REAL WORLD REVIEWS – WUUDI Spotlight (Gangnam Style)

REAL WORLD REVIEWS – WUUDI Spotlight (Gangnam Style)

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“GANGNAM style”, a neologism that refers to a lifestyle associated with the Gangnam District of Seoul, where people are trendy, hip and exude a certain supposed class, however as quoted by the performer Psy;“People who are actually from Gangnam never proclaim that they are—it’s only the posers and wannabes that put on these airs and say that they are "Gangnam Style”. So as you may have guessed by now, the “Gangnam Style” reviews are all about the posers, the cheap (but flashy) knockoffs, the bling and “feature” encrusted failures of modern design and shirt-tail marketing.

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Intended Use: [According to the manufacturers]

“Hunting Torch Tactical Flashlight Portable Lamp for Camping, Hiking, Fishing and Emergency”



Power Source: 3x18650 Batteries (Included) which are 2200 mAH, Button Tops that appear to have protection circuits, no mfg logos or ID to be found.



Average Cost: $35.00 (USD) can be found as low as $19



What you get:

· A decent box, that was for a very different version of the product.

· The spotlight

· A USB to Proprietary tip charger

· A Wall plug to Proprietary tip charger

· A nice silver plastic tripod

There is NO documentation, because come on, cool and hip don’t need freakin’ documentation.

There is no lanyard nor any place to attach one







Initial Impression(s):
For sure I thought this was going to be a uber-short review when I pulled the box out of its shipping envelope because it had obviously taken some serious hits from Hong Kong to my doorstep. I was bracing myself to open it up and find a smashed light. To my serious surprise the inside of the box was absolutely crammed full with bubble wrap and there didn’t appear to be any damage to anything. Of course I was also a bit concerned since the box was for an entirely different model…but the correct items were inside so I guess they were just playing a little hipster prank on me.





The next thing I noticed when I pulled the light out of the bubble wrap was all the rattling. It sounded like I had ordered a couple of castanets. I tracked the noise down to the fact that the bezels weren’t screwed down tight, allowing the triangular head, the lenses, and the bezels to rattle around. I also started noticing a few dings and dents and a LOT of fingerprints all over the place especially on both sides of the lenses. Given the sheer amount of packing material I have to assume that this all happened during production.









So I clicked the light on briefly to test functionality, and then proceeded to spend about 30 minutes unscrewing things, taking photos, cleaning fingerprints (especially on the lenses) wiping all contacts with rubbing alcohol, and re-assembling the light. What I learned was that most of the components of the light seemed to be at least decent and decently assembled but there was absolutely NO lubrication, grease, thermal paste, or locking compound anywhere. I declined to dissemble the emitters enough to add thermal paste, but did re-assemble the rest of the light with dots of threadlocker or Nyogel as appropriate. The end result was a tight, solid feeling, unit that looked pretty good.









The interface is a single e-button mounted on the handle that cycles Hi/LO/OFF or will strobe with [EDIT: a Press and Hold, not a fast double click]. There is no lockout mode and no easy way to do a lockout.

Speaking of the handle, I have some very mixed feelings about it. Right off the bat I’ll admit that I think the handle makes the light look kind of cool and somewhat unique. Combined with the gold anodizing and the polished aluminum bits the light looks high-tech and cool and noteworthy. However, I’m a big guy with big hands and the darned handle is A) Too short by about ½ inch and B) uncomfortable on the bottom edge where you have two ridges running the length of the light. I suspect I’m going to leather wrap the handle to get past this.

Also on the handle is the charging port. Oh not a Micro-USB like everyone else, no this is a SPECIAL light so it has a somewhat proprietary sub-sewing-needle sized barrel connector. Oh it comes with two adaptors (one to USB and one to the wall) but WHY IN THE HELL didn’t the manufacturer just put a micro-usb charging port in there?!? Charging through the port takes roughly 10 hours from a “flat” battery and the charger(s) have an LED light that goes from Red to Green when the light is charged.









I did notice one odd quirk in charging. If the light was mostly charged and you unplugged it from the cable (but left the cable plugged into a power supply) the LED would turn green. If you then plugged the light back in the LED stayed green and no further charging happens. You have to unplug the charging cable from its source and re-plug it to finish charging after such an interruption.

Power comes from three generic 18650 cells that tested as holding roughly a 60% charge at time of install. They go in a carrier that is different from anything I’ve ever seen before. The contacts on the carrier are a large ring and a small button both on top of the carrier so as long as you put the right end up front it will work regardless of rotation. The carrier itself is far stronger than it looks and nicely designed to prevent reverse install of the 18650 cells. This shouldn’t be an issue since most users will never remove the batteries but it is the sort of safety feature I genuinely like to see in all lights.





The battery carrier fits TIGHTLY into the tube, and in fact they had to machine the body pretty thin in order to make things fit. It makes me wonder if one of the “decorative” bands around the front of the tube might be more for actual re-enforcement than decoration.





Durability/weather resistance: Once I got the light properly re-assembled I have no doubt it sits firmly in the ANSI 5 category for water resistance. The lights and lenses are deeply recessed and well protected and the battery compartment has good strong springs and shock resistance. I suspect the greatest weakness is the handle followed by the thin areas in the body tube. The frame of the handle is metal but I doubt it would absorb much of a drop or toss without bending in some fashion. Assuming the switch holds up and nothing strange happens with the batteries I suspect this light will actually have a long a reliable service life. I’m probably going to drill or tap a hole so I can mount a lanyard.

