AstroLux A01 AAA Nichia 219B Review - Winner winner, chicken dinner. An excellent, Neutral tint High CRI LED keychain light!

A pair of these, in black!

If you take the pill out, you can shave the foam doughnut down a bit, it is pretty stiff EVA foam. I did not have any that were stronger than the spring, but I can see that may be an issue. The other thing would be if you pulled the spring out and put a small bit of foam or other squishy material under the spring to make it stronger…

Took this junky pic of the emitter on the pill (cleaned with alcohol prior to putting it back in…lol) and it is a 219B-V1….

Hi, thanks for the review! Just got my (first one, few more pending in group buy) today, and I have to say I’m not impressed at all. Tint is great, of course, and most of it feels great in my hand. But the emitter is noticeably off center, there are a few tiny imperfections in the reflector, and the machining around the lanyard hole left painfully sharp edges. I could either fix or forgive those things, especially on a $9 light.
However, the twisty switch on mine is extremely finicky. It skips modes, repeats modes, jumps to strobe inconsistently, doesn’t turn on consistently with the amount of twist, and tightening it all the way reliably turns it off . Huh? I’m no stranger to small twisty lights: among others, I own an old Fenix EO1, an ITP EOS A3, I’ve EDC’d a Fenix LD15 for many years, and never had problems like these before.
I assume most of this behavior in the AO1 is due to problems with the foam donut in the head and/or the spring in the tail. The foam isn’t visibly overlapping the contact ring around the circumference of the driver, so I don’t think it’s blocking electrical contact from the body. Foam seems glued down anyway, so I’m not sure how that’d be adjustable. I know loose tail springs can cause problems, but I don’t see how it’d explain the fact that it turns off when I tighten the head all the way. Anyone else seeing similar (mis)behavior? Any suggestions? If I need to stretch the tail spring, how do I reach down the tube and grip it?
I was hoping to gift this, but don’t want to if it’s going to be this flaky.

One other interesting note - it has a noticeably warmer tint than my Nichia 219-equipped L3 L10, and it appears only a hair less bright than the L10. Not a complaint, just a point of reference in case it’s helpful.

Re: Finnicky Switch

Andy,

Intermittent contact might be caused by anodization. Try sanding or filing the edge.

See also:

Andyman,

That switching sounds terrible… Another member had the foam donut (reverse current protection) so stiff the light would not come on. Two ways to fix it I see are to back the pill out and shave the donut down about 1/3 to 1/2 as tall to ease contact, or pull the spring in the tail and drop in a stiff chunk of foam to beef up the spring push…

Speculation, if you tighten the head all the way, and the light goes off, the foam donut is pushing the + off the driver because it is stronger than the tailspring…

A good clean and light sanding of the head would be in order too, but off all of this is too big of a deal, just get a hold of Banggood and see if you can get them to fix or replace it.

The comparisons are cool, I do not have this other lights you do, so thanks for this comparisons…

The group buy should address the tail attachment point issues, but the included split ring works…

1dash1 and ReManG, thanks for the tips!

I got a few pictures: first, the off-center emitter - worst I’ve seen.

WRT anodization at the edge, I didn’t see anything other than grease at the edge (see pic below), but I cleaned and filed it on a fine diamond file anyway (sorry, no “after” picture). After filing it looks a lot nicer, but doesn’t work any better. Ah, well, I appreciate the suggestion, and it’s a good thing to watch for in the future!

WRT the donut, I don’t have tools at work to remove the pill, but I might work on that tonight. It doesn’t really seem like a too-stiff or too-thick donut is the problem, though, since the light comes on easily, and (usually) changes modes way too easily, sometimes accidentally cycling through 2 or 3 modes with one twist. If the donut were too stiff, I can see the light not coming on at all, or only coming on with a very firm tightening. Mine still goes off with a firm tightening. That’s the only consistent thing about this light. scratch_one-s_head (<— Edit - that’s supposed to be a confused smiley, not random bold text…)

Very glad to hear the group buy ones will have an updated tail attachment point! :slight_smile: Assuming my switching issues are a rare defect, that’s my only other real gripe with the light. Sure, aluminum would be easy to sand or file, but then there’d be a bare/un-anodized spot on a brand new light. Maybe inevitable on a user light, but I prefer my anodizing to wear off gradually, as a result of pocket carry and many adventures!
Hoping I just got a dud, because this should be a really nice light!

