✌ FREEME- ASTROLUX MF01 Mini 7*SST20 CRI95 26650 ANDÚRIL Flashlight Group Buy - $45.99

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?

I'm also interested in what constitutes 'build quality', maybe people have different definitions of what that means?

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.

My Grey 5000k light arrived thanks for the deal Freeme, now to test it out and see how it compares to the D4S 5000k XPL-Hi

Please let us know if it’s green at the lower levels. :question:

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.

On the lower levels my light looks green compared to the Emisar D4S 5000k 3A tint XPL HI :cry:

It’s green until basically the top of ramp.

To me, Fireflies’ build quality is superb in general.

Also, to anybody with the SST-20 5000k, I wouldn’t expect good tint from it.

It’s got such bad red color rendering compared to even the XP-L HI, that its tint is quite a bit worse than it should be based on its color tint bin.

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.

I took some measurements of my silver MF01 Mini with the SST-20 4000K using Vapcell 26650 5500mah fully charged. This one will surely see significant improvement in tint by swapping to a UCL type glass.

Max Output
3,770 lumens at 1s
CCT: 3877K
DUV: 0.002
Ra (CRI): 93.7
R9: 82.5
Rf: 92
Rg: 103

Max Output (without glass)
3,905 lumens at 1s
CCT: 3780K
DUV: –0.0023
Ra (CRI): 94.7
R9: 86.2
Rf: 92
Rg: 104

At 3rd lowest stepped mode
Output: 55 lumens
CCT: 3805K
DUV: 0.0032
Ra (CRI): 97.7
R9: 94.7
Rg: 99

At 3rd lowest stepped mode (without glass)
Output: 59 lumens
CCT: 3820K
DUV: 0.0018
Ra (CRI): 98.2
R9: 97.9
Rf: 93
Rg: 100

It depends on if you can get a new mcpcb with the emitters you want already installed. Then the swap involved soldering wires. Pretty simple.

If you can’t get an assembled board then you have to reflow the individual leds which is much more complicated. You would need a controllable heat source like a hot air staion or a hot plate.

hm it doesnt pass 4000 lumens, isnt that a bit low ?

The high CRI SST-20 has pretty low output. The 70 CRI 6500K is where they measure the 5500 lumen.

Well… yeah… The E07’s high CRI emitters does around the same w/ a 21700 battery. The 4000k’s about maxed out here w/ current tech.

I got a 4000k version of the mini and am happy with it. It just does not have the quality feel of an Emisar product and as Hank is launching new models I decided to cancel my order for a copper and titanium mini and put the funds towards more Emisars :wink:

I will probably get another mini at some point. I will wait and see if any issues emerge.