Another cheap , decent built and good looking budget priced light Ultrafire F17 for review courtesy of Jane from www.tinydeal.com
Some Flasholics snobs here at BLF might swore that they’re not buying whatever has Ultrafire name in it.
Sure… their batteries are known to be sucks but most of their lights are decent and bright enough and most are within budget price of below $20.
Product Specifications from the website
- LED Type: CREE XML-U2 ( I received mine in XM-L2 with XM-L U2 star )
- Brightness: 1200 lumens
- Modes: 5
- Mode Arrangement: Hi > Mid > Low > Fast Strobe > SOS
- Input Voltage 3.6-4.5V
- Power Supply: 1 x 18650 battery (Battery Not included)
- Switch Type: Click
- Switch Location: tail cap
- Color: black as shown in the picture
- Net Weight: 116g/ 4.09oz
- Size: 140 x 32 x 32mm/ 5.51 x 1.26 x 1.26in
The one that started me collecting flashlights in the beginning was their Ultrafire 502B, which to this date I believe it’s still a nice EDC and tossable light, something that you don’t mind to give it away when a good non flasholic friend ask you for it :bigsmile:
I believe their C8 is the most bought of all lights, and I’m sure more than 90% of Us here in BLF has owned,bought or gift C8 at one time or another, especially these days when you can buy C8 for less than $10.
Last year there’s hardly any light dollar for dollar that cost less than $18 price range that can beat Lightmalls C8 XM-L2 in term of output.
But now the other company such as Yupard is entering the game with even lower price and with decent output ( more on those lights later on in another review)
After collecting insane amount of flashlights, the thrill for me is a not about buying expensive flashlights such as Nitecore or Fenix and expect them to be worth their money right out of the box ( which usually they do ) but rather buying cheap lights and every now and then you find surprises that with simple mod it can be such an enjoyable light. Worth X times more than other famous brand name.
Seems like this budget price Trustfire F17 fit the bill just fine
It’s an attractive light favored by most at recent giveaway on this BLF thread
The PROs :
- Good looks
- Nice size
- Budget price
- Good heat transfer and driver is easy to mod
- XM-L2 LED
- No PWM noise on all modes
The Cons:
- Nicks and dings on the light ( very typical in this price of range due to poor shipping and handling)
- Low output
- 5 Modes including strobes :Sp ( although it came with 300K resistor on top of the diode so it always start on HIGH)
- Clip that come off easily
- Plastic reflector ( doesn’t bother me as it won’t cause short ) however mine came with specks of dust in it
Please let me apologize for all the bad quality pictures as it was taken with my Samsung note 2 cellphone camera, I think my 3 yr old niece hide my camera somewhere when she visited me last weekend
Let’s take a look at comparison lights that similar in size
Ultrafire 504B on the left and Ultrafire F17 on the right
UF F17 and Crelant 7G2CS
First impression of this light, it is a nice looking light and it has nice solid feels to it just as their UF 502B light.
I love surprises…even though the website says it’s XM-L U2, mine came with XM-L2 LED on 20mm XM-L U2 star.
Unfortunately it doesn’t come with any thermal grease under the star but no hollow pill here !
LED is sit deep on a thick insulation gasket with plastic reflector ( there’s specks of dust inside the reflector :weary: ) held by a ring.
Seems like as I suspected that most lights in this category price range under $16 always come with slight nicks and dings ( maybe due to poor shipping and handling? )
Driver is 20mm with no PWM noise on all modes and can easily boost the output by adding more resistors to it ( I’m no expert in this… can anybody chime in on this? )
Beamshots
I was hoping maybe this light has a good output or at least close to C8’s output which is about 700 - 900 lumens.
Alas no luck here as this light was driven very conservatively for non flasholic crowd as in the same output as Ultrafire 502B, which is bright enough most crowd whose not into flashlights
But lucky for us the driver can be is easily boosted with simple mod such as adding resistors and copper braids the springs.
Here’s the beam shots comparison between Ultrafire WF-504B on the left with 2.8A Nanjg 105c driver and stock UF17
As you can see there’s no competition here as Ultrafire F17 draw about 1A ( my guesstimate as my DMM is running out of battery )
Distance to the wall is about 5’ and the Luxmeter is set to X100Lux.
I don’t know exactly what’s the correct way to calculate the LUX…these numbers are just for comparison between the lights
Second… Ultrafire WF- 504B with 2.8A driver
Third… Crelant 7G2CS NW ( another disappointment for light with premium price |( )
So I decided to play around with the resistors and added R220 and another R220… but wait why stop there? why not just add another R220 on it? J)
Booo… Bad moves as these decision was poorly made at 3 am in the morning when I should be sleeping by then , not too mention without using DMM to check the Amp as it ran out of battery, sadly the LED went poof… no smoke, no light just quietly poof :_(
Well… lucky for me I found some 20mmXM-L2 U2 1A LED on Noctigon copper ( my last one :weary: )
Added Artic Silver 5 to the pill and changed the wires to 22AWG and copper braided the spring and added 1 R220 and 1 R330 resistors to the driver. ( sorry forgot to take the pic and I’m too lazy to unsolder the driver again )
And took out the insulation gasket, who need it anyway since it’s a plastic reflector
Beam shot with Samsung 20R
Comparison shot between UF 504B with 2.8A driver on the left and UF-17 with 1 R220 resistor added to the driver
Comparison shot between UF 504B with 2.8A driver and UF-17 with XM-L2 U2 1A on noctigon and 1 R220 and 1 R330 added to the driver and copper braided the spring.
Before and After beam shots
Not bad at all…with simple mods it can boost the output almost 4X the stock output. But can we push it harder? I’m pretty sure some BLFer here willing to do that for the fun of it.
But for me it’s good enough as I think it reach about over 3A :quest:
Now it is really a wonderful light that can be had for about $16 for those people whose on the budget and don’t want to spend more $$$ to mod this light .
Even if you don’t want to change the stock XM-L2, you could just add 1 R220 it will boost the stock output significantly.
I definitely recommended this light if you can oversee very small imperfections as mentioned above.
Especially when compared to what I think is a over priced Crelants or Solarforce lights ( I know I will draw heat on this )
While they both do make beautiful lights but their output always been horrible to me compare to cheap lights and not to mention they make it harder to mod their light as most of them are glued
The good news
Edit I-e-mailed Jane from Tinydeal for group buy price and she agreed to give us coupon code for group buy but now seems like they have decided to just lower the price to avoid the hassle with the coupon code
I’m not trying to shill for them but for $12? and with the out put more than Crelant 7G2CS or Solarforce L2M with the simple resistor mod? you have to give credit where it’s due, it’s no brainer to buy one or two and put one in glove container or for gift
Bonus pic
As it turns out the Fenix diffuser fit this light too ( just add a rubber band for extra tight fit )