[REVIEW] Cheap 14500 flashlight with COB light side and little modding

Thanks for the review. I picked up one of these on AliExpress for ~$2.20. Great for the price. I wish it didn’t have “next mode memory” though.

Good review, just received mine today from Aliexpress. Bought mine for 2$ but it has a stupid “Enjoydeal” branding etched on the host.
Overall it’s a good light for the price but it can’t tail stand, but that’s okay since it can head stand while using COB mode.
It also has the Next mode memory which is very annoying.

Update:
Apparently there is also a zoomable version of this light.

I have taken the current measurements when using an eneloop pro and estimated runtime

Battery - Eneloop Pro 1.2V | 2500mAh | 3Whr

High - 535mA - 0.64W ~4.5Hrs
Low - 150mA - 0.18W ~16Hrs
COB - 565mA - 0.68W ~4.3Hrs

Mine is labeled “probe shinny” ,bought from Alie usd 2,12.
I swaped the led with XP -G2 neutral ,usd 0.79 on Alie , and I am very satisfied how it light up now.

you know any way to disable the cob blinkie? or maybe disable next mode memory?

Sorry but I am not so good to modding ,just swaping leds ,reflectors,drivers……basic .
Hope other members can help , I am interested too.

I got one from Aliexpress and it appears to be a different manufacturer or they are cutting costs. Mine lacks the white bush that sits between the LED and reflector. The tail spring looks smaller and it doesn’t have the 4 holes to unscrew the switch housing. The body looks thinner too

It weighs: 33.96g

Mine has low mode on the cob and flashing on the main LED

Next mode memory just ruins a great light.

Fresh eneloop:

560mA cob low
1.8A main high
(1.8A) flashing main
1.8A cob high

I guess you could just swap the outputs on the driver to have low COB and flashing main or low main and flashing COB

The body allows an AA to rattle around a bit and the driver has “CX-WFL50” printed on the bottom

You need to install a resistor, parallel with the capacitor on driver board with value from aroud 1MOhm to 2MOhm.
This trick will discharge capacitor in a certain time after you switched OFF the light, so it will turn ON at first mode next time.
If you click fast enough when ON, those functions still work like normal.
Hope it helps.

what about the pencil graphite method? will that work?

Update : I don’t think that might work since I believe the light is writing it’s mode to eeprom because the light remembers next mode even after days of no use.

I don’t know that method.

With the cheap flashlight likes this, I don’t think it remembers last mode by writing any things to memory, just run pre-programed modes.

I received one from AliExpress as well, 1.77€ or 2.06$.
Store name Black scorpions.

Mine also very thin body wall, AA rattles. No washer under reflector, no holes to unscrew switch housing.
Modes are cob hi/lo, main hi/slow flash.

Current draw with pretty fresh “noname” alkaline
1.76A cob hi/main hi
0.56A cob lo.
Let’s assume that the AA maintains (briefly), say, 1.2V under the load so it would be about 2.1W
Let’s take say 10% off because of driver efficiencies (nothing’s perfect), we’re left with 1.9W.
With a typical forward voltage of 3.1V, assuming it’s a real XP-E (I doubt) we’d have about 0.6A forward current which would be about 150% relative flux if it’s a real XP-E (I doubt).
So ballpark 150-180lumen output seems reasonable to me.

I actually prefer this UI vs the slow flash on cob and only hi on cob.
Reason being that I mainly bought this light for the side cob so I feel it’s more useful to have hi/lo on cob rather than normal and flash.
Also I’d say the flash is more useful with main light as it’s quite throwy.

Nice and really budget light for modding but the AA rattle out of the box is a bit unfortunate though not hard to fix.
Overall 3/5, would buy again.

Edit: If you want to take this light apart, it’s really easy.
The cob “lens” holds the cob in place by one small plastic peg which goes through the cob led pcb.
So you need to pop the cob “lens” off first and after that the whole assembly slides out the front.

