Review and Test: Titanium AAA keychain flashlight

This is my review of a rather cheap but widely unknown titanium AAA keychain flashlight.

It can be found on Banggood HERE . I have bought it on Aliexpress but it is sold out there.

Video review

Polished titanium seems to be quite sensitive to fingerprints. It can be easily wiped clean again with a cloth.

Teardown pictures

Detailed pictures of the driver

Reserved

Oh YEAH! Gonna check the video, but thanks in advance for reviewing it :wink:

Very nice review and teardown!

I’m impressed that for a titanium light at this price point, it actually has retaining rings and a pretty respectable looking assembly. Honestly, I was expecting bottom of the barrel press-fit components and bad tolerances. Nice find.

Thanks for the quick review and disassembly.

What do you mean by “TIR with hole… and no glass” while trying to slip a led inside… Does that mean the led is directly accessible from the front through a hole in the optic?

Nice titanium body light, although quite limited in tint, modes and output it seems. I’ve seen far worst. What do you think?

No, the TIR has a cavity at the front. Dust will gather there but LED is protected. Somewhat as it seems there are no o-rings.

I really liked the review (though I would prefer it to be written rather than filmed) but I’m not impressed with the light. I considered buying one and I’m glad I didn’t.

Why?

  • very bad thermal path
  • that lens cavity will collect dirt and be hard to clean
  • no o-rings

Interesting light.

How to change to English at the site. My German is nonexistent.

the link comes up in english for me…

maybe try changing the language, red arrow:

.

thank you for taking the time to show the teardown

is the output similar to a Lumintop Tool on medium? (30 lumens)

Thanks, MascaratumB and gchart.

The brass retaining rings are quite nice indeed. The only things that feel a bit cheap are the TIR lens with a cavity in the middle and the led on the MCPCB. But I need to say that most 10180 keychain flashlights have no glass lens in front of the TIR and the led mounted on a normal PCB.

Thanks for explaining, Agro. I tried to show the cavity (better than saying hole, sorry) in the TIR lens by putting a led in because it is hard to show in the video. On pictures it also looks like a flat TIR lens. The outer ring is clear and the inner cavity is slightly frosted.

patmurris, you are right, for that price the quality is not bad. It is not very bright, has only one mode and most likely I will swap the cold white XPG2 for a nicer led. The titanium body is designed and made nicely, though. It is cheaper than most titanium flashlights and of course I need an AAA titanium flashlight to have all materials in my collection.

Agro, I will add a few pictures and write my impressions down later. I know that this flashlight is more for collecting and a Sofirn C01S or a Lumintop Tool is more usable. That TIR lens could be changed for a similar sized one without cavity, the beam profile is not that good, either. Adding an o-ring at the lens might be a good idea as well.

I tried to remove the custom part of the link but the languages on Banggood always change like crazy. You can try to search for ‘keshun titanium’ on Banggood, it is the first flashlight that is shown.

It is great fun to reveal internal parts of a flashlight that haven’t been shown before.

My Lumintop Tool has a SW45K inside so I think the lumen values might be a little lower. The output is lower than both the Lumintop Tool and Sofirn C01S on high. It is hard to tell the actual lumen output because of the different beam profiles.

It depends on the AAA battery but I would estimate 50-80 lumens at start-up with full battery and maybe 30 lumens when it runs for longer. The output may drop also because of the bad cooling without a metal PCB and with a titanium body.

Waterproofing the switch somehow would be useful as well…

I might have missed it but is there noticeable PWM with this light?

Shouldn’t be any PWM. Based on the pics of the driver, it looks like a single mode boost driver similar to the PAM2803 (likely a knockoff of that driver chip). Output is set with a single resistor which is conveniently out in the open on the battery terminal side. With the assumed 95 mV feedback voltage and the R13 (0.13 Ohm) current sense resistor, it’s dialed in for 0.73 mA to the LED.

I think you mean 730mA or 0.73A? Seems far too high doesn’t it? Something like 73mA might sound right.

Well… you’re right. I meant 0.73 A, not mA.

Like I said, though… a PAM2803 sets amps according to ILED = 95mV / RSET. And an R13 resistor is supposed to be 0.13 Ohms, which would mean 730 mA / 0.73 amps. However, I think the resistor is using non-standard labelling (which I also observed in my Skilhunt E3A with a similar driver). I agree, 730 mA seems too much for a AAA light, especially one with a titanium body. So I think instead of a 0.13 Ohm resistor, it’s probably a 1.3 Ohm which means a much more reasonable 73 mA.

So I finally grabbed one of these. Mine came with a pocket clip instead of a keychain ring. I’m planning to attempt a gentle emitter swap soon. Mine has a 3535 emitter, not the XM-L2 claimed. That’s nicer, I can put something high CRI in there now.

Cute little thing. I don’t have much need for AAA lights but I have four AAA eneloops I never use…

They seem to be gone on Ali, but here is the MANUFACTURER

Ended up with sw45 219b in it. Gives me a good excuse to grab it. Now to find out where I stashed my Thrunite Ti5T… It’s on shelf queen duty, but I think the shelf is a drawer…