The beam: Ah now we get down to it.
This light does, in fact, actually have three CREE XM-L T6 emitters. During my runtime and outdoors tests I was able to determine that the “tri-barrel” design does an outstanding job of heat dissipation and even though there was no thermal regulation I could find, the light never even came close to overheating. The beam color on my sample is white biased towards the cool end and the three emitters are aimed in a fairly parallel arrangement with deep reflectors which means that combining the three beams produces a somewhat intense spot with good projection and a significant amount of usable side spill. I would not put this in the same category as something like the Klarus G30, but I have to admit to liking this beam a lot more than I expected. Not top end material, but I was expecting cheap crap and this is actually a serious light in spite of initial appearances.





This light was easily useful out to 150 yards, and probably more but I’m getting over the flu so there was no trail walking with this light. The low beam is somewhere around 900 Lumens at a rough guess and if I had one wish it would be to dump the stupid strobe and replace it with an instant “low” mode of about 60 lumens for in-house (and campground) use because the other settings are so bright it really isn’t pleasant to use inside.

If the low mode uses any kind of PWM I couldn’t detect it.
[EDIT: I have been able to confirm that there IS PWM, but it runs at a REALLY high frequency]

Runtimes: The manufacturers blew this one up badly claiming “up to 8 hours” on high. In my real-world testing I have a standard of calling runtime when you hit 50% of initial brightness. This light did very well for 1hr 20min and then started dropping off rapidly until it crossed the 50% mark at just short of 2 hours. From that point there was a dramatic and rapid drop in illumination that “tailed out” at precisely 2 hours into a very flat curve that I’m sure would have run for many hours, but was only producing about 200 lumens. More than enough to walk around with or do chores or whatever, but certainly not enough to claim you were still anywhere near “HIGH” output. Retesting on “LOW” was a very steady ramp that ran nearly 9 hours before it hit 50% at which point I terminated the test with the light still putting out an estimated 300-400 Lumens so it had a LONG way to go in terms of general usefulness.

CONS:
· Proprietary charging plug (should just be Micro-USB like everyone else
· Needs a lanyard attachment point
· Needs one more lower setting
· Dump the stupid “strobe” mode
· Careless packaging
· Careless assembly (nicks, dings, dust, dirt, fingerprints)
· Handle isn’t “big hands” friendly
· Insane runtime claims (for HI)



PROS:
· Decent to exceptional quality machining and components
· Battery capacity is well balanced with the light
· Light quality and beam pattern far better than expected, in the good-to-very-good range
· Easy/intuitive interface.
· Unique appearance (the gold anodizing is flashy, but not overdone)
· Good price

Summary:
Confession time, I ordered this light with the expectation of getting some bling covered, cheap, Chinese, knockoff of a knockoff, piece of utter crap. I was going to have a fun romp tearing it apart and pointing out all the things that make a garbage light garbage. The initial unboxing made it seem to me like that was what was going to happen.

And then I started looking more closely. Yes final assembly was sloppy and someone got their fingerprints and dust and crap all over this light inside and out, but the actual component parts of the light were quality, the soldering was exceptional, and it was obvious that someone somewhere put some real thought into the overall design (though the lack of a standard micro-USB port still bugs me).

So as much as it pains me to say it I have to admit that I actually LIKE this light. I think if you ordered one cheap, with the understanding that you might get a somewhat unfinished product that will require a bit of cleanup and re-assembly (and threadlocker), then you might be pleasantly surprised with the end result.

Final conclusion:
3.5 of 5 Photons SOMEWHAT RECOMMENDED WITH PROVISION (SEE BELOW)

IF YOU DO NOT LIKE TO TINKER THIS IS PROBABLY NOT THE LIGHT FOR YOU!
The light may require a bit of TLC upon arrival as noted above.
If you can get this light cheap, and are willing to tinker I think you may like the results.
A little more tweaking.

I Accidentally discovered that you can extend the Tripod legs. Actually this light on the tripod is kinda handy. I'm also considering gluing a couple of Neodymium magnets to the bottom part but I haven't done it yet.

I also leather wrapped the handle, it's MUCH more comfortable to handle now.

While I was doing that I went ahead and loosened the handle and squirted some silicone RTV near the hex-bolts to seal that whole area against water and then, realizing that there is absolutely nothing in the back half of the handle to damage, I drilled a lanyard hole and added a snazzy neon green lanyard I had laying around.





BEAMSHOTS!



#1 PROOF of PWM (boy did it freak out my cellphone cam).






Inside at about 6ft from wall





Quick outside shot.
NOTE: The tree at 150 yards was plainly visible to the human eye but I wasn't going to keep fiddling with the phone camera.



Great review. Thanks.

Excellent review and a surprising find as well. many thanks!

Grtz
Nico

That’s the Cringe Light 6000. Cringe worthiness scale 1-10. It earns an 11. :smiley:

LOL… that’s great

Got my new testing rig hooked up…

Light output and runtime results;



As we can see… output is nowhere even remotely close to the manufacturer claims. Still decent output though.







Runtime (measured to 50% of initial output) is also very respectable at 1hr 40min on high.