Quick thoughts of Astrolux MF-01 Nichia

Sorry that I don’t know how to post pictures, but I want to share my thoughts of this light. Today I got the MF01 Nichia 219C in the mailbox and was very excited since estimated delivery is on the 10/26th.

Below is a very quick and short thoughts of this product (No pics so I will make this easy to read) :

-This flashlight is lighter than a bit smaller than I expected to be.

-The overall finishing is perfect on the body with no nicks or scratches anywhere outside!

-The tint is beautiful and smooth to my eyes!

-Provides very good floor and throw to my personal view and use

-Wish there is a lower mode but I can live without it too.

-I can feel the head heating up quick on turbo much quicker than my HaikeLite MT03 on turbo

-Button feels good and very easy to press

-Both flat top (VTC6) and button top (30Q) works perfectly, Sanyo slightly raised top I got some uneven draw when I put my battery in the charger.

This is from the 2nd wave or 2nd batch and I’ve been hearing people saying the first batch are measured between 7000~9000 lumens stock. I believe this new batch of Nichia is brighter than that, here is why I think that: I have a HaikeLite MT03 CW. And according to maukka’s review and some other reviews I saw with the MT03 they were measured above listed specs in real life; which some are getting 9000 to 10k lumens on stock.

Well… if that is true, my MF01 with 30Q BT new and fully charged is brighter than my MT03 with fully charged VTC6. I tested on both long and close up distances, MF01 is brighter and lit up much better, so bright that even covers the beam on MT03…(I am not sure if it has to do with tints and light temperatures, I just stacked both beams on the same wall for testing and fun purposes.)

I am very happy with this light but I can’t say which is my favorite light just yet until my Q8 coming in the next few days and play with it :sunglasses:

I got mine on Monday. I thought it would be brighter. Thought I was gonna be like wow when I first turned it on.

The beam is beautiful though! The tint and how the spill isn’t wide for a flooder. I can’t use my Q8 to walk the dog through the park. The spill light up people’s houses lol

This is interesting, in my back yard, I wasn’t as impressed with my XPG MF01 as I thought I would be. When I took it out on backroads and shined it out over the fields, then I was impressed. It just really needs some room to stretch its legs. It has way more throw and spill than the high beams of my truck.

I used it in the house and wasn’t impressed too until I took it outside…
I am really thinking about getting a XP-G3… Hopefully they have specials going on in the holiday seasons

I recently received a batch 2 MF-01 Nichia.

I like the feel of it, especially that satin black finish. It is small, compact and very very bright, with such a nice NW tint that looks like sunlight. The beam if pure flood but constrained into a nice smooth cone. No hot spot to blind you. But throw is not that great though.

However, on a ceiling bounce test compared to other lights, it does not seem to reach 8k lumen out of the 10-12 advertised - so that’s kind of disappointing, but i can live with it. The good part of a moderate output is it does not heat up too fast… and a few more thousand lumen would not make a huge difference.

Now my main concern is the mode spacing. There is a lot of room between the first two levels. If a simple driver swap solution comes forward i may be tempted. Narsil and ramping would be great on that light.

To what other lights did you compare the ceiling bounce test?

The XPG is much more impressive than the Nichia. Makes you squint your eyes when doing wall bounces inside, Nichia is not nearly as bright.

Not sure why but my Nichia heats up fast and I can feel it within 15 seconds. some people think that every light were created equal. as I mentioned in original posting my MF01 is noticeably brighter than MT03 (many tested to be right on spec or above of 9-10k lumen) when I do the wall bounce and ceiling bounce.

I really want to see what Xp-G3 can do now… somebody give me a good reason to buy it other than it is brighter lol

Well it’s not exact science… I Used an old SRK triple known to put out just over 2K and extrapolated from there. DQG Tiny 26650 comes up at 2380 lumen, Emisar D4 XPL on 18650 3780lm, D4 Nichia on 18350 2520lm, BLF Q8 stock 5250lm, BLF A6 1330lm, Astr S41S xpg3 on 18650 1680lm… and Astr MF-01 Nichia 7800lm.

I may be a bit conservative on this scale… but not enough to reach 10k on the Nichia MF-01 i think.

My car high beam

MF01 219C

It actually look brighter in real life. But it was too cold so I didn’t adjust yet brightness to match my eyes

Thank you… and interesting. Here’s my thought, and I’m certainly not an expert as I measure output the same way. A whole bunch of lights you mentioned are FET driven. Therefore output is very sensitive to minor change in voltage. Battery condition is going to play a role as well in terms of output. Of course for rough measurements it certainly is not a problem.
But here’s the thing with the MF01. Your reference is an SRK triple. I’ve read regularly in the past that the original Skyray King pumps out 2200~2400 lumens. Do you have an original Skyray King, or is it another light? So if you’re not sure about the real output of your reference light, then your estimation for the MF01 is going to fluctuate a lot as well.
Secondly, there is a big gap between a 2000 lumen SRK and what the MF01 pumps out: roughly 9000 lumens. So we’re looking at over 400% difference. The bigger the difference, the more precise (=expensive) your lux meter must be for reliable data. Or generally this means that the bigger the difference in output, the more likely your measured data will deviate more from the actual value.
I use the M43 219C as a reference. This thing is rated at 6600 lumens, so the difference between this output and what the MF01 produces is less than 50%. Therefore my extrapolated measurement is by default more reliable. The M43 has a boost driver, and turbo output is constant, independent of whether I use 30Q or GA, and independent of when cell voltage is 4.2V or 3.8V. I also have three identical M43 219C, and they all have pretty much the same turbo output. This output of around 6600 lumens is also verified by a reliable source (I believe it was Maukka). So there are two things:

1) Reliable reference output
2) Reference output as close as possible to MF01’s output

Anyhow, it would be interesting if you could find a different reference light, and see whether you would get a different output for the MF01. Thanks for reading!