Starry Light SA-22

LED Flashlights – General Info Multiple AA / 14500 Flashlights
80

Youre right about that, Rusty Joe!

Ive come to the same conclusion myself in similar fashion - NiteCore i4 V2 turned out to be real crap, missing termination with AAA cells, fragile power cord that broke near the chargers plug and it wasnt even abused, totaly not worth the money.

I wonder if your report has something to do with fact that there is still no real review done by a person, who, according to BlackShadow, was supposed to receive review sample. That person either reported similar faults as you and they pulled the review or, which is also as plausbile as first scenario - this light wasnt evern sent out to anybody to avoid harsh criticism in reviews :D!

81

4xAA, 880lm => doing the math, 40min runtime on high sounds pretty normal to me.

Now the real question is: Are the lower modes usable, or with bad PWM?

Ps. We are still working with Ric to get a BLF edition of this light with better modes, memory, high PWM, and NW emitter.. But is the build quality so bad that we should stop the GB before it's even started?

82

the thread issue is bothering me, but i didn’t know about this effort, is there a thread?

83

Now there is: https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/24825

84

I couldn’t resist the price for this 4*AA light with high lumens. I decided to take my chances with the head threading in hopes that I would be lucky. I should be getting it any day now. I don’t have the equipment to give it a proper review, but I’ll do my best to provide you guys with as many beam shots and pictures as possible.

85

Thanks, looking forward to it.

86

This would be awesome, looking forward!

Good review doesnt have to be with scientific battery runtimes and lux output measurement and tailcap measurement of amp draw :D!

Post what YOU like about this light and if beamshots are possible, then what else could we ask :D? Unless you have some other known lights to compare, then beamshots with those lights would be welcome too :D!

87

I'm gonna need reviews/ reports from multiple sources before I'll even consider thinking about buying this light .

Whoever said " because illumination supply sold it .. meant it was a good light" was talking crazy .

Even causing Calvin to pop in and try to indemnify himself from that idea .

This light imo has gotten way too much good press without anyone even having sufficiently testing it . the Jetbeam pa40's were closed out all over the internet at 30$ and didn't get this much attention .

Rusty Joe above says he's gotten 3 bad ones ?? 3 out of 3 ?? and everyone seems to want to ignore his warnings?

sounds like a trainwreck .

* Orionlight I look forward to your feedback

88

nvm

89

When and where did you see PA40 for 30$ :D?

90

I thought about making this a new thread, but I honestly don’t have enough info to call a full review, so I’ll just call it a mini and stick it in here. I’m only going to post pictures of stuff you already haven’t seen. The pictures of the holster and lanyard are everywhere so I’ll spare you all. I apologize in advance… I don’t have the nicest camera so I was limited on what I could do manually with the settings.

Here is a picture of the body and threading. It was pretty lubed up when I got it. Almost too much. I had to clean it up a bit and lube the O-ring a little, but other than that, it was fine.

Here is a close up of the threads. Again, super-lubed.

Here is the head where the battery contacts are made. As you can see there are two distinct contact points, the one with the black ring around it being the positive contact. There are also cuts on the outter edge in two different sizes to make sure you are inserting the head into the body the right way.

Here’s what I mean. Notice the diagram showing which way to insert the batteries and then the “guide rails” built into the body to fit nicely with the head. It took some time to see what all this stuff was for, but it works fine for what it is. It probably could have had a better design, but I like not having a separate flimsy battery holder like some of the other 4AA lights.

Unfortunately, there were some blemishes on the reflector. Looks like tiny dimples that were accidentally made. Thankfully, you don’t see this affecting the beam.

Here’s a head on shot.

The PWM on low is pretty noticeable when doing this kind of stuff or aiming it at a moving ceiling fan, but to people who aren’t easily susceptible to this, it’s not a big deal at all.

Here’s a shot at a wall from about 1.5 meters away. It looks much more ringy in the picture than it does in person.