Push the lens up from here

And/or lever the lens up (with something slim enough, mini screwdriver or something) and pull/slide it “away” from the front of the flashlight.
The way the lens goes in is that you first put one edge of it in (towards the front of the light) and then you push the rest of it down, making sure cob pcb hole and lens plastic peg are lined up. (Hope that makes sense)

After that you can gently push the driver/pill/main led combo out the front of the light (long screwdriver through the tube or something) while making sure the cob led follows, might need to push the pill and then the cob led and then the pill and so on.
The wires are bit fragile looking so be gentle.

Do you have a picture of your flashlight’s driver?

I do now.

Hopefully those are of use, won’t open it again until I have a replacement led+mcpcb :stuck_out_tongue:
If anyone wants to remove the mcpcb from the pill/driver piece, it’s tight but it will come off once you apply enough force.
I used a small flat head screwdriver and just lever it up from there. It also takes a bit of pressure to put it back in, level that is. Grabbed a bit bigger flat head that time…

I’m thinking about swapping the led to a Nichia 219B or C in 5700K.
Or maybe just a XP-G2 in something like 5000-5500K. I don’t know yet.

I’ve also found some TIR optics from AliExpress, from Yajiamei Optics store. Thanks to MascaratumB’s Amutorch review where he linked to their store.
These cobbled/bead lenses should just about fit this host
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/CREE-XP-E-XP-G-lens-Diameter-17mm-Bead-surface-60-Degree-LED-lens-with-stand/2048689105.html

Edit: Also my reflector is different type as well as different dimensions.

P.S. Oh and yes, the main LED color is afwul, the beam profile isn’t nice, pretty much everything is quite hideous about the main LED but at least it’s a standard 16mm mcpcb so easy to swap :smiley:

Thanks for those pics. I don’t see any MCU or am I wrong? :confounded:

No problem. I don’t know enough about flashlight electronics, or electronic components in general, to know whether this thing has an MCU or not.


But in other news, Nichia 219B 5700K CRI92 on 16x1.5mm MCPCB from Kaidomain arrived yesterday and I swapped it in today.
Also dabbed a little bit of Arctic Cooling MX-2 TIM on the edges and where the copper contacts the pill, just for the kicks I guess. It ain’t driven hard but can’t hurt I guess…

Note: stock MCPCB is ~0.8mm thick so if you buy 1.5mm thick replacement you need to sand it down or the reflector. I decided to sand the reflector down a bit so there’s not that big of a gap.

Here’s comparison pictures if anyone is interested. Not quite the same angle and so on but you get the idea.

HTC 10 f/1.8 manual mode: CCT 5390K, ISO1600 and 1/100. Distance about 65cm from the tile wall.

Now I’m waiting for a few things to arrive. The TIR optics from Yajiamei as well as a Nichia 219C 4000K CRI92 16x1.5mm.
What’s the 4000K Nichia for? Another one of these cob lights :person_facepalming:

Awesome upgrade, love the new tint. colors looks real vivid now :+1:

It’s a shame that the mcpcb rests on the rim of the pill, I would say it’s not sufficient for anything that is driven more than 1W.

Oh yes, now it’s actually useful.

Yeah, it’s a little bit how you doing but at least it works and has some contact. I do recommend adding thermalpaste on the rim so the mcpcb at least has a chance to transfer some of the heat to the pill.
The same goes for the cob light which is driven at about the same power as the main led. Though it would be nice if it was heatsinked to the body of the flashlight. But alas, it’s not. You could jam a thermal pad between it and the battery to dump some of the heat into it, wouldn’t be that bad of an idea all things considered.

Which brings us to the next case, what material is the pill made of? :person_facepalming:

The cob would do a slightly better job with heat since it’s beads are spread apart, but still 1W and above and it would not be enough.

Found a C8 clone with side COB light

A bit expensive listing if you ask me.

Looked around a bit, seems like you can get one of these for around 4.50-6.00 USD.
For example Page Not Found - Aliexpress.com