Nitecore EA81 8xAA flashlight

I understand flashlight with Ni-MH is great combination, especially for long period in-vehicle storage due to its low self-discharge property. For emergency or general vehicle light, I would prefer something more floody than thrower. I have enough chargers for at least twenty 18650, but that does not mean that I will enjoy the charging process, carrying boxes of batteries and constantly figuring out which batteries are fully charge later. Moreover, quality Eneloop batteries are as expensive as 18650 in my country.

Sadly, this reminds me that I will need to buy Ni-MH to replace my aging Eneloop for my 4x camera speedites by the end of the year.

They say you should never leave LiIon batteries charging unattended. Well Iā€™m damned if Iā€™m going to spend my life watching batteries charge. NiMH can be left alone quite safely, and I can happily keep the charger indoors, in my server cupboard without fear that my house will burn down. 8xAA is fine. The only issue is the weight, a torch + 8AA is not light, no pun intended. But it is manageable for general use.

In my car I haveā€¦

ā€¦ and now side by side with its predecessorā€¦

The D80A with the predecessor of the EA4

For charging eight Eneloops AAā€¦ No problemo for meā€¦ I have several NC-MDR02NU.

If we can get a good priceā€¦ I want one.

P.D.: in my country are hard to find Eneloopā€¦

There is always exceptions. SWM's design looks way more sexier.

In Europe you can get legitimate loops from the bay pretty cheap.

Fujitsu LSD and Duracell Duralock 2450mAh cells are the high capacity Eneloops, but be careful as some Duracells are Chinese, as are some Eneloops!

Antiparanoico: since you too own a D80a, what is the low brightness level on yours like? Do you reckon it is about 30 lumens as claimed or more?

Looks impressive, however, not sure that I would need one because I already own EA8, which I rarely use simply because I rarely need flashlights :D!

And yet your post count is 2038! :slight_smile:

It is 2039 now, but I still dont need this flashlight :D!

8 x Eneloop (the XXX 2450 ones) and you are good to go :slight_smile:

Will add another 2c of mineā€¦

Same here, bought D40A, EA8W, BA20 to get the most out of NiMh chemistry and then started slowly crawling into Li territory with A60 and now S2+ and some others :)!

Still, IMHO, cant go wrong with so much power in 8xAA size! Love my EA8W, even though, just like most of my lights, it has seen very little use, in fact, the least of them all :D!

Interesting thing is that even though EA81 has more than twice the lumens of EA8, it still lacks in throw and has less peak lux than EA8!

If you have at least two good, fast charging 4 slot chargers, your set ;)!
I dont see people with i4 charger complaining when charging their lithium batteries in all four slots at 350mA speed ;)!
So, dont see a problem with charging 8 NiMhā€™s with two good chargers here :D!

Been thinking today, how good can EA8 be at modding? Would like to squeeze as much as possible out of this thrower on AAā€™s :)!

Heres a tear down post and mod post of the EA8 by Old Lumens.

Thanks for those, I guess it will take a while for me to get to modding it, I was thinking something more simpler than that, simply replacing LED with never one and depending on LED's requirements might take a look into replacing driver.

It would be much easier to do, if not for head that cant be unscrewed the normal way :D!

Basically Im looking at modding it with off the shelf components with little soldering involved and definitely nothing hardcore, yet improving throw considerably.

Is that real?

Anyone did a review on the ea81? Iā€™m about to buy one or the EAX.

I would go with the EA81 over the EAX.I have the EAX and the beam is really strange. The spill looks like Mickey Mouse ears! I just got an EC4S and Nitecore did a good job of getting ride of the death cross that is common to quad die emmiters.I would assume that the beam for the EA81 is simmilar if not a bit throwier with the larger reflector.

Thanks for the heads up. The EA81 is cheaper too, but donā€™t have the voltage readout thingy.

from the user manual of the EA81

Ohā€¦.good to know. Thanks.

I took one from Gearbest on good price. Like it more than EA8.
Everything is fine with light except visible cross in center of hotspot.