Yes, this would be me as well. I waited six months, doing research and closely scrutinizing Jew products. I was really torn between several of the high lumen “soda can” lights, but the paragraph above finally caused me to jump off the fence.
Being fairly new to the forum, I’m wondering if all pre-production group buys go similarly? It seems every new light, including BLF lights, have follow up threads titled “list BLF q8 issues here”, or similar.
Was this group buy supposed to be different somehow?
Anyway, I struggle with the bipolar aspect of enjoying being an early adopter while also being morbidly afraid of buyers remorse.
Maybe group buys on pre-production lights is not for me, lol!
Yes, this would be me as well. I waited six months, doing research and closely scrutinizing new products. I was really torn between several of the high lumen “soda can” lights, but the paragraph above finally caused me to jump off the fence.
Being fairly new to the forum, I’m wondering if all pre-production group buys go similarly? It seems every new light, including BLF lights, have follow up threads titled “list BLF q8 issues here”, or similar.
Was this group buy supposed to be different somehow?
Anyway, I struggle with the bipolar aspect of enjoying being an early adopter while also being morbidly afraid of buyers remorse.
Maybe group buys on pre-production lights are not for me, lol!
This was my first group buy that I participated in but I have followed several and it seems that many of them that get popular and grow large seem to go in this direction.
I decided that this was the one for me for the same reasons as you and the fact that you could get all the cool colors. Throughout the early stages of this GB there were all the promises of big lumens, super far throw, all new way better QC, and so on. The icing on the cake for us that live in the US was that we are now going to have a US dealer to service and our warranty issues and not have to rely on China. Wow! What could go wrong?
I love my light even though I cannot use it (cause it don’t work), it is not as bright as promised, and although it seems well built and looks really great the threading is just so so.
I hope that in the end all the issues for everyone will get resolved but I do feel that if the light is truly not making the brightness that was promised and by Terry’s testing results proving this to be the case that it will be impossible for Haikelite to fix this especially if all the lights have to go back to China. I don’t see this happening!
There are a couple more group buys that I have showed interest in here right now but I may be holding off…
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Quick question. Does anyone know what the charging unit looks like? I know there were some pictures but to me anyway they were more than a little ambiguous. I’m still not 100% clear if it’s an add-on to the light or if it’s a standalone unit. Either way I’m ok since $10 for a 4 cell USB charger that also acts as a battery bank is a steal but it would be extra super cool if it was integrated into the light. My ultimate hope is that it’s a replacement tailcap since then I could replace my damaged tailcap with it and have a nice, beautiful light.
Question for Terry, is there any slim chance that I could get a replacement tailcap? I understand that it’s my fault for dropping it but in the dozens of lights I’ve purchased this is the first one where the tailcap came completely unattached in the box. I would be willing to pay for it but I’d really like to get one that matches this gorgeous blue finish.
Important point here. So far people in this thread have been rational and calm while discussing the issues. :+1: Please continue to do so. I don’t have any horses in this race, but I sincerely hope that everyone will continue to be civil and that it will lead to a resolution for those who are unsatisfied.
As I have read, its a replacement for the head. So you will be needing your battery-tube. It will be fit to the older haikelite flashlights too.
There are some small smd-leds on it which make a little light.
The question is, is it usable for 2S and 4S together, or will there be two versions of the charger for 2S vs 4S flashlights.
I just have to say, HOLY $$$$ this thing gets hot!! I turned it on high, left it for about 10 minutes and then went to pick it up and it burned my hand. The entire light, battery tube and all is too hot to touch, much less hold.
Thermal regulation would be nice but then again I do enjoy the fact that it will stay on until it melts itself into slag. Be careful with these everyone, they are a true hotrod.
yes please dont let it run and go away from it, not very good yeah… it gets hot as hell. With great power comes great responsibility. I just hope your light is ok after that long runtime on highest…
You gotta be responsible with this light. Someone who doesn’t know what they are doing with lithium cells is going to have a bad time with these. I’m pretty sure one of these lights is going to hurt someone. I’m so glad I checked mine when I did, any longer and I’m guessing I’d be grabbing a fire extinguisher…
EDIT - I’m going to charge my cells again and then re-run that test, measuring it with my IR thermometer. I honestly think the temperature was unreasonably high, it’s been several minutes off and it’s still too hot to handle.
EDIT #2 - Holy crap, just playing with this thing a little bit, maybe 1/2 hour runtime has depleted the batteries to 3.5 volts. This is a hungry light.
Very well said. My first German car was a first gen 2005 BMW 325i and I was so excited because I can finally afford such a beautiful car. Sadly it was problems after problems. It gave me more headaches than all of my other cars combined. Especially after years of driving cheapo Japanese cars that were highly reliable, I lost faith in luxury German cars. However, then I research and found that by 2008, pretty much all the bugs in the 2005 version were fixed and the reliability rating was very high unlike the 2005 version.
