- The Fake-Cree LED Awareness Thread - The new "low" in Budget lights.

I bought a Warsun CT9T from Banggood for $14. It was a huge disappointment because I had read a few reviews. It was about 600 lumens tops, thin cheesy build. I sold it for $10 value with another deal.
Pretty sure the LED was counterfeit. Banggood refunded me.

Yeap, the 3rd lead.

Aha, indeed. :+1:

Falke led cree xm-l2 buy at gearbest
http://www.gearbest.com/diy-parts-and-tools/pp_142215.html

regards

I want to order this just to blow it up on the test bench for some reason….

Looks like Lattice Bright XM -> http://www.latticebright.com/En/cpzs1/2016-01/21/NewsView-283.html

yes, Looks Lattice Bright XM.
Cold light, a little blue :person_facepalming:

That fake XM-L2 from Gearbest is a new level of lying to customers. It handles about a bare emitter, the description mentions ‘Cree XM-L2’ and the tell-tale dotpattern is not shown in the pictures (the clear picture above is jorge’s own picture). 100% deception of customers!

Shame on Gearbest!

I happened to buy that item some time ago and the holes are arranged in diagonal and the connection to the small wires are round as far as i can tell on the one i got. Somewhere in the supply chain somebody must have switched suppliers afterwards to a cheaper one, Gearbest may not know they are selling a fake xm-l2.

The difference is very subtle, if you are not looking for it you would not find it.

For most people, square yellow thing that doesn’t look like a 5mm led = Cree.

I bought previously this led in GB, if before were 100% genuine, but no longer :rage:

Is it often better to jump in on at least some of these group buys or other releases ASAP to have a better chance of actually receiving what was reviewed or promised and not a fake or poorer quality LED/light overall?

I ask this due to my not even questioning whether some GB LEDs are genuine or at least performing ‘close to’ such due to so many eyes publicly on the quality issue all at once.

My more pessimistic/realistic side tends to gravitate more towards jorgefrty’s experience above involving perhaps simply chumming the water.

At the end they return the money to paypal, or with gb points

I reported the item just now and linked to the post with the fake XM-L2 picture.
I don’t think Gearbest sells fakes on purpose.

Do not Ask why after notify that they are not genuine,
they still sell them as Cree?
Because they are just good to collect money.
So they are happy to continue.
Plus many people that don’t recognize fake give them 5 stars on comments

I didn’t realise there were so many fake LEDs out there. Never thought about checking the torches I bought a couple of years ago. Just had a look at the ones in the torches and the ones in the bike light I recently purchased. I’m guessing they are fakes.


Yep, they are fakes.

Although I ran a test on the Latticebright “XM-L” recently, the results were not nearly as bad as I expected. Particularly when you consider that the die is an XP-G2 sized die and thus should be compared to an XP-G2.

Not Genuine Cree quality by any means though.

Yeah I thought they were fake as soon as I saw a picture of the Latticebright LEDs. If I hadn’t ripped apart the battery pack that came with the new light I ordered I’d consider sending it back but too late now.

Still happy with the light from it though. I don’t know how they compare to a proper Cree LED but it’s good enough for what I want.

Being the flashlight guy, everybody wants to give me flashlights. This past Christmas, a friend gifted me a light, which turned out to be a Boruit RJ-3000. I’m actually quite happy with the light, even with the three LB emitters. The XP-G sized die and the main smooth reflector makes for a decently throwy light. It actually has a quite nice tint, with no nasty green or ugly blue. The two side emitters don’t match as they are a slightly warmer tint, but they still are decent. Unless I get really bored, I’ll likely leave the emitters as-is. The only mod I’m planning is to replace the TIR optics on the secondary emitters with some of the wide-angle optics to give me a smoother secondary illumination mode.

The UI is a different story, and could definitely use some improvement.

Modes are:

  1. Center/High
  2. 2x secondary with TIRs/High
  3. All three on/High
  4. Strobe
  5. Off

….and you have to go through the full cycle to turn off. No low modes available.

Real or not? Saw the generic zoomie it was in on a sale and decided to buy it as the emitter looked 100% real. Started to doub´t it after i saw the blue-tinted light from it.

Looks real, the blue tint doesn’t really mean much. I have seen a LOT of real crees with neon blue tints. Pulled a darn near purple Cree emitter today.