Wow, that is off center! I did that with one I had removed the pill and I put it back in. The insulator/spacer for the LED is flat on one side, and an inverted cone on the other. The inverted cone side goes toward the reflector, it has to be flat on the MCPCB or it seems to cock over easily. I fixed I by backing it off and tapping until centered and re tightening. It took two or three attempts.

I still think the foam donut is too firm… Perhaps a few dozen squish downs with the back of a marker or something will work. The donut is just a reverse polarity protection, so it would work without it, or shaved down… Otherwise there may be something wrong with the driver…

ReManG wrote:

If you take the pill out, you can shave the foam doughnut down a bit, it is pretty stiff EVA foam. I did not have any that were stronger than the spring, but I can see that may be an issue. The other thing would be if you pulled the spring out and put a small bit of foam or other squishy material under the spring to make it stronger...

Good suggestions. I was also thinking of just pre compressing the foam a bit to break it in. I forgot to mention, I really like the tint on these lights.

Got mine in today. No problems with mine. My first neutral tint. It’s different but not sure tint is going to be that important to me.

The neutral tints will grow on you…. Use it side by side with a CW tint light of about the same power… it is one more part of the addiction here…

The tint is great. I guess I was comparing it to output of other lights. The claim is 102 lumens on high. Comparing it to my other lights seems about as bright as an 70 or 80. Will have to run down a full battery and time it. If I get the runtime of a 70 that would be great. Heard neutral is less bright. Don’t know if that means the runtime of a 102 lumen and brightness of a 70?

High CRI LEDs are usually less efficient than low-CRI LEDs (such as standard cool white). The Nichia 219 is a high CRI LED, and also neutral white. This requires a different phosphor mix on the LED to achieve a more balanced spectrum of light, and that allows you to see colours much better.

There’s also less glare and reflection from humidity from warmer tints.

Generally, you can see better using a high CRI neutral white light, than you can with a low-CRI cool white light, at the same intensity of light. So, the lower efficiency is somewhat made up for the fact you don’t have to use it as brightly.

If you want to impress your friends, get a high-output cool-white Cree LED. If you want to see better, get a high CRI neutral white LED.

Arow55,

The visual brightness is what you perceive, the technical brightness is the measured lumen. There are issues measuring brightness that give me a “that’s it?” feeling with the warmer tints when comparing the light to the output numbers on paper… The thing is, they may not appear as bright, but they do not have as much glare and are easier on my eyes than the CW versions, I just like the light better. My throwers are all CW, just because of the absolute amount of lumen they put out, but lights like the A01 are just nicer with a warmer/neutral tint… I had thought about swapping out an XPL V6 3D into one to just see the difference… I just don’t have one of this sitting around, and then I have to build another light for the 219B… Lol

Well the less glare from humidity should come in real useful in the summertime here in Mississippi. Also might help with the dust as I live on a gravel road and when it’s dry the cars can stir up a lot of dust.

ReMan and ImA,
I finally got around to playing with this a little more. Shaved the donut (reduced thickness by about half), and while I didn’t think this was possible, it got even weirder. Now it’s a 1-mode light! Really - it doesn’t cycle through modes any more. It actually turns on a little more easily, and at least it’s consistent - the twisty does feel more “normal” and less finicky. But where did the modes go? It still turns off when I tighten the head all the way, but I have to tighten pretty hard for this to happen now - it doesn’t turn off with a normal finger-pressure tightening, only when I grip it harder and actually try.
Overall I have to say it’s improved, but I was hoping for a light with modes…
Is there someone here who represents BangGood that I can PM to hopefully get a replacement? Or would I be better off emailing their general CS contact?
Thanks!
Andy

Is it just me, or is this just poor quality control? I know the price is great, but this seems like sloppy workmanship.
When I carry a light, I like to feel confident it will work when I need it.

Zeet! Welcome to BLF!

People around here seem to like finicky lights. It gives them a reason to take them apart and put them back together. So much more satisfying than boring lights that just work right out of the box.

Ahhh. Now I understand. I thought there was something like that going on when someone seemed gleeful when referred to a tutorial on how to “reflow an LED”.
So if I get one of these little beauties, can I count on you all to help me get it to work right?

People live for that. They run out of lights to fix, so the next best thing is helping other people fix lights.

Andyman,

Sounds like a bad driver to me if that did not fix it…

Any light can have quality issues, this one too, so I hope these get fixed, it is a nice little light…