Review: at first glance - CREE Zoom Adjustable Q5 SA-9 300LM ( Generic )

LED Flashlights – General Info 18650 Flashlights
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I just had to tell everyone about this nice powerful and very well made little light.

It is generic and inexpensive but worth every bit of the $12.00 I paid for both of them.

It's absolutely a budget light. See the review below.

Specs:

-Waterproof design, pressure resistance design
-Aluminum alloy casting
-Aluminum alloy reflector SMO Adjustable Focus
-3 Switch Mode: Strong Brightness / Normal Brightness / Flashing
-Zoom Mode: Zoom In & Zoom Out
-Model of Battery required: 3 x AAA or 1 x 18650 3.7v Battery
-Model of LED: CREE Q5 LED
-External Dimension: 25mm x 135mm
-Weight: 124g

My Observations:

Build Quality; Fit and finish seems to me to rate a 9.5 out of 10. No sharp edges, no machining or milling marks. Smooth over all finish, even black anodized with a medium dark green anodized focus ring.I would rate the finish as good as anything from Finex or Romensin and slightly better than Trustfire or Ultrafire.

Switch; No memory, no momentary on. 3 modes Low, Flashing and High. Soft touch ramping though modes is a nice touch allowing users to not have to fully click the button but use a soft touch to cycle through the modes while saving the duty cycle of the button.

Lens; Polycarbonate garbage, non-coated, not optically clear, actually quite bad. It is however convex and gets the job done. It could be sent to a lab for polishing and coating but really .....its a $12 flashlight.

Color Temp; Color is good and at about 5500k according to my digital color meter and compared with other lights.

Throw; Compared to other similar priced lights that run on a single 18650, its a winner, at 3 feet with max focus extended to 1st detent of focus ring, the light produces a 7" diameter hotspot with a purple/blue corona out to 17". When focused on a wall at exactly 50 feet with max focus extended, the hotspot is 7 feet in diameter. At 3 ft. in flood mode with the focus ring set to maximum flood on the 15 detent, the beam is even and about 27" in diameter with about 1" of spill beyond the periphery of the sharpest edge.

In flood mode with the beam being level and horizontal, will produce 8 ft. of even vertical coverage ( Floor to Ceiling ) at 14 feet.

Output Quanity: Measuring the output with my trusty calibrated LUX meter, I found that the output was ( for once, holy $#!t) very close to accurately described in the manufacturers description. High setting measured 3000 lux which translates to 280 lumens. That is only off by 7% of the claimed output of 300 lumens. On the low settings I measured 83.6 lumens respectively.

Output Performance; Burn time on high was consistent for the 1st hour and only deviated by 8% at the end of the 1st hr. The light stayed good with usable light for 2 hrs 34 mins until she quit. The light was loaded with a conditioned TrustFire 2400 mah 18650 batt. Sorry I don't use 3aaa's so there was no test of them.

Conclusions;

Don't run out and buy these if you are going to compare them to Fenix, Romensin or Nitecore, this light is not meant to compete with lights like these but if you're looking for a great little light to use as a daily driver, a good carry light that won't piss you off if you drop it, break it or lose it, this is a great beater to have in your holster, pocket or car. I'll be using these for night hunting while metal detecting. One will be clamped to the detector's shaft and one as a backup my Spark ST6 on a head band.

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Here's a few links for these lights.

$7.69 with free shipping from China

http://www.ebay.com/itm/3-Modes-Zoom-Super-Bright-CREE-Q5-LED-Flashlight-Torch-/280725638342?pt=US_Flashlights&hash=item415c8d4cc6

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Here is where I got mine

USA Seller on the bay

http://www.ebay.com/itm/170792609023?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649

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This thing actually was my second 18650 flashlight. I destroyed mine some time ago but ordered it again because I like it very much. Took a lot of hard beating and didnt give up until I screwed up the threads of the head.

But there is no smooth reflector..^^

4

Will they ever run out of these crappy Q5 LEDS? Or P4s.

I mean seriously. How are these lights "new" exactly? Its the same freaking emitter for like 3 or 4 years now. They could at least use an XR-E R3 bin which would be a big step up. Or use an XP-E or XP-G as a compromise between throw and greater flood. But it seems to be either underpowered XM-L lights or crappy P4/Q5s.

/end rant.

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One can never own too many flashlights..... even cheap older technology is still cool.

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Yeah, XRE is old, but still pretty good. And a cheap emitter. For 12$, that light is pretty good. Flood to throw works nice, you wont be able to kill it (trust me) and FTT is quite usable.

Its my "throw around, smash on the ground, work on the car in dirt and oil"-light, because I dont care too much about it and didnt expect it to last anyway. I killed it by turning the head too tight, I literally scraped the treads off..^^

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Yea NightCrawl, inexpensive lights are just as much fun as the big $ ones, maybe even more so since you can use and abuse them and no one cares. I'd not take a $250 Nitecore or similar flashlight night fishing on a boat.These cheap lights are very useable and very enjoyable.

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I bought one of these a while back from Ebay. I love it. Great budget light and very impressive for the price payed. I think Budgeteer turned me on to it.

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I also have one of these. The build quality was good, the driver... not so good. After using it a couple of times for a total of 15 mins the driver went haywire. Every time it got turned on after that it flashed once followed by going into a permanent firefly mode.

10

Thanks for the review.

Those aren't waterproof, though. I've also noticed that lights with moving pill in the zoom system tend to start flickering after a few months of mild usage.

I was thoroughly impressed with these, but not anymore. Lights with pill that screws in the flashlight body are much more durable and reliable.

Viktor

11

I got mine from ebay too. It's not a bad light and not really a good one either, but for the price...

I put an XM-L T6 on a 16mm star in it and used the same driver. Just an LED change and it's nothing fantastic. It is brighter, but of course, the square die throw is now huge. It still sold to someone at work for $25 bucks, so it was good for me.