With that said, I haven’t found any problems with my two XHP70.2. In fact from my own measurements, I’m certain my NW version exceeded the 15k spec but I still love the 4k Hi CRI more. The only possible criticism is lack of thermal regulation but unless you intend to leave the light unattended, it is actually an advantage because this light can maintain the max brightness mode much better than the average high lumen flashlight. Also it has great heat sinking which dissipates the heat very efficiently to protect the light itself, maybe not your hands =D.
I’m going to respectively disagree. Just because the thermal regulation is the only issue you have seen, that doesn’t mean that others don’t have legitimate gripes.
I’m kinda upset by the packaging for one.
The lack of the promised thermal regulation is not an issue for some (myself included) but for others it’s a huge issue. It’s also a potentially huge safety issue for those who are not familiar with high spec lights.
The stupidly long shipping times is definitely a legitimate issue,
The lower than promised lumens is definitely a legitimate issue.
The several defective lights issue is definitely legitimate.
There’s a lot of legitimate issues with this light and this group buy. I don’t see anyone bringing up anything that is unreasonable and I don’t see anyone attacking Terry or Dale. We have questions, we have issues but we’re a great community and what we are asking is legit and respectful.
The NW I got for my XHP70.2 is 5000k compared to the many other 5000k flashlights in my collection. The few 6500k CW flashlights are very bluish, which I cannot stand. 5000k vs 6500k is very, very, very obvious. Do you have any 6500k to compare it with?
People have to understand that these flashlights cannot defy physics. It will get HOT! Higher power modes get hot faster. Smaller lights get hot faster. Lights with better thermal conductivity will dissipate heat to the body faster, which is ACTUALLY A GOOD THING as it protects the internals and allows the more practical use of the light under high lumen modes. The only reasonable complaint is that this light lacks thermal regulation, which I think is necessary if you intend to leave this light running High mode unattended. However, if you are holding the flashlight and it starts getting uncomfortably hot, just dim the light or turn it off, but you get much more practical runtimes on HI with this light.
The X60 is huge by comparison and have more thermal mass to spread the heat so of course it will not get hot as quickly. Have you tried an Emisar D4, arguably the most popular and favorite flashlight here. OMG, that thing starts getting hot the instant you turn it on in max mode. By 30s, it dims to about 20% of its startup lumens. You wouldn’t want that for a practical use and in this regards the MT09R excels over my other high powered lights.
Also I like the shape and handle of my MT09R. I just gave away my 5000k version to my friend/client and kept the 4000k version. We both didn’t find any problems with comfort holding, gripping, balancing the light and we find the light extremely fun to use. But of course this is all subjective to the user.
I have to take back the battery length thing I said in my earlier review. The included cells aren’t particularly long. I just tried inserting my Acebeam branded cells that were included with my X45 and I could not get the tailcap on. These cells fit in every other light I own and so I thought I’d compare the new cells to some of my others and they are closer to my regulated button top cells than they are to my flat top unregulated cells. The included cells work fine but you can’t even fully tighten the tailcap with them, much less use other slightly larger cells.
What this means is that I need to wait until the included cells are charged before I can give the results from my thermal tests. I have a D4 charger so it’s going to take some time until I can provide those results.
Actually that is very normal. I bought many duplicates of the same lights and my wife yells at me all the time for buying flashlights. Yes I am a crazy flashlight addict. Here is an example from probably the most reputable premium flashlight brand:
Zebralight SC5w II with the XP-L2 4500k 80+CRI
Sample 1: 44 lux
Sample 2: 68 lux
Sample 3: 74 lux
Am I happy with these variations? Heck no! But hey that’s just how these flashlights are.
@pooptoast im interesting in what temps you get on the highest mode after a minute or two so please post that if u can. And i wonder do u have the xhp35 or 70 version ?
Also i think its a good sign the body gets hot, means that it has good heat dissipation that draws away heat from the leds but ofc if u can not hold because its that hot then its time to turn it off…
I am sure that Dale can work something out with you on a tail cap but, you will have to email him haikelite@yeah.net. He may charge a few dollars for the shipping or something like that but I really do not see it being too costly.
If I had an extra tail cap at all I would just give it to you.. LOL I even looked through all of my parts bins just to be sure.
Thanks! It’s really not a problem all things considered, I’ve bought more expensive lights with worse issues so I’m really being nit-picky. Overall I am really happy with this light. It’s not perfect but IMHO it’s still a great enthusiast light. I’m an enthusiast so it’s all good. I’m still going to test and report what I observe though so I hope that’s cool with you.