And finally, here are my outdoor beam shots compiled into a collage. The top collage is the Starry Light and the bottom collage is the Convoy C8. I figured that just about everyone here has a version of this light so it’s the easiest to compare with as a common denominator. The C8 pics were done with a slightly different setting but you get the idea.
Starry Light

Convoy C8

Conclusion:
So far, here are my pros and cons:

Pros:
-Super bright light
-Great throw
-Surprisingly floodier than I expected (could be a con for some people)
-Uses AAs
-High quality holster and lanyard (really, not just saying it. The holster is beautiful. Holster has a D-ring too)

Cons:
-Gets hot and doesn’t seem to dissipate the heat as well as my Convoy C8
-Takes some getting used to with screwing on the head, though my experience hasn’t been like Rusty Joe’s. (thankfully, I guess I got lucky)
-Run times are lower than expected. I estimated about 40 mins on high before it goes out. 25 mins and you’ll notice it dimming.
-PWM is slow

After everything, I’m fairly happy with it. It’s a great alternative to my C8 and I don’t have to worry about ridiculous battery management like I do when handling 18650s. I pop in my Eneloops and I’m good to go. I also prefer the wider spill in the beam pattern and the closer to neutral tint. For $25, it’s a pretty good buy for a 4AA light. Can’t speak to reliability yet, but I’ll be sure to report anything if something comes up. Now… If they could SOMEHOW make this in an all aluminum casing…

91

LOL what a piece of junk. Because: Chinese Plastic. LOL how long before the plastic disintegrates. This will be a two dollar light within 6 months. Chinese plastic crumbles like dust. Plastic threads against metal threads = crumbly plastic particles. Can’t stop laughing

92

Let me explain a little more about the headache behind this; I think everyone here who knows me as they do would know I’d never want to do or say anything that could down a good product or cost a good seller business. But in this case, the issue with the head was the major issue with other resulting issues therefrom. Honestly, it makes this light a pain in the arse.

Because of the design, there is serious confusion on which side to put the batteries into and no distinction from looking how one side has two that go in positive first, and the other side positive down. No distinction at all looking at the spring bottom where the batteries load. So the people I sold them to brought back the two lights (just like I suspected they would) and said: “I charged the batteries and put them back in and this doesn’t come on now.” “Oh boy!”, I was thinking.

Turns out, the way the head is designed, the inner-head (actual unit of the light) can swivel around and be reversed without knowing it in relation to the way the batteries go in. So it’s dang good it has reverse polarity protection! So the downside of this mess is that not only is the head screwing on an issue with the retaining ring coming out (again, on all of the three I got), but when you want to get one of these for someone without the worry of priming them with knowledge of special batteries, you can’t as easily do that since the configuration resists being trouble-free. I’ve had to put the batteries back in and/or re-attached/screw down the head a number of times changing batteries. It really is annoying.

So the conclusion: Might as well give your non-flashie family and friends a one-cell 18650 light that won’t offer such little headaches and keep this one for you. And keep in mind, I didn’t even really factor in the defective one I sent back having the totally bad threads.

93

While I agree that plastic threads against metal threads probably isn’t the best idea, the blanket statement that all Chinese plastic is horrible is a bit over the top. I don’t think you realize how much Chinese plastic you have in your house that you don’t think twice about buying. The plastic they use on this light is supposedly PA66 which is incredibly strong. About the structural integrity of the plastic used in this light, if you look at previous posts comparing the tail of this one to the Jetbeam PA40, you’ll see that the Starry Light’s end has thinner edges. At first glance you might think it wouldn’t hold up, but I’m trying to bend it right now and it won’t give. And again, I can’t say anything about long time usage, but for right now, it’s pretty tough compared to any of the plastics I can find around the house. The inside door panels and dashboard on my car have more give than this light.

94

That’s what I want to know too :smiley: Was hovering the buy button when Illumination Supply had them in the mid $40s

95

How bright is this light?
Anyone disassembled the driver?

