wouldn’t turn on in the first FW3As.
I have 3 E07’s (XPl, sst-4000k, sst-4000k copper, 1 E01 5000k) for quite a while now, and a PL47 and a ROT66 in the mail. I also have a D4v1, D18, 2 MF01S’s and 4 MF01 minis now.
Build quality is definitively as follows: E07>MF01S>MF01 MINI. Trust me on this. The astrolux feels light and flimsy, feels ‘hollow’, there’s nicks in the ano, the threads aren’t as well machined. For one of the lights the bezel ring can’t be screwed all the way down and leaves a gap.
The SST20 4000k, whatever bin they used, isn’t as rich and warm looking as the FD2 bins FF used in their E07’s. For indoor use I’ll definitely still use the E07 for the better beam pattern.
Although overall the best quality is the D18, there’s just something about the design and machining that is so solid. Waiting on the Gen2 FFs to make final decision.
I don’t mean to give an impression that the Mini is a bad light. No it’s great, for the price. It just didn’t whelm me as when I received my E07’s and my MF01S full size versions. It also gets hot fast and the 21700 batteries gives like 2x the heat for like 15% in output which is not noticeable which is also a bummer.
I didn’t study it in detail, it seams a decent flashlight for the price, but I hope they pay a bit more attention to those copper and brass limited editions.
I got an SST-20 5000K and it is, unfortunately green at the low levels. That being said, I bought this to use at the higher levels so I may not bother doing anything about it.
Live and learn. How hard would it be for a noob to swap the emitters? The worst part about it is that I ordered a ROT66 Gen II with the same emitters. :person_facepalming:
I have some single emitter lights Covoy S2+ Cu and S3 to practice on.