Boruit Headlamp Review D10 (aka. EHL0628) - King of the Budget Headlamps?

If you don’t mind losing the usb charging, the Crelant CH10 that I got seems to be a good candidate for modding. It’s uses an e-switch so you can run a pretty conventional driver. A FET with NarsilM for instance. They can be had with a variety of genuine cree emitters in different tints. You would probably need to swap it to a top of the line DTP mcpcb, though. Overall, it’s a pretty beefy aluminum design so it can handle the heat well.

This new Boruit looks a bit tricky to mod due the switch being on the driver. Maybe it’s got another pcb behind the first one that is the actual driver? Maybe. If so, then it might make a good host.

Lexel will be coming out with his own boost drivers soon that will run NarsilM. It should be able to do up to 3A at 12v or 6A at 6v.

So if your thinking about using an xhp35/50/70 I’d wait to see how big his drivers are, then choose a host it will fit in.

I am certainly not hating on Boruit, they make “good enough” lights for the normal flashoholic. However, even if the blinkies are hidden, a non-flashoholic can easily get flustered by accidentally getting to them. If this light was for my use, i would be fine with the hidden modes….but its not for my use.
My wife or my 11 yr old wont remember what the different clicks, rates of clicking, long clicks etc are.
The regular non flashlight interested person just go by simple clicks……and ever time you click it gets brighter, in a round robin kind of way without blinkies coming in the way.
All im saying is that some lights dont have a simple fool proof UI, even if its simple to most or all of you. Not hating on boruit, just an opinion.

Thanks for the review garrybunk! Looks like a good budget headlamp. Does it have low voltage protection?

Yes, low voltage indication (blinks) and auto-off.

Whoops! I have it in my notes, just forgot to post. According to my testing (and trying to pull the cell to measure voltage quickly) it seems to trigger 3 slow flashes at 3.00v but keeps running at regular ouput (no stepdown) and I don’t believe it flashes again - just shuts down when it reaches about 2.70v. That shut-off level might be a little low for some cells.

-Garry

P.S. - I’ll add this to the O.P.

Yesterday I used this light intensively (almost 7hours, with some interruptions) and I must say I am really pleased with it! I used it with a protected 18650 and mostly on medium mode (sometimes used the “high medium” and “turbo”).

The best part for me is to know that when switching ON it will always start on the same level and that with a fast click I can raise the output to the Highest mode.
Also, the simple “click” to ON is very pleasant!

Only once I accidentally turned the Strobe ON when making a fast click. The stock headband feels good on the forehead and despite this is not the lightest flashlight, it doesn’t feel heavy.

The tint with a pebbled TIR lens is indeed more pleasant and it worked well when used against non-white objects.

I now love lights without memory meaning I know exactly what mode a light will come on in. You see, the problem is that my memory isn’t as good as the driver’s memory - I can’t remember what the last mode I used was when I turn it on again!

-Garry

I got mine in today. Ordered on Feb 5th and go it 10 days later. Really fast!

It is quite nice. Not heavy at all. It’s surprisingly light and doesn’t really need the 3rd strap over the top.

I’m pretty sure it’s less blue tinted than the RJ02. I don’t have it handy to compare them. It’s a nice white, though.

The UI is great. No problems at all using it.

I had to install the 60° tir from MTN Electronics. The stock reflector is 18.8mm wide as mentioned before and about 10.5mm tall. The tir is about 19.7mm wide and 11.8 tall. So I filed it down some to make it fit. I filed the edges and the narrow bottom. I removed the plastic centering ring. The tir sits on top of the white emitter package, not the mcpcb. This seems okay.

I got the optional Boruit 4,000mah battery as well. It’s only 67mm long which is pretty short for a “protected” cell. Maybe it is protected, maybe it isn’t. I can’t say for sure.

Here it is next to a Evva protected Panasonic NCR18650B at 69.5mm.

I’ll be testing it’s capacity soon.

I ran the Boruit battery down until the light turned off. That should be 2.70 volts, but when I measured it, it was 2.78v. Then several minutes later it showed 3.2v.