96

It’s hard to say since I don’t have any equipment to measure lumen output, but it’s as bright or brighter than my Convoy C8 on all modes. 880 lumens on high sounds about right. The Convoy says 700 lumens on high, though other sites have listed it as high as 1000. It’s hard to give an exact number since I can only give relative estimates. On a side note, the blinky modes are a bit annoying to have to cycle through. You can’t “hide” them in another mode grouping like the Convoy so you’re stuck cycling through Hi-Med-Low-Strobe-SOS.

97

Also, one more thing to add if anyone is wondering… JetBeam and Fenix info in case you were wondering if they were using “Chinese plastics” in their PA40 and LD40… I doubt they would use “American plastics” being Chinese companies.

http://www.jetbeamlight.com/AboutUs.asp

http://www.fenixlight.com/About.aspx?ID=1
http://www.fenixlight.com/Rongyuss.aspx?id=1

98

I apologize for the long post that this is going to be.

Up until recently we didn't bother carrying any budget lights for the exact reason of what's going on now. We already knew that budget lights could vary wildly in quality and wouldn't be perfect solutions since they would lack features like thermal stepdown and other things in more expensive brands. Since people have been constantly asking us to carry cheaper lights we started off that sector of our website with Convoys and have gained nothing but problems since then. Our first and only lesson should have been with the tolerance issues in the battery tubes of specific Convoy models and when less-than-enthusiast customers bought the Convoys without realizing the amount of heat they could generate without thermal protection. We were plagued with returns of people complaining that their thicker 18650s couldn't fit in a light already known to have fitment tolerance margins and with constant requests for us to hand pick lights for them that did fit, leaving us with flashlights that no one really wanted. In retrospect these were things we probably should have predicted would happen being a US based seller with a higher expected standard of customer service or satisfaction. The SA-22 we rationalized was a safe light since it was manufactured by BlackShadow with a record of good quality budget lights like the BS Terminator. Our initial impressions of the light were favorable, we noted the possibility that people could be confused by that battery carrier but saw that the head could only be inserted in one orientation based on the different sized holes in the plastic:

That, combined with the black plastic ring on one of the two contacts of the head as a physical reverse polarity protection, would be enough of an indicator, in our opinion, on how to insert the batteries. We had also debated the plastic against metal threads and reasoned that while it's certainly possible for customers to cross-thread them accidentally, we shouldn't receive too many problems with that. For the person who said that we didn't bother sending out a review unit because of how poor quality the product is, simply stated I haven't had the time to pay attention to everything with other work eating up most of my day. Another point has been that the runtimes for the light have been overstated, however, following ANSI standards (which I believe is a flawed standard) the light performs as stated, ANSI standards for runtime (Runtime is defined as the amount of time, rounded to the nearest quarter hour, until output drops below 10%.) As such, I have arranged to have the SA-22 in its original version to be reviewed by JohnnyMac with no pressure or strings for an honest review. Still now I stand by our decision to sell the light, especially under our budget designation. In light of current events and past experiences we'll be discontinuing our budget offerings on lights after the current inventory runs out or until demonstrated that we have an inordinate amount returns or issues with any of the models. For other people who have purchased the SA-22, I ask that you post your experience whether good or bad for me to gauge exactly how widespread the problem is. Of course if your light is defective or if you're dissatisfied with the light you can email me to process a return or exchange. Customer service and satisfaction has and always will be the highest priority and concern of ours.

99

Thanks for your response and dedication to your customers, Calvin. Another reason why I’m glad I bought it from you guys. I honestly haven’t experienced any problems with this light in the short time I’ve had it. I’ve played with through two cycles of batteries and haven’t noticed anything wrong with it. Regarding the threading, I just have to be extra careful when starting to turn it. I do a quarter counter clockwise turn before I tighten each time and I haven’t mis-threaded yet. It’s certainly not perfect, just requires you to be much more careful compared to other full aluminum lights. Overall, I’ve had a positive experience when I understand that the perspective I need to take into consideration is that it’s a budget light option.