GearBest's Entry into Flashlights, the zanflare f1! First Light from this manufacturer!

It seems a bit large but you can’t say it’s not rugged looking. I would not mind trying one of those during my upcoming winter night shifts. That would soon reveal any flaws it might have!

Scorpia, this should help…

Xoden, low quiescent drain is irrelevant with an on/off tail switch, yes? The light cannot be turned off from the side e-switch, so with the physical clicky switch at the tail quiescent drain does not apply here.

Some of the length is absolute, due to the USB charging port and the excellent cover design… threads are few but it still takes some space to have these threads with a physical dual o-ring cover to ensure the port is protected.

I measure 118.8mm on a Convoy S2+ and 136.2mm on the f1.

S2+ is 23.8mm diameter at the bezel, f1 is 26.3mm.

S2+ is 17.4mm at the reflector opening in the bezel, f1 is 20mm.

Reflector cup is approx 11mm on the S2+, the f1 reflector cup is approximately 20mm in depth.

Easy to see that the f1 is a larger more capable light with better throw characteristics and the built in charging system. A win as far as I’m concerned. More light than the expensive Nitecore P12GT with comparable features and still smaller than this class mate.

Very interesting light…very curious about the price!

On paper, the Zanfare F1 flashlight looks pretty good. The several styles of knurling/grip do make for an odd appearance, but that's not a deal-breaker for me.

No small tube light can hold a 1240-lumen output for very long, so the 30-second step-down in "Flare" mode is fine. The next highest mode, a 590-lumen "Turbo" mode, is a level that can probably be maintained without overheating.

Overall, the mode spacing is good. It would be better if there were a mode between the 1-lumen "Moonlight" mode and the 50-lumen "Low." Something like 10 or 15 lumens would be nice. Adding another mode, however, might create user interface issues. There are already five different constant modes, four of which are on the "main sequence." Inserting a new mode would make the main sequence longer. My opinion is that flashlights that have that many modes need to have mode switching in both directions, brighter and dimmer.

The recharging port cover is ideal. I have a general mistrust of the tiny rubber flaps used by most rechargeable flashlights. Zanfare has chosen my favorite design, a screw-on sleeve, sealed with O-rings.

The driver is said to be a constant current design that has both a low-voltage warning and cutoff (at 2.6 volts). Nice!

The User Manual does not describe recharging in detail. I presume that 1x18650 is the only battery configuration that allows recharging. Trying to recharge 2xRCR123 is probably not going work, but the User Manual fails to point this out. In addition, it looks like there is a typo in the User Manual. It describes CR123A as having a nominal voltage of 3.7 volts and RCR123 as having a nominal voltage of 3.0 volts. I think those are reversed.

Can the F1 flashlight can take 2x18350?

Based on the specs, I would say Zanfare has done a good job with it initial entry. I hope to see more from it. Models with neutral tint, CCT near 5000K, and high CRI would be of particular interest to me.

By repeatedly resetting the Flare mode, I’ve managed to get it pretty hot! Once it’s warmed up it won’t run as long in Flare but it does still go like 18-20 seconds which allows it to build heat over a period of 4-5 resets.

I tried engaging Flare from a medium mode to see if it would return to that mode on step down but it goes back to the lowest level.

I agree that mode spacing seems off, pretty big jump from moonlight to low. From Medium to High (Turbo?) is not very much of a visible jump, so it would be nice if they could pull back the middle modes to allow for a 10-15 lumen low, maybe a 60-80 lumen medium, then the high of 580 or a bit more. That would allow for 3 nice low levels for general use, a semi-Turbo mode that would stay engaged and Flare for those scenario’s when you need all that’s available.

Strobe is pretty fast, seems quite bright and of course I have zero use for any SOS level.

Edit: I know the manual says switching out of strobe is easy, but it’s not. It takes that 3 second press to get it to go back to moonlight, which is difficult to detect after being in strobe.

Nice review Dale. Very thorough!! Thank you for the time you spent showing us this light.

TL

Thanks DB,
my quick google foo points me to a Microchip 16f1823 i/st.
http://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/DeviceDoc/40001413E.pdf

not your standard Atmel chip but mod-able for sure.
I wonder what controls the USB charger circuit .

Hi Guys,

Good news that GearBest’s entry light, the zanflare f1 light is online now, welcome to order

and what’s more, latter we will have a $5 cheaper coupon to benefit BLF members :partying_face: , wish you like it

the coupon is only available during the presales ( please use it before Oct 28th )

That gives about $35…pretty high. I was thinking that it should be more in Nitenumen NE01 price range.

This is not ugly, it’s unique :+1: :beer:
Price could be a bit lower, ~30$ would be more attractive.

$35 is kinda high. But then again, I’m Indian and probably say that for all things.

