Review: Roche F12 Desert Yellow Neutral White from CNQG (Very happy)

I received my Roche F12 Desert Yellow 3-mode Neutral White yesterday from CNQG. The shipping is about 2 weeks, impressive.
This is where I bought it, CNQG
Here are specs from CNQG. I agree with most of it.

Size 115MM*23.5MM NetW 100g
Material 6061-T6 Aluminum Switch Tail cap click switch
Reflector

Aluminum Alloy Mill/OP reflector
Anodise HaII Anodising / Black HaIII
LED CREE XM-L T6-1A CW/ XM-L T6-3C NW Power

1x18650 (not included)
Lumens 800 Lumens Runtime 1 hours on High
Mode 3 (Lo-Mid-Hi) ; 1040>100% 5(Lo-Mi-Hi-Strobe-SOS) Voltage 3.5v—4.2v
Driver 7*7135 2.5A Current 2.5A

The light came in a very well protected paper/magnetic box (says wolf fire :slight_smile: ), along with a lanyard and 2 spare o-rings. The color is pretty and pleasing, the build quality is great. I don’t see any irregularity on the body. Trustfire flame 18650 works with no problem. The light feels comfortable to hold in hand. Tail switch is comfortable and allows tail stand. When I turn on the light, wow, the tint is just beautiful, soft and yellowish, easy on my eyes, and good color rendering compared to all my other lights (all CW).

There are 3 modes, in order “low-medium-high” and has memory. Despite being NW, the high mode is about as bright as my ZL SC600 CW on high, which is rated 750 lm. The beam angle and size of hot spot is also comparable to SC600. On high it becomes hot very quickly. In about 10 seconds I feel the heat, and I usually turn it off or to lower mode within 1 minute. This shows how hard it is driven and maybe the heat conduction is good on this light. The medium mode is very usable outdoor, being about 250-300lm (personal estimation) and the light does not become too hot to hold. The low is a little disappointing being 40-50lm. It is too bright for a low mode, but it is expected from the specs (10%). There is no PWM in any of the 3 modes. :smiley:

Now let me talk about things I felt could be better.
Some of the grooves on the body (near the head) feel sharp. It never cut my fingers though. It is not bothering me at all.
It is a little bit longer than I wished, being 11.7cm. Will be perfect if around 10cm (small hand). But still good and able to EDC.
Lack of a real low mode. This is actually comparable to mid mode on ZL SC600. It would be perfect if they have it with 4-mode as moon-low-mid-high.
A bit pricey at $30 dollars shipped. But this is a quality light, well worth the money IMHO.

Overall this is a great little light, very functional and attractive. Output is satisfying. I would definitely recommend it.

Thanks to Richie086’s great review. I bought this light because of that.

My first light review Cheng

Thanks for posting, Cheng. F12 is one of my favorite lights, even with a few shortcomings.

Thank you for your review Cheng.
It sounds like a good deal to me when 30$ lights are described with words like “quality”, “pleasing color”, “beautiful tint” and so on.
Thanks for sharing.
And a warm welcome to BLF. I hope you have fun here.

A well written review, w/ good info on the Roche. This light would be a good candidate for one of E1320s 5 mode drivers. The F12 looks well made and is substantial enough to take the XML output w/o frying the emitter or driver. Thanks Ses.

Outstanding review!!!!!

Thanks a lot for the review! Frontpage’d and Sticky’d.

I still like this light a lot. Just checked CNQG and the price dropped to $23.50, which is a steal for the quality of this light IMO.

How is the driver fixed in the body? I clearly want to have access to the driver as I want to add am AMC7135 and of course to change the firmware…

This image looks as if it’s a press-fit retainer ring…?

Nice review and nice light. Thanks :slight_smile:

I got mine, I went for the Intl-outdoor version. A Solarforce pocket clip fits nicely.

nice review…

it is an awesome light…it gets warm-hot fast on high and even medium gets it pretty warm…the neutral is pretty yellowish but pleasing…clicky is real nice…looks are killer…good budget EDC…still I agree with the lack of low…my sc600 has a hard time being beat for EDC…

I purchased mine from Intl.Outdoor. The specs there state 500 lumens which seems a little more reasonable. The funny thing was that none of my 18650s would fit in it except the Eagletac 3100 (which are Panasonics) Even the other Panasonic based ones were too fat (intl outdoor, DARKMATTER, Panasonic, AW) I’m running AW 17670s in it right now.

Looks press fit to me but it also looks like you could add chips without removing the ring.

Can you measure the inner diameter of the tube, please? :slight_smile: 18.5 as stated in specs?

I'm not sure my caliper is the best but I show just a hair under 18.5, that's the issue with this light and batteries...

You could probably add a 7135 chip but I don't think the microchip is exposed.

Any infos on this yet? I would also like to have access to the atmel chip!

Very nice review. I have been eyeing this one for a bit.