I put it in the Miboxer C4-12 charger at 3.2v and it very quickly started charging. Internal resistance showed 98 ohm. Capacity ended up being 1570mah. I was hoping for at least 2200 or so. Oh well, it was only about $2 extra.

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Glad to hear you like the light!

-Garry

Did a capacity test for batteries that are bundled with flashlights:

Also did a capacity test of the Boruit “4000mAh” (discharge current 0.50A, cut-off 2.50v) - ordered with Boruit RJ-02 “kit” (it weights lighter than many standard 18650s — coming in at only 40 grams) ~1639mAh capacity

Above pic also shows the Sofirn “3000mAh” 18650 included with SP32A flashlight+battery kit under the same conditions - discharge 0.50A, cut-off 2.50v) ~ 2641mAh.

The Sofirn “900mAh” 14500 (included with SP10B flashlight+battery kit) was tested with discharge 0.25A, cut-off 2.75v ~ 804mAh.

(the Boruit seems to self-discharge quite fast since I hadn’t removed it from the charger after it completed the test)

Yeah, it will probably be the new go-to headlamp, replacing the bigger RJ02.

is the rj02 noticeably bigger than this? I am torn between those 2 lights

Yes. Heavier, too.

It’s a no brainer. Here are the advantages of the new one:
Lighter
Smaller
Has low voltage protection
No visable PWM
Whiter light, less blue
Better sealed against water
Pops out of headband holder with no fuss
Easy to swap a new emitter in, nichia, sst40, etc…

The only advantages the RJ02 has is:
Infinite brightness adjustment, but the new one seems fine with its 5 levels.
The motion activated switch, it’s only between full power and off and I never found it useful.

Awesome, thanks for the heads up!

I finally have approximate lumen measurements from my DIY foam sphere (light still in stock form):

Level @Start @30secs

1 17 17

2 58 58

3 149 148

4 293 290

5 573 547

Pretty stable outputs in the first 4 mode levels (at least for 30 seconds). I'll add these to the O.P. too. If I do an emitter swap (219C) I'll post those results too, but that will be awhile. -Garry

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Looks like I’m gonna swap in an XP-G3 5C on a 16mm star. I looked all through my parts envelopes and don’t see where I ever ordered XP pcb’s to reflow a 219C onto. Of course I could reflow the 219C on to the board containing the XP-G3, but I’m going to try the XP-G3 out first.

-Garry

EDIT - I never proceeded with this. I waited on new XP pcbs.

Inhave bought several now and find them excellent. The switch is positive and machining is good. It’s plenty bright…by my estimate around 900 lumens. The charging works well. This thing is a great bargain for $11.

I think 900 lumen is too high. It’s only drawing 1.9A and not even a genuine Cree led. I was thinking 500 to 600 lumen.

Well after over a month of waiting I finally received my order from KD containing DTP XP boards! I reflowed a Nichia 219C onto a 20mm board and swapped it in. I accidentally broke the ends of those short emitter wires off when I was breaking the old pcb loose, so I soldered and heatshrink wrapped some extensions on them (would have needed to do anyway). I did have to file down the side of the KD pcb to fit it by the wires. It all worked out well (finally a mod that went fairly well). For now I only have the stock reflector in it, but expect to try a TIR optic at a later time. I will run it through my sphere again very soon and post those numbers. I did however re-check tailcap currents (though these were measured with a good high-drain cell vs. the old Trustfire I did the first measurements with):

Original #’s:
5 Step Quasi-Ramping:
Level 5: 1.87A
Level 4: 0.84A
Level 3: 0.40A
Level 2: 0.13A
Level 1: 0.05A

Newly measured#’s:
Level 5: 2.11A
Level 4: 0.99A
Level 3: 0.47A
Level 2: 0.17A
Level 1: 0.05A

So not very different and could be the different battery.

Some photos:
My extension wires soldered on:

Heat shrink wrapped:

KD DTP board fit, filed edge at wires:

Soldered up;

Put back together:

Beamshot (cell phone camera):

Beamshot comparison with cool white Zanflare F1 on the right (cell phone camera):

-Garry