Review and modding of Manker Quinlan T01

I received the Manker Quinlan T01 for the review from GearBest.

*Manker’s spec
*CREE XPL-HI LED.
-Max Lumen Output: 500LM (drive byEneloop Pro NI-MH battery).
-Max Lumen Output: 900LM (drive by Lithium Battery 14500).
-Peak beam intensity: 10,000 cd (drive by Eneloop Pro NI-MH battery).
-Peak beam intensity: 20,000 cd (drive by Lithium Battery 14500).
-Beam distance: 925ft/ 282m.
-Size:Length 84mm Head Diameter 29MM Tail Diameter 20mm
-Machine from aerospace grade solid aluminum bar.
-HA III MIL-Standard hard anodized,original color.
-IPX-8 waterproof standard of up to 2 meters/6.6 feet.
-Impact resist up to 2 meters/6.6 feet

The T01 comes in a cardboard box, inside there is the light (the clip is pre installed), spare o-ring, lanyard and manual. Everything is in place by white foam.


The T01 (1xAA, 1x14500), the little brother of the Quinlan U11 (1x18650, 2xCR123). !http://i1024.photobucket.com/albums/y309/Budda_CPF/Manker%20Quinlan%20T01/Manker_Quinlan_T01_07_zps0xilnmkl.jpg

If you have a machine that is capable of size reduction and you use it on the body of the U11, you will get the T01. Even the led is “smaller”: from an XP-L to XP-L Hi, but the size of the heads are comparable.


Head differences

The T01 doesn’t have the micro usb for charging the battery, feature that the U11 has; the same for the blue led under the switch.

I got the black T01 version, there is another version with a “natural” anodization colour, that I’ve seen in person and looks great.

The light is smaller but the switch can be found easily in the dark, and you can’t turn on by mistake.

The light is well built. As the U11, body is made of a single piece of aluminium, and has the same design for the pocket clip (which I like a lot). On the T01 the clip is stronger and require more pressure to be clipped all the way on thick clothes like jeans.

The smooth reflector can make the T01 (left) still throw a lot with the XP-L Hi intensity emitter.

The U11 has a matte finish anodization, while the T01 has a more shiny one, like the MH27.

At the tailcap, golden spring and anodized threads (so you can lock out the light).

I have a MH20, I think it many members own one.

The UI is identical to the one of the U11, the difference is the lack of dragon breath mode (since you have not blue led under the switch). I described in depth the UI of the U11 here.
So, here you still have 4 levels (low, med, hi, turbo), that you can program. As with the U11, you can choose between an advanced (where you can access to these modes and all the strobe/blinking/battery indicating/programming features) and a simple mode (4 levels + 3 strobe modes).

The T01 is one of the few single AA, capable of getting a lot of lumens from a single AA nimh battery. You always have the choice of running it with a 14500 IMR, almost doubling the output.
Currently, I don’t own any 14500 battery, and the only AA Nimh I have are some Duracell Stay Charged 2000mAh, that were rebranded eneloop when I bought them few years ago.
Thus said, I am really impressed by how much light can the T01 produce from a simple (and old) nimh battery: in other review they measured around 500 lumens with a eneloop pro battery. You’ll need an IMR 14500 to get the 900 lumens turbo mode, but even with a regular 14500 you should have a good increment in output.

These are Manker’s specs:

On my sample I got a preflash at L1.

Finally I managed to measure the output with decent accuracy.

So, now I can use the lumen in the Y scale of the graph, instead of the usual %.

*Beamshots
*Smooth reflector and a XP-L Hi makes the little T01 a great thrower, but the beam is still good at closer distance (no relevant imperfections) and very usable: I measured lux/m with my luxmeter, and I got 13360 Cd at T3.
Beamshot taken at 1 m from the wall.

*Runtime
*

Very good regulation for all tested levels.

*My thoughts
*I carried the T01 for some days and used it many times.
For most EDC uses (at least, for mine), brightness of 2-300 lumens are enough, especially if you have a throwy beam (wide beams may require 5-10 times the light of a throwy beam to illuminate not so close distances). With the manker T01 you have 500 lumen at turbo, more than enough imho, and still have plenty runtime and level spacing for all the situations.
I like the small size (keep in mind that I am used to carry 18650 cell based lights) and the throwy beam.

The UI, compared to the one of the U11, is a bit simpler because of the lack of dragon breath. Still, you have to be careful to not make a double click, or you’ll end up in strobe mode; you can’t directly access to turbo mode, only to low.
The switch I similar to the one of the U11, but with shorter run. I prefer the one of the T01.

Apart from the UI, which some may like, the only downside I can find in this light is the pre-flash at the lower level, L1.

If you are looking for a compact thrower with great output for a nimh AA battery, with programmable modes and flat regulation this is the only light I know.

Sample for the review was provided by GearBest.
Thanks to AntoLed for lending me the camera and the luxmeter.
Thanks for reading.

EDIT: check out the 3rd post of this review thread to see the modding of the T01.

Nice review great pictures and comparison to other lights.
Can you explain more about “pre-flash at lower level” I ’m not sure , do you see a burst of light then low level?

Hello Paul, yes. if you set Low level at L1, the light when comes on has a brief flash (at L2 or L3 brightness), and then it stays on at L1 brightness. If you set it at L2 or L3, I don’t have any preflash.

Since I’m not a fan of CW lights, I decided to mod the T01 with a warmer emitter.
I had some XP-L Hi 4000K… I usally edc lights around 3400K, but 4000K is better than CW.

Untwist the bezel, remove reflector, unscrew led baseplate from pill and lift it with tweezers.

Now, desolder the cables from the baseplate, reflow the XP-L Hi CW with the NW one: I used a heat gun for removing the older emitter, and a 50W soldering station for soldering the new emitter (my heat gun tossed around the new emitter too much when it was just laying on the baseplate).
Solder back the cables to the baseplate and check the light. It’s working, so just add a small amount of thermal paste on the baseplate (I used EC1 and it would be better to add it on the pill).

Put back the baseplate in place on the pill using the screws provided, and reassemble the light.

Before

After

I’m pleased with the result.

Thanks for the review and modding information.

With a single short click, the U11 comes on in moonlight mode. Does your T01 do the same?

The T01 is a fantastic light. Lots of output for a 14500 !

Nice review, lots of nice images - thanks! Just one short note, one of your images (after the third one) was not correctly inserted with the image code and you only see the link.

K.

i received my t01 few days ago, im very satisfy but it wan’t run with my keppower 14500 lion cells…

Yep, cells have to be less than ~51mm long.

I’d suggest Sanyo UR14500P 840mAh for max run time or Windyfire 14500 IMR 600mAh for max output.

Fixed, thanks.

For you BLF guys, nothing really new is said in this video, but you can still admire the light moving in my hands while I delight you with my english.