The pics are fine bud, hey would you be able to post a pic of that klingon bezel on.......guess it makes the beam profile terrible to look at.
Ah, so the R2 is quite an efficient LED, I didn't know that. That is a major perk for this light. Anyone know of any other 1xAA lights in this price range (or less) that use an R-series bin? I'd be very interested to see how the runtime is on low, Don.
A metal switch, you say? I didn't notice that. That's unique.
I also like the side notch for the lanyard ring that permits tail standing.
At my former job we used to send out designs to be manufactured with a heavy diamond knurl on cylindrical surfaces. And that was with medical-grade SS 17-4. So SS knurling is definitely possible, but expensive. And those were mainly one-off jobs, and that's a valid point about tooling wearing out quickly for something that is produced in large quantities. I still wonder exactly how many units do they make of these Chinese lights? 100? 1,000? 10,000? 500,000? And I wonder if they make them in huge batches or small batches, or even on demand?
I kind of like the idea of either beadblasting it to get a stain finish or mirror polishing it. I think I'll try the mirror approach first just to see what happens. Time for some polishing fun....
Stainless steel is hard and therefore not the easiest thing to polish. Does make the scratches from use more evident though. Need to find out if anyone I know has a bead blaster and make it a satin finish instead. Or maybe not...
No idea of production quantities - but there are a billion people in China. I suspect that the export market is a very small part of their business. Though you never know - Russian stuff used to be sold at below the cost of production in order to get hard currency. I doubt this is the case in China as most of the world owes it money.
The light is nice....would've been so much better if there was a clip installed. Mothers polish works good.......faster if you have a dremel with a poishing head on it.
Klingon Bezel!
I like that one Al!
Here you go. The light is tailstanding on top of a door about 60cm/2 feet from the ceiling.
Plain bezel
Klingon Bezel
The silly bezel also roughly halves the light output according to my camera's meter.
And here's the XP-E LED
You think this F22 is legit? The price is way better.
EDIT: But no free shipping. Not such a good deal afterall.
Looks like there is an R5 version of this light, but it's definitely not budget priced.
http://www.qualitychinagoods.com/trustfire-5mode-lumens-flashlightftf22-p-1504.html
No doubt it'll make it to DX eventually. But not at $40. QCG tends not to be cheap - I used to use them till I found DX which is usually way cheaper. QCG makes sense once you get into their quantity discounts - but what am I going to do with 300 of any light?
http://www.kaidomain.com/ProductDetails.aspx?ProductId=10317
Think I'll be passing on that.
With that bezel on the beam profile would just be useless if one uses side spill as well for looking, thanks Don for posting up that pic.
Initial brightness on an alkaline (1.539V) on high is about 85 lumens. Down by about 20% after 5 minutes. Not designed for use with alkalines on high evidently. But since the alkalines are consumables I'll run the light to shutoff. Even then they may be useful in my backup mouse that can use cells nothing else will still work with.
Down to 7 lumens and nearing the end I think. Not a light to use with alkalines on high. Gave up when I could comfortably look into the emitter. Not really useful at that level of dimness unless your eyes are completely dark adapted. Got 1 hour 52 minutes out of it to useless. The conventional runtime is to 50% which gives a runtime of 27 minutes 45 seconds. Chart to follow. Medium runtime under way.
For some reason i would never use an alkie for runtimes since im afraid of the cell leaking..........but another thought i have alkies in my rc radio when its not in use, and that radio cost me.
It's normally when you leave them in something after they are flat that they leak. Or so I'm told. But I never leave alkalines in anything with significant current drain and faithfully throw out ones from clocks, remotes etc. annually. And I only buy Duracells for the purpose. Personally, I've never had a Duracell leak.
At least since the crap they used to sell in the 80's like the carton of around a thousand of the things (We sold a lot of them in the camera shop I worked in then) that had been put together the wrong way round so that the nipple was negative. At the time I used only Japanese batteries.
But I'm not about to risk it. The cells I am using for this are a variety of whatever my employer (Which employs over a million people) can get cheapest. But since a stores order can take three months to arrive I took in a box of my own (Our pagers eat AA batteries) on the understanding I'd get whatever we got when they finally arrived.
It was the Lucas branded ones that got me laughing - evidently they didn't realise the reputation of Lucas electrics amongst bikers. There was a reason that Joe Lucas of the firm was known as the "Prince of Darkness". I do remember various occasions when Lucas electrics failed spectacularly - sometimes with smoke.
At the moment we're getting Rayovacs but doubtless it'll be a different brand next time. I'll tell you when the order arrives. Our pagers are horrible things that cost a fortune (Over $600 each) - it would take about two leaking alkies to blot out the national savings on buying cheap garbage.
Thats another thing i dont understand, if your company is willing to spend so much on good electronics then why not spend the money on good cells to go with them. Im topping off 8 Duraloops now for the radio.
The Cree docs are now talking about up to S2 bins - hopefully these will be available this year. At that point I'd be tempted to do an emitter swap as long as they are in XP-E format, though it seems they are moving to XP-G dies instead. The XR-E (and I think the XP-G) is now rated at up to 1.5A with adequate heatsinking (not that you are getting this in a stainless steel light) so some brutal driving of the latest bins could be seriously bright. The XP-E emitters are only rated to one amp.
But at saner currents they will be more efficient and run cooler while still giving more light. Using the stock driver which gives 1200mA or well above spec for the XP-E emitter in it a brighter bin could be fun. 300 lumens out of it ought to be achievable by early next year.
Comes of working for the public sector in healthcare. Short-term financial objectives are all that matter. Someone has mistaken "accountability" and "accountancy". "Accountability" seems to mean taking the blame for decisions made elsewhere. Budgets have become sacred. Someone saved a LOT (tens of millions per year) of money by centralising stores orders. Junk alkies are merely a side effect.
That said, I've never had a pager damaged by a junk cell. I have dropped one down a toilet when the clip broke and driven a bus over one. It fell out of my pocket when the clip broke and I didn't notice as I climbed into the driver's seat. I've also lost one somewhere. When I got back to the office, the clip was still on my belt but I've no idea where the pager fell off. the current one got its clip modified the day I got it. It won't break now (It weighs about as much as the pager) but the battery cover which contains the + contact is now held on with duct tape. I think I've had it about ten years now.
About 1hr 35 min to 50% on an alkaline on medium. Again, will let it run down to cell death since it isn't a rechargeable cell. Graph to follow when the cell finally dies.
Just messed up the medium runtime. Saved it in an unusable format. Low runtime now running. 45 lux - about 10 lumens at start on an alkaline. This is at Fenix E01 levels. Should run for ages. Fan cooled - which is almost certainly unnecessary.
Nice man.......What light meter do you use......and what program do use as well for graphs and runtimes.