:smiley:

I think the price is okay for the specs - very fair. They put a lot of work into making this a great light. But, it’s still ugly. :confounded:

Hi Guys,

it’s the coupon, wish you like it

zanflare F1 LED Flashlight

http://www.gearbest.com/led-flashlights/pp_466743.html
coupon: F1GB
price: $34.99

the coupon is only available during the presales ( please use it before Oct 28th )

for the price, beg all of your understanding, we have spent so much time to make the light and the cost is not cheaper too, as we want to bring you high quality product, so please support us, then we coud have bring more lights too, :smiley:

I think you kind of got it backwards. They couldn’t build a driver with low quiescent drain and so had to include an off/on tailswitch. It’s pretty inconvenient when you need one switch to turn the flashlight on and off and one to select the required mode since you have to always switch your grip to operate different switches. So two switches here is a forced solution and a usability drawback. Which is excusable in a 50$ Convoy L6 with its specs for that price, but not in a tube light with 4/5of its price.

it seems to be a nice flashlight with good components and a respectable microusb port with 2 o-rings

And the $90 Nitecore P12GT?

There are a lot of lights that use a tail switch as well as a side switch. Some people like the ability to signal with the tail switch, or simply lock out the electronic switch to make it safe for pocket or backpack carry. “Forced” is pretty strong accusation, just because they didn’t choose to build it Your way.

I don’t care for e-switch lights without a tail switch cut-off. They have constant cell drain and are too easily accidentally activated.

Firstly congrats to Gearbest for the first inhouse flashlight :+1:

Also thanks to DB Customs, for his awesome review of this light.

From my personal experience with this light, i can say few things.

First the pros.
_

1. I will be a bit shallow here, but what firstly surprised me, was the quality of the packing - the box prints/material/presentation where awesome. It screamed quality to me. I know its not such an important thing, but it was really a nice change from the other lights i have seen so far.

2. The build quality of the light, no lose feel, clicking things, or anything. starting from the matching, anodizing and the buttons-feedback, are all near perfect imho, when you hold the light, you got such a nice feel and it feels like the light is in the 100$ + category, not budget light (price-wise), the buttons are very clicky and are build from sturdy materials, the back button is very strong and the feedback is really awesome, something that often is totally off on the lights in this price range - the material used from the buttons are also very good. Compared to my Jaxman E2 for example this light destroys it in terms of build quality, anodizing, buttons feedback, machining, and most importantly hotspot artifacts/rings, its much better.

3. The led tint is very nice,no greenish or bluish, or yellowish tints, pure neutral white (at least from my sample) there are no dark wholes in the hotspot as well, which is another thing i often see with the lights from this price range.

4. I also like the modes, they are decently spaced and i especially like the flare mode, which is even connected to the brand-name, which is a great idea- attention to detail imho again. Having the ability to boost to around 1250 lumens from light of this size is not very common.

5. The driver is also quite decent, and decently build i really like it.

6. The light is able to tailstand which is important to me.

7. The light comes with charging port, which is huge bonus for first time users, since they cant be bothered with chargers or spend additional funds on them, its alot more convenient this way. Its big bonus for flashlight enthusiast as well, since one more less thing to think of .

The cons,

The only “con” i can think of its my OCD, much more then a con, namely the ring which cover the charging port, is not 100% in angle with the light tube - this is total nitpick, much more then a real or ANY problem. For now, i don’t see anything other as a negative thing.

Overall im impressed for a first try, this is a very good showing! grats one more time Gearbest! :beer:

1.I definitely don’t consider Nitecore to be some kind of ultimate authority in flashlight design. And they do have pure e-switch designs, like HC30 (the one Nitecore I actually handled, the body is excellent, the light itself is poor due to cold white LED and bright hotspot, and definitely doesn’t worth its list price of $50).
2.I doubt that any significant number of flashlight users know and use Morse and besides this almost every flashlight designer thinks that at least two blinky modes are necessary and includes them in the driver. Also nothing prevents you from using a e-switch to turn the flashlight on and off to perform whatever signal you wish.
3.If the tail switch just turns your flashlight on, than how can it prevent an accidental activation? If it gets accidentally pressed - it activates the flashlight.
Just unscrew the flashlight a bit to make it 100%-activation-proof.
4. Constant cell drain happens when you can’t design a driver properly. And a second switch doesn’t provide significatly against accidental activation. Just unscrewing the head/tail for a quarter turn is far more accident-proof way.
Though in the small EDC light like this one or the aforementioned Nitecore it impacts usability less than in large light like Convoy L6 (but for this price I’m willing to tolerate this drawback in Convoy) since you don’t have to re-grip flashlight to go from turning off to selecting appropriate mode.
I see that in the end we just have to agree to disagree.

Dale, sorry if I missed it but how good does it actually charge? (Cut of voltage for example)