Hi guys, much to my enjoyment my HID came in today. While I wait for darkness to envelop I’m just admiring the massive size of it.
First impressions:
- - Not very heavy
- - Very large
- - When turned on, for the first few seconds the bulb changes colour from 4300k to 6000k and changes back and forth for about 5 seconds (came with a 6000k bulb).
- - Build quality is quite good.
- - Appears to be slightly brighter than my SkyRay King when shone against a wall, but I am yet to find out how far it throws.
- - Unlike some people the battery did not arrive ON. It arrived off, but wasn’t on full battery (somewhere from 10 to 90%, but not depleted).
After usage, some notes:
- - It survived 1.3 meters drop test onto a brick (usually I do concrete, but I missed :bigsmile: ), it had some minor scratches in the anodized metal and a small dent in the battery tube since the battery tube is kind of thin (attributes to it’s super light weight). Btw I don’t actually know if it’s anodized or not, but it’s a matte black that feels just like ano.
- - The head gets quite hot after a few minutes of turning on.
- - Because the reflector isn’t quite suited to the bulb, it’s kind of mismatched it doesn’t really throw that well (but still better than everything else I have currently).
- - It has insane usable spill, went down to the reserve to try it out and it pretty much lit up everything ~200 meters out in front of me along with having a small hotspot.
- - The “filter” it comes with is pretty crap, it cuts the output by about 35% (by my eye estimates). It also had some dirt on it when it arrived so I washed it only to find that 2 minutes later the yellow film over the glass was peeling (off to the garbage bin that goes!).
- - There’s no joke when I say that this is a powerful light, stupidly I nearly blinded myself from the spill by trying to see the bulb while it was on (d’oh!).
- - The focusing function is pretty useless. It doesn’t really work, all it does it change the shape of the hotspot. Although it does somewhat work, I try to find the most focused part since you can’t see as many artifacts in the beam that way.
Anyway, tonight I’ll decide if it’s worth the $133 I shelled out for it. —-> It is definitely worth the money, it destroys the King and my old Trustfire TR-1200 lights, and although you have to wait 15 or so seconds before it reaches maximum output if you buy this, you’re pretty much only going to use it for long periods of time (e.g. fishing, hiking etc.) and not use it to find your way in your house so it’s not a big issue.
When I get my STL V6 I’ll post more comparisons.
For now, here’s a comparison to the King and the TR-1200.
TR-1200:
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Skyray King:
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Aliexpress HID 85W:
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HID up top, King bottom left and TR1200 bottom right:
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It’s impressive the beam is visible on my phone camera :o
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Blinding the possums in my backyard :bigsmile:
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Currently I don’t own a camera with access to manual settings but I’ll next time I’ll try to get one. If you guys have any requests for any kind of beamshot I’ll try my best to get them for you.
Edit: sorry for taking so long, I couldn’t figure out how to post pictures! But i do now! 
Edit2: I just realised my camera settings were in ‘sunny’, so they appear to be all yellowish. The King and TR1200 are neutral tint, while the HID appears to have a somewhat warm tint after warming up. When first starting up it is quite blue though.
Edit3: Some pictures of the HID to get things into perspective:
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EDIT4: some more beamshots.
KING:
HID:
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KING:
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HID:
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KING:
HID:
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This is just a photo of the spill. Super wide angle - a lot of lost light. Even though it doesn’t have a very efficient throwing head it still manages to throw far due to sheer brightness.
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