Looking to order a few astrolux lights, hopefully the USA warehouse has them available in the next 24 hours.
To be able to buy and Astrolux that comes with a short tube from the USA warehouse for $29.99 is one hell of a deal!
That’s if it ever gets in stock 
You sold me ReManG…
just ordered. Looks like a great light and packaged deal.
thanks for the great review!
I am still waiting to hear from a member here that has a BLF A6 and gets an S1 as well…. I want to hear their impression of the two lights side by side.
Being the first one here with the AstroLux S1 I felt a bit obligated to review it…. I was honored to be comped a light for the 18350 tube work, but now our A6’s can take even a CR123 in an emergency…. So I had what I wanted… I think this one will become a shelf queen for now anyway, I still haven’t worn out my first BLF A6, one of the rare blue/black ones…. LOL
My Banggood.com Astrolux S1 arrived this morning. I’m utterly disappointed.
Here’s my quick review.
- A speck of glue on the reflector, under the glass. Like a crumb of glue. Probably removable, but I haven’t tried yet. Read on why I didn’t bother.
- Machining at least one level below Convoy S2, knurling rather sharp, though not extreme enough to cause damage. No scratches or dents worth mentioning though, anodizing is decent.
- Clip isn’t straight, it’s slightly angled compared to the flashlight body.
- LED isn’t flat on the flashlight pill, whatever it is underneath makes led slanted.
- LED die has about 1/4 different hue than the rest of it. Moonlight intensity noticeably different on that part compared to the rest of LED die.
- Cold solder joints on the led. Led looks horrible, like someone smeared something over contacts and ~2-3mm of immediate surroundings, changed their mind, scraped it off, then cold soldered wires.
- Once battery is in, tailcap screwed, it turns on moonlight only. Half pressing seems to switch modes (with same moonlight intensity, blinkies included).
- Full click doesn’t turn off the flashlight.
Basically, it’s impossible to turn it off and impossible to get any brightness above moonlight.
I didn’t check led side of the driver yet, I’m wondering what might I find there.
I’ll post pictures at a later date. I’m too disappointed at the moment to be bothered to put any effort into this flashlight right now.
My Convoy S2 was supposed to be the cheaper EDC/bike/workhorse light. Turns out it’s miles and lightyears ahead of Astrolux S1 that I got.
I contacted Banggood, we’ll see how it goes.
Either a dud or possibly the quickest that a flashlight has been “cheapened to death” by the manufacturer.
Phil
Geeshhhh...I can only envision an assembly line of chimps behind bars doing this sort of thing. Sad, really sad. No dam excuse shippin sumpin like that (pos) out to a customer. I sometimes hesitate to order myself after reading about ordeals such as this. :Sp
Sorry for the delay. Neal, the Banggood rep, did get back to me last week, and said that the BLF A6 Special Edition and the Astrolux S1 were indeed the same!
If I were choosing between the two, I would go with the S1. Using the coupon code "astrolux", the price of the S1 is the same as the A6. The difference is that the S1 comes with a short tube included. With the A6, the short tube is an optional accessory that you must pay for separately.
I have been using a short tube on an A6 for a couple of weeks now. It works great. The capacity of the 18350 is, of course, less than that of an 18650. Two nights ago, I experience my first forced step-down on the A6. Pulled out my 18350 and found the voltage to be just a bit over 2.9 volts. Perfect. That is exactly the voltage where ToyKeeper said the step-down (and eventual cutoff) would occur. Her original design was for 2.8 volts, but due to a change in one of the components used in production, the step-down voltage was found to be 2.9 volts in practice.
Vendor on Amazon has the Astrolux at $28.99… seems to have the short tube included.
I previously ordered my BLF A6 just two weeks ago as a “Camtoa” brand… came genuine BLF Special Edition… Shipped from China to Hawaii in like 10 days… fastest I’ve seen so far. Light works like a champ. No short tube, but no probs… except some dry a$$ed threads. Very happy….
Awesome designers… !!! Thanks guys and gals!
That's only for 1A or 5A tint...Select the 3D tint and price jumps to $38.99 :Sp :|
Never saw the light available from the USA Warehouse.
The price has been dropped to 35.95
The code: astrolux doesn’t work anymore, but BLF still works, however, it doesn’t bring it down to 29.95.
Sad this never hit the USA Warehouse, I would have bought a few for my family. Guess with the time I waited, I could have ordered from the Canada warehouse and it been here any day now…
I haven’t been a Flashaholic for very long, but I quickly learned that it’s usually best to move fast as manufacturers and sellers change things quickly without notice. If you want to get the best deals or the product as it has been reviewed you dare not dawdle. Today’s world moves fast and you’ve got to move fast too if you want to keep up with it.
Phil
It’s actually advertised at $29.95 on their 2016 New Years sale page, but still shows $35.95 on the product page. The other flashlights on that sale page are also higher than the New Year sale prices right now, so I wonder if it’s just a case of waiting until tomorrow sometime for the prices to kick in?
http://deals.banggood.com/deals/edm/topic/2016newyear.html?utmid=344
KuoH
Wow…am I ever stoked about the arrival of this light !
Is my understanding correct that the lumens output when using the short 18350 config is on par with that of using the full 18650?
It seems the run time capacity is what is sacrificed with the 18350 configuration….And I would think it would get hot quickly.
Wondering how drastic the difference in run time 18350/18650….is it cut in half?
If your 18350 capacity were half of a comparable 18650, then yes. It really is dependent on the mAh rating of the cell and what power consumption level (current draw) you’re using the light at.
I think most 18350 cells are actually around 700-800mAh… so compared to a nice 3100mAh Panasonic cell… considerably lower runtimes can be expected. But if you’re using the shorter cell, clearly it’s for EDC, you are unlikely to be using the higher current and higher lumen output modes… so you should still see an hour or two of use depending on mode selected.
Thanks Jason for your response and valued insight !
That makes sense……still learning about these and looking forward to this pocket torch!
Put me down as another customer of the Manker/Astrolux A6 My short tube arrived last week and somehow fitting it and the battery I had for it has killed the light stone dead. We should have stuck to Eagle Eye with the BLF build. Manker just don’t have the quality control that they should.
FYI: They’ve dropped the price to $29.95 now with no codes.
KuoH
So it didn’t work when you put the long tube/battery back on? Some of the short tubes were ironically too short and didn’t make contact on the head end…
See if it works in the original configuration.