XTAR WK50 CREE R5 LED 150Lm Mini AA Ni-MH Flashlight

This looks like a good edc at a reasonable price. Anyone have one?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/301598192890?\_trksid=p2060353.m1431.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT
Jerry

cheap but no warranty, and if people start bidding on it …. good luck.
http://www.xtardirect.com/search?type=product&q=wk50

I actually have one of these little lights.

That eBay price would actually be a steal, considering I paid three times as much at the XTAR store down the street.

The XTAR store up the street claim that they don’t do refunds, but offer exchange or store credit.

The eBay listing you showed, above, claims free repairs, for up to two years; and they’ll only charge for parts, if it goes beyond the two years. I think that’s reasonable.

I guess it depends where you buy the light, what kind of warranty you’ll be receiving…?

I won one of their auctions thinking I was getting all three lights… duh. But after I got it I liked it so much I bought three more. They run 14500’s just fine, very floody beam… drop in a Nichia, finagle a pocket clip… perfect.

If you miss out, Tinywind is also having a sale of the XTAR WK50, I don’t know how reliable Tinywind are but $15.59 seems like a good deal

I have three these (had 4 til I lost one :( ). They are a good light. Forward clicky and a good amount of light out of a very small package. Can't say much about modding because the switch can easily be destroyed (as per review on BLF and visually inspecting it). I was tempted to send on to Dale to throw a very "wittle" driver in it BUT the light is worthless ...can't see it in a $3 light. Yes I did say $3. I troll Ebay and bid up to $3 (first one I got stupid when looking for Xeno) and bid $11. I will not pay $11 again (don't think they are worth that) but I do bid up to $3 and walk away and sometimes I get lucky.

Do they really run the 14500's? I have only used the AA because that is all I was able to see and even with AA they are still useful. Was there any difference with the 14500?

ChibiM got me into looking at AA lights and I am glad he did :) Take a look at the the Eagle Eye F05 (??). Banggood used to sell them about $20 or less. I regret not getting one or two...and haven't asked if they have anymore but I can say for certain it would be a much more quality light.

I have a grey and a pink one of these from an eBay seller. Ihad no idea 14500 would work . Too scared to try myself. I give these away to family members when I find them on sale.

14500 no prob, I’d say high is in the 375 range. Gets pretty hot after two mins, just have to be wary to click it down. I got all mine for $5 to $8.

Very cool!! Thank you!

As I said earlier...before a paid more than a few dollars for one of these I would look at the

Eagle Eye F05

or the SolarForce Z2 or the SolarForce Z1

These are great little lights.
Hard to touch for the quality and money.

My WK50 is much brighter on high than my two WK41 both with nimh batteries. They are both rated for 150 lumens with nimh. Anyone else notice this? Maybe because the WK50 driver isn’t rated for 14500?

I bought several of these about 4 weeks ago, at $7.50 each . I was impressed with the factory rating of 80 hours, on moonlight mode. I just tested mine on a fully charged eneloop battery 2000 mah…my runtime on moonlight mode was only 28 hours. Very poor performance, and this may be why they are so low in price. If the factory runtimes were accurate, this would be 1 of the best LED flashlight deals around.

I thought someone did a runtime test and it was much higher.
But what matters is which battery did they use. There are higher mah batteries out there.

Sorry that it didn’t meet your expectation on one test, but they work fine for us!

It was noted in another thread… That member only tested it with a 2000 mah eneloop. Xtar rates its run times using nimh as well as alkaline. So there is a good possibility it meets low mode run time specs with an Alkaline cell.

Were also ignoring the fact that eneloop cell actual capacity many times is less than 2000 mah, and nimh in general loses capacity over time. Especially if the user is in the regular habit of totally depleting them down to 0V.

I used a fully charged 2000 MAH eneloop , right off the charger { and I slow charged it} . I got 28 hours at 3 lumens . Factory ratings claim 80- hours . Maybe a alkaline will get that, but I would be surprised.

How bright is the light after 28hrs?

If XTAR are using ANSI FL1 doesn’t it only have to be at 10% of original output to meet the standard?

around the 28th hour, it was done. No light at all.

Can anyone with this light and a multimeter just measure the tailcap current? (Although the lumen output is still in question.)

3 lms for 80 hours from a 2450mah Eneloop Pro is certainly feasible. I have a Quark XPG2 right here that’s pulling 34 ma at 3 lms (~72hrs from 2450mah) and something with less strict regulation can do better. I have a number of older 3 lm lights I have runtime tested to ~50hr on 2000mah Eneloops, incl. the L3 L10 that only specs 30hrs.

Capacity loss on an aged cell is a fair point - you can only test that with a smart charger like the MH C9000 with discharge function. Unregulated steady decline to 10% output is also a good point, and something I have forgotten with my mostly regulated mid-priced lights.

I highly doubt Xtar is using an Alkaline for its low runtime specs though. The small advantage to be gained on low mode runtime vs an 2450mah Eneloop Pro would be way more than offset by the loss of runtime on the higher modes …. unless of course, Xtar may be cherry picking batteries for their specs. A new alkaline would, however, eliminate the aged Eneloop condition variable.

I’ll have to backpedal now and admit that this can easily go either way. As I mentioned earlier, Xtar’s other mode specs (<200 lm-hrs) are rather conservative if you consider a 2450 NiMh.

The light uses a pretty old XPG R5
With an XPG3 S5 it would gain 35% runtime or lumens

It also depends if the light has real 3 lumens or more