Which one is the "real" Sipik SK68?

I bought 4 from TomTop_W on Ebay and all of them have glass lenses.

Which one is this with strobe?

Can I buy it ready made from a CN/HK seller?

Slightly off topic... I picked up a couple of cheapo Sipik68 clones on eBay, but they came with different emitters. Both were described as Cree Q5.

(sorry. crappy pic but you get the idea)

I believe that the one on the left (from Toptom) is the correct one. What's the one on the right?

I'm almost positive that the one on the right is an OSRAM emitter, judging by the pronounced square in the left corner.

Look here:

https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/1464

thank you both. That's what I suspected. Not sure whether it's worth opening an eBay dispute over $5...

At least send a message to the seller. He may want to make you happy.

Already done...

I actually like the OSRAM Golden Dragon. I've had good results with my lights that have it.

After a few back and forths with the eBay vendor, including me sending a photo similar to the one above, he was nice enough to give me a full refund.

With respect to the CREE vs OSRAM issue, I am much too much of a flashlight noob to contribute much to the discussion. Looking at my Sipik68 clones, however, I can state that the OSRAM version that I received is a colder colour and does not appear as bright as the CREE version.

Wow ...the 3 I got aren't glass....they were obvious plastic and not very good either .Tom tom didn't impress me with the quality on these.None of my o rings are fitted correctly and the light is a drop to throw with the head not slowed down by a o ring or a metal loop.Any imperfections ,even on the edge of these lenses will show up in the beam ..Not impressed with poor quality.

The golden dragons / Osrams can be good or bad .. the bad ones seem to be ...very bad / purple .

the good ones look much more neutral and can be very nice ..big tint lottery

I must say that I am impressed that you guys can tell which LED is which just by looking at the beam shots.

You can find images of each emitter if you google, someone here even posted a thread with his collection describing every imetter in pictures.

Mine came all rather well built, dont expect clean beam with these, it will be ringy, but definitely no asymetrical artifacts in mine, I have two headlamps with aspherical plastic lenses and one of them does have really ugly beam - asymetrical half-oval shaped pieces of rings.

Only thing I complained about regarding my lights was that one of the lights came rather scratched and that none of them were really waterproof, so I got partial refund due to their misleading item description, its fairly easy to get water under the lens if you happen to drop it into water or leave it outside/hold for prolonged period of time during rain and there is no way to get rid of that water unless you unscrew the lens cap and wipe it all dry yourself, otherwise it stays there.

What do you mean with " None of my o rings are fitted correctly and the light is a drop to throw with the head not slowed down by a o ring or a metal loop "? Zoom is loose on yours or what?

Its tight on mine, not too tight where its impossible to zoom in to the max, just right amount to be engaget easily enough and not sloppy at the same time.

I do think to some extent that these single mode Sipik's are worth 5$, not 6 or 8. Triple mode ones could be sold for perhaps 7-8$.

> I bought 4 from TomTop_W on Ebay and all of them have glass lenses.

Huh. One of mine was a TomTop Ebay (single mode) sale and it's the same plastic lens as the others I have -- lens always glued or tightly pressed/screwed in.

Someone who had three-mode said that had a lens that rattled a bit loose; don't recall plastic or glass in that comment.

You're sure yours are glass? I could've convinced myself, except for noticing the letters pressed in from the back and a few little scratches already.

If you want to test, taking the bezel off and gently poking the edge of the lens with something pointy (behind the bezel's front lip so it won't show) will tell whether it feels soft like plastic or hard like glass.

There's an inherent difficulty in making small zoom flashlights like this one waterproof. Especially for lights with relatively smooth push-pull zoom mechanisms.

I encountered this when modding my Sipik SK58, which is similar in size and uses a similar zooming mechanism. The light originally came missing o-rings and with a metal C-ring in the o-ring slot on the sliding mechanism. This made a metal grinding sound every time the light was cycled from zoom to flood ... and meant that air could get in and out so the light was not waterproof.

I took out the C-ring, added o-rings in all the o-ring slots and lubed the o-rings up with Nyogel. The light was now waterproof. But there was a major problem:

Since the light is now air-tight, cycling the light from flood to zoom is much harder. As the light is expanded to zoom mode, internal volume of the light increases. This causes a reduction in internal air pressure. Since air pressure outside the light is now higher than air-pressure inside the light, the bezel would now retract on its own as the air pressure tried to equalize. Result was that I'd have to physically hold the bezel in zoom position and if I let go it would slide back to flood on its own.

Assembling the light with the bezel in zoom mode caused the reverse problem. When I pushed the bezel back towards the body it would increase air pressure inside, which would then push the bezel back into zoom mode on its own.

I solved the problem by removing the o-ring at the lens. This allowed air pressure to equalize and resulted in a silky-smooth zoom cycling with the bezel staying in whatever position I left it in. My conclusion was that it's not practical to make a zoom flashlight of this size and with this zooming mechanism watertight. You might make it splash resistant with a very tiny gap, but if you want a watertight light, you should select a non-zoom light.

Real Sipik68 in branded box with two batteries and charger - http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Free-shipping-Sipik-SK68-CREE-XP-E-R3-LED-150-Lumens-3-Modes-Flashlight-with-Battery/939417041.html

Now I have 3 clones, my preference is to have some of each kind, single and three mode, but I could do without the strobe.

After about a year of EDC I am planning on trying some physically smaller lights, starting with a higher output mid price 1xAAA like a Thrunite Ti2, for more convenient pocket carry and leaving the SK68 clones for toolbag or glovebox.

I measured some tail cap currents and was surprised by the spread. With maybe half an ohm in the leads and a 0.6 AH AW IMR charged up to 4.2 V, I got 1.5 amps for a Sipik, 2.1 A for one three mode UltraFire, 0.8 A for another 3 mode UltraFire from a different source, etc. The light output varies but apparently less and not well correlated with the current. I had been supposing that the drivers were all similar, but that is apparently not the case.

Those batteries are not good and that charger is not safe. Pick up some Sanyo 840mah 14500 batteries and a real charger.

-Jamie M.

Many of the cheap lights have high losses in the case connections.

What kind of leads have half an ohm of resistance? Seems really high, but I haven’t measured any.

I would not put Lion batteries into the hands of anybody that needed good ones. Yes the output is much higher, but Eneloops do fine and have no risk. I use cheap ones, and monitor the charging on a cheap B6 and pay attention to drooping output when in use. I don’t feel all the comfortable using Lion and maybe for now that is how it should be.

GF glovebox light, premium Alkaline or Eneloops, would be my choice.

Ceiling bounce comparison with my three seem fairly similar on high. Maybe you got some bad lights?

My view buy several from several vendors, compare them and only gift the best ones.