it’s just another generic SK68 1 mode in the market.
but I got them for $2 in banggood so I wouldn’t care less
They look and feel good out of the box until your fingers touched the unfinished holes on the bottom side of the tailcap.
yep… they drilled them out but didn’t smooth out the drill marks
ugly cosmetics overall with misaligned pocket clip as well as misaligned nameplates on body.
The zoom works perfect without the need for cleaning
Massive wide lens as compared to all my sk68 clones
tailstands (doesn’t headstand)
The light heats up fast even on a nimh AA (as if running on 14500)
seems decent
easy to remove tailcap with a few light hammering
pill was super difficult to remove as the threads inside the body was dented badly gripping the pill (the tailcap threads were perfect though)
common one mode driver with common hollow pill with led star press fitted
my main question for making this review was to ask about these weird xpe
Very very ugly purple white. A common 5mm led would give a better color tint than these.
It’s definitely not xqe or xte. More of an xpe with excess phosphor
it appears to be similar to this odd emitter discussed here
My review ends here.
I was okay with what I purchased as I intended to do some modding on this light. But the quality was good enough so I saved up my emitters for other projects
For $2 (or $3 right now) it’s going into my old car for emergency light.
Edit: Tested with a 14500 didn’t contribute much to brightness. Not sure if its a driver problem or LED limitations.
I would like to see them make one with either no disco modes or with hidden disco modes and high, med, low modes, I guess weve become too picky about whats good and whats not for 2-3$ :D!
There were times, not too long ago, when Cree powered lights werent available for such low prices!
good clones of the original SK68 are getting harder and harder to find these days. The last 2 recent clones i bought were complete trash. (bad anodizing, sharp edges, would only work on a 14500, low powered, flickered, horrible zombie-blue tint crap XP-E, the list of dollar-store-like features goes on.
soon the only one worth buying will be the original real SK68 from Sipik’s website.
Here’s an even crappier zoomie. This is what a dollar will get you at Dollar Tree, all plastic body, and a terrible tint.
Flood
Throw
My brother just gave me 7 of these. SP68 clones that are labeled CREE and UltraFire. They only run on 3.7V cell and are of no use to him. He runs his only on NiMH. Here’s why, the only part on the driver is a current limiting resistor. I don’t think that is really a CREE XPE emitter.
I can’t get the pill out, I think it’s a press fit.
The body of the light is actually better than some others I have come across, but over all this light was built with reduced cost in mind,
It’s pretty much a case of avoiding all vendors now. The ultra cheap clone of clones of sk68 has flooded the market with fake crappy emitters. My last 4-5 buys of sk68 clones has been garbage not even worth donating to people….
yes MountainKing
I think that for this flashlight the good days are past
I have a dozen of these from different sellers
just one have solid pill.
where found a good sk68 with solid pill currently?
honestly I don’t even care about sk68 being solid pill or not anymore. The size is too small for proper heat path anyway.
All I ever looked for in SK68 is pills with screw on retainer ring and 3 mode no pwm on med
Having a good good flood with lotsa zoom distance is a plus.
I had one SK68 with solid pill and it didn’t make any difference in heat compared to the screw on retainer ring when I toss an XML in it.
So I’d say hollow but good build construction is much better than having crap now.
The most consistent SK68 I had was a Litknight AL-5104 . One of the heaviest/solid feeling SK68 ever despite being hollow.
Though in my case I would rather buy something like this from litknight for a single AA zoomie.
Solid and flat pill, OSRAM led, 17mm one mode driver. quality matte anodizing that’s stronger than any of my lights other than my thrunite t10
I can imagine that coming with a screw-in retainer.
I’ve never seen a SK68 clone (that’s an AA-size light) with a threaded retainer for the emitter. Sure would be nice though. I agree it would help the temperature control.
Nice review.
People comment favorably on ones with big lenses, but the one I looked at closely didn’t have enough travel to get full flood. So small lens ones are probably better for flood and big lens ones better for throw.
I personally prefer SK-58s for most uses, but they are getting harder to find and never have been that cheap.
I've sawed a bit off the battery end of the slidey part on an SK58, a couple of SK68s, and a handful of #3 zoomies -- just enough so the slider brings the lens down almost but not quite touching the emitter.
That gets a good bit wider flood. A little work with a slightly rounded file can shape the contact so it travels as far as it can and butts up against the body of the flashlight where it flares out.
I did that very early on a #3 zoomy and posted it. On an SK-68 it could be done with a mill, or maybe with a belt sander if you have a way of holding it straight or time to straighten it with a file.
that person had no idea what’s an 18650 lool
it came with an Ultrafire 14500 cell so it’s not counted
Prolly a little offtopic now but oh well
Here are some pics of this litknight that I have already modded countless times
It’s held by a retainer ring that you can unscrew with a pair of smooth plier.
It is an AA sized SK68 as shown by the Panasonic Evolta (not 18650)
Well it is my bedside light so I had them on XTE Q5 7B driven by a DX 7880 Driver for moonlight.
