Love my SK68 torches but....

…I can’t seem to find a good source for them anymore. I’ve got 4 or 5 of them that I’ve had for several years now and I want to recommend them to others, but it looks like there are a lot of low quality clones out there now.
Do I need to give up looking or is there a current AA size torch that is as good or better than the old SK68? Single mode is preferred. Thanks

Maybe at Fasttech or similar. As little as 2yrs ago there was a major race-to-the-bottom as far as quality of ’501s, ’502s, ’98s, and C8s. I’d imagine that’d apply to ’68s as well.

C8s (clones) were decent, at least had an XM-L or at the very least a Latticebright XM-L lookalike, and did put out at least 500lm-700lm or so. Brass pill, decent switch, quite usable as-is, as long as you didn’t mind CW (maybe 6500K).

My last batch (maybe a year-and-a-half ago) was pure garbage. Angry Blue™ XP-E sized no-name Mystery LED, plastic(!) reflector, chintzy Al pill, gritty threads, cheap switch, maybe 70lm-80lm tops.

1A through a 3W colored “bead” LED would be about all I’d trust it to handle. By the time you’d replace the garbage parts, you could buy a good legit Convoy host for 12bux or so and save yourself the ag.

gearbest has them last time i bought there… clone or not for a few bucks that they cost they are a decent lights, the host can take alot of beating and abuse and still work perfect.

Yeah…they seem to have hit their peak…more of the main stream flashlight producers like maglite and whatnot are now producing quality LED lights now…so people are flocking to them

You can still get em pretty good at aliexpress

Looking for a decent SK68 may be a hopeless case nowadays.

If you don't mind grabbing bigger siblings, this UltraFire XM-L2 at FastTech fits the bill. There's currently no other SK98 listed on the official UltraFire website, thus if you try to grab some other sibling of this one nearly 100% chance of it being UltraFake.

Cheers :-)

About right there.
I have an old silver. single mode 68’ Q5.
OK for round home.

Ordered and paid for 2 x—-Ultrafire 68’s??? Yea.
$4.86del AUD.
Eventually……
46ish gram lighter each, sans Battery.
3 mode. Q5 again. Nice colours though.
Visitors pressy’s methink’s. Look\feel. cheap as.

Those original 68’s seem to be the better, Allround AA torch
at a decent price. Nothing much else goes near them.
Or the 98’s for an XM-l bin.