REVIEW: Manker Nichia AAA Keychain light aka "Boney" PIC HEAVY

The post referenced in my initial paragraph on the “other” forum was fairly substantial abuse. Plain and simple abuse, and two of the four lights survived…. The Fenix E01 and the Klarus Mi02, which now looks to be discontinued. I like to be cheap about things, and when I saw the Manker AAA at 30-50% less than the others, figured I would try it out. I was very pleasantly surprised, and with a minimum of time, have an almost perfect light for long term storage/intermittent use…

As far as the time spent “polishing” the reflector and LED with a green scotchbrite pad, about one minute. This was after a minute of sanding the LED lower with 400 grit wet dry paper, so it does not stick out of the head. I picked up some #60 O-rings ( 1/4” OD X 1/8” ID X 1/16” thick) in a big box store and slipped one over the LED when I popped it out, another minute. The light now builds up pressure, so it seems it is fully waterproof and the beam is whiter and more of a flood with the Three minutes of work done.

I tested the pressure build up by cooling the body in the freezer for a few minutes, then without a battery in the light, putting it together until tight. I then backed the head off about 1/4 turn like it was in the “off” setting and put a heat gun to it for a minute until almost too hot to handle. I then proceeded to unscrew the head and heard a “Pfffht” or burp once I got the head close to coming over the large sealing O-ring behind the threads… It did not do this without the additional #60 O-ring I put on.

The mods I described in the original post are complete. I sanded the LED down to just below flush with the edges of the head, then polished the LED/Reflector area with a green scotchbrite pad for a minute or two. I further polished it with one of those Mr. Clean Magic Erasers for another minute or so. I had to go by a big box store and in the plumbing section I bought a box of #60 O-rings that fit perfectly on the led (tight, but not too tight), now the light is fully sealed…. It kind of reminds me now of the old joke about what do a Walrus and Tupperware have in common? They both like a tight seal… :wink: So here are some pics….


The LED showing the “frosting” from the Scotchbrite and the position of the O-Ring, you can see the not so domed end on the LED where I sanded it shorter too.


The O-rings, if anyone is interested. Check the plumbing section…


The new beam angle shot, much floodier, and the rings have all but disappeared from the original beam-shot!


The close in beam shot, from maybe 14 inches this time, quite a bit more of a practical flood for this kind of light, the camera settings were the same as the original post beam-shots. It seems much whiter to my eyes and the camera is pretty close to what I was seeing.


The WIDE beam shot, taken from the same distance from the wall as the original post (about 4 feet). The beam is wider and brighter after the mods. I cropped the original beam-shot as the area around the light spill was dark on the same camera settings. I left this one un-cropped and now you can see the broom handles as well as all of the door that you could not in the original beam-shot. The mods have really improved this little light, which was good to begin with, and now it will reside with a Lithium Primary on my key chain for the foreseeable future.

If you are new to flashlights and want to do your first mod, try this little light, much fun and a great return on the mods for its useability. If I should decide to torture test this little bugger, I will update here with what I do to it. Thanks for reading!

nice!

thanks for sharing!

Cool mod for a 5mm led.

Nice to see a remove able metal pill, many of this type are plastic with easily bent/broken contact tabs. Should be possible to ream the head for a 10-12mm optic or reflector( I’d go with an optic to avoid also needing a lense) with a 10mm SinkPad and one or two 7135’s on the back. Was the 10440 a flat top or button top? Some AAA lights can only make + with a button top cell.

The 10440 was a button top and the design of this would probably not have made contact with a flat top as it goes toward the base of the body. I agree with being able to ream the head, and there is some substantial metal in there ( for a light this small ) that would make modding like you outline possible… Perhaps in the future when I have time, I will “hot rod” one of these… would be cool to get a relative boatload of lumen out of this light for a minute of runtime… LOL

The pill is pretty solid, the next ones I got in had them glued with a bit of clear threadlocker and it took some “end of sharpie” pressure to break them free, but no issues after that. The first one just pushed out with fingertip pressure. I am really liking this for what it is, plus the shape just molds into my hand…

HA, but it does take two 10180’s with room to spare… hmmmmm

Nice light for not a lot of money. Thanks for the review!

Took it camping this weekend and found out I will be continuing to carry this little budget gem… I had it on the keyring and would use it to walk around the campsite by hanging the keys inside the shirt collar (t-shirt) with the light outside pointing down, worked great, I am really liking this little light. It gave plenty of light in a truly dark place that I could look for firewood, walk around and see what and where I was going and even seemed much too bright in the shelter if there were no other lights on… Comfortably brighter than my DQG 18650 Tiny III on low mode…

I was playing with the light at work, drop testing it. About 5 feet onto concrete several times ( I had done this a few other times) and the light quit… Now I get to cut apart the pill to see whats inside, and have a host for modding this little light. I have to say, it took quite a bit of nonchalant torture prior to giving up. At less than 6 bucks I bought it for, still impressive.

Now what to do with this light for modding. Any suggestions?

Awwww.
One drop and it dies
have you asked the place you got it whether they’ll replace it?
EDIT, my mistake, multiple drops

That shouldn’t happen for a “cockroach — survive everything” light.

Aside — for anyone trapped in a longtime dark with a little AAA light, I recall Gransee of Arc Flashlight pointing out that at least for his Arc AAA, once the battery is down to where it’s doing a “moonlight” — you’d get more light by leaving it on continuously from then on, instead of turning it off — because turning the driver back on was more of a drain on the cell than the minimal moonlight drain.

Not sure that generalizes to this light, but as a general counterintuitive notion.

Its always the last drop that gets it… It was by far above 20 drops from about five feet before it died. I have some time at work waiting on things to complete, so I fiddle with the lights I am carrying. The last few weeks it has been this one, and initially I dropped it from about shoulder height accidentally, so it lived and I continued to drop it. Initial drop was onto office hall tile (linoleum?) and most of the rest (accidental and purposeful) were onto epoxied concrete.

This thing never stopped producing light, I ran out of patience actually on one 7 year old “new” battery. The lumen would get below one, then when turned off, it seemed the battery recovered some and you had 3 or so lumen (decreasing steadily) for half the time the light was off roughly before the light was as dim as before. It did not quit making light, I ran out of patience.

FWIW, you can probably fix your CMG Infinity by hitting it with a hammer.

Seriously.

Get a straight slot screwdriver, place it strategically by the threads around the driver, and tap it with a hammer. Here’s how it looks after four taps:

The issue is that the driver loses contact with the body, and by deforming the body a bit you can restore contact. Quick, easy fix, and then it’ll probably perform as it was originally intended.

OTOH, mine was only about a lumen of light and had a tint of like 8500K. It was cool fifteen years ago, but now I just don’t really care about a lousy blue lumen, even if it’s bulletproof.

That is probably what happened to mine… It is long gone now. Nice work on yours, if only this forum had been around back then…. I agree on the output, mine was at the most a couple of lumen, but it beat lighting a candle or the heavy incandescent lights of the time for what I wanted. It and a spare AA would have given a week of light all night, spectacular for the time. I used mine for about a year before it just gave up the ghost, maybe three AA’s digested by it.

How hard do you think it’d be to replace that LED? I’m thinking my favorite PC Amber Rebel, if I can get a 10mm Sinkpad in for that (not sure I can find that size for the Rebel, yet)

The “pill” and LED are one unit, so it looks like the entire assembly has to be replaced. When I have time, I will cut the old pill apart to see what is in there. For a rebuild, I am kicking around a joule thief idea, perhaps with a UV LED, just ideas at this stage…

Huh, so it’s just a section of tubing with everything “potted” making it a solid lump, you can’t pry out the board the LED is on, nor the board the spring is on, to get inside that thing?

So any piece of plumbing copper might replace that whole pill?

Yup, this could be fun to mod…

Good review. Thanks man :slight_smile:

Thanks for review :D!

Will buy couple of these, cant be beat for the price as I was looking at these cockroach lights and read that CPF thread the other day!

Also, looking forward your rebuild posts folks, really tempted to replace original LED with something with either warm tint and/or red and UV ones!