[♛ FreemeGB] Fireflies PL47 Gen II 4*XP-L/ Nichia/ SST20 Hi CRI 21700 Right Angle Flashlight - ENDED

For me it is 50$ well spend as the flashlight is working perfectly, guess you have been very unlucky with yours and i hope FF will sort it out.

Why is this so hard. I did not say it was okay to waste 50$ on an item, i said anyone who spends 50$ on an unproven item thinks it is okay. For those of us who are impatient, and prone to risky lifestyles would probably take this chance. This is a decision. We are all grownups here i assume.

Here are the facts as plain as i can make it. Fireflies brought 1 light to market thru basically an enthusiast comment section. Then they brought a 2nd light to market thru the same channel. This was not a secret. Anyone here knows this. The only way you got to their website was thru this portal. In the unlikeliest event you made it there by google you should have done due diligence before handing over any money to an unknown company buried somehwere in the megacapital of this planets manufacturing industry —china. If you found them thru blf then you should have also done your due diligence. The only thing i found thru googling was blf threads on rot66. In fact, i discovered the pl47 mid-thread after learning about the acebeam h30 on skylumens website. $160 was more than i was willing to spend. To get a high cri light, btw. So i googled 21700 headlamp, because i thought maybe i could get some more runtime. And was curious to see where the market was as i hadnt checked in on lights in A while. Anyway, saw a pic of the pl47 mid-thread and started to follow and do my own due diligence. I personally decided that based on rot66 reviews and comments that as long as the light pushed light out its nose it was going to be a better value than the acebeam—simply for runtime with the slightly bigger battery. All of the emitter options were simply bonuses. To me that was worth 50 bucks. I figure i got my moneys worth. And i knew that going in.

As for others, they spend their money as they see fit. There was no history on this company other than maybe a connection to enogear which i have never heard of. They had one by most accounts a successful launch with the rot66, but if you read the thread there is the same whining all thru it just like this one. Which is to say people had problems. Some were not satisfied. this is the history we have of this company. Some people were not satisfied. Yet, with this information( because your 50$ is worth more to you than mine is to me, you also did your due diligence) people still chose caveat emptor, and jumped before there was enough information to warrant such a jump. or trust, or faith or whatever synonym you wish to use.

JUST COULD NOT WAIT TO GET MY HANDS ON THE NEXT COOLEST GADGET. Might be something some of us can say. The careful ones, those whose 50$ needs to be better and more wisely used chose to wait and see how it turns out. Their risk equation is less averse. They will have the luxury of patience and can use those of us who enjoy taking risks—oh, like cavers and hmm, welders, and such as canaries in the coalmine. So those of us who took a chance without alot of information—even some of the information as negative, should have had the good sense to know we were taking a risk. I mean it was stated here over and over…group buy fancy discounts—so an unproven company can rollout a product to iron out the worms and bugs and such.

All of you who want to grrrrrr at me, do it to yourself. I didnt take your hand and click “pay now”.

Just stop it. They were an unknown. There will be bugs. I am the frigging new guy for forks sakes.

My two are both good - got what I paid for

From my point of view, it is a decent light. Manufacturer should pay a little bit more attention to a few details (like, I guess, being more gentle with already anodised hosts - anodisation defects indicate rough handling). Switch cover makes it not the most tactile but it works like it should. Also retaining rings are a bit wonky on my copy, would really like them to be pressed more evenly (actually would like them to be threaded…)
Battery compartment could be a millimeter or couple longer as my Liitokala 21700 fits but it’s a tight fit. I do have a dent on the positive end of my battery already but I can’t tell you if it is caused by the flashlight - I charge it in a charger that officially doesn’t support 21700 and fit is defo tighter then in PL47 so I’d blame the charger. I think I just need to pay more attention and worki it out what caused that dent.
Not gonna complain about the output of quad emiter, compact (78g) host being restricted by well designed software… I live in a dream world only during weekends and its only Wednesday here :smiley:
I believe Fireflies has all the potential to be a successful endeavour amond all of the low budget Chinese manufacturers IF they will listen to comments and criticism from the community. They only need to drop that chinglish slogan from the box and ditch that joke of a headband :wink:

Mildlyangryjohnny :+1: :beer:

PL47 arrived. First impressions …
Strange shape. The tube fits Lii40 and even has a minimum stock. Anodizing almost perfect, traces on the head. The edges could be smoother. The switch works perfectly, much better than on GTmini. It is a pity that you can not turn off the backlight. I turned off the AUX diodes because somehow I’m not doing these things. The centering of the LED minimally flies sideways. Contacts a bit dirty.

Let’s go to the data:
Dimensions 88x40mm
Weight with Lii40 150 grams
LED: SST-20
Color 3872K
What’s most important and many of you are waiting for this information, BIN, 5D2, so under the BBL line
Power consumption 9A
36W power
Lumen 2520
Descent down after 20 seconds reaching 1200 lumens
Lux 17090
Range 261m
Angle of 25 degrees so a minimum wider than D4S with HP-L HI.

Disadvantages:
Sharp edges of the head
Bad headband
It warms up very quickly, like D4 from Nichia
It crushes batteries 21700

Benefits:
Color, CRI, under BBL
Ui ramping
Power

Thanks for the measurements! I’m only surprised that you got only 17k lux from it, I was expecting a bit more after using it for a few days.

What charged do you use though? I did put Sofirn into PL47 today and I did not notice any marks on the cell so I was blaming Liitokala charger (Lii-500) for the damage. I might obviously be wrong and it might be some minor impact of the flashlight to be enough to dent the cell.

Nitecore SC4.
Do you have a bridged upper spring? Because in my company it is done and it has made it tight and hard.

Thank you for the review !
You Are very correct about the sharp edges. Mine has sharp edges of the whole head.
So When grabbig the light from My pocket, it almost feels like the coolingfins Will cut up My fingers lol. Not a great feeling.

This is My first and only Fireflies light i think…
Maybe if they improve their quality alot, i will consider it.

komeko, thanks for the first review ever with data for the Fireflies SST-20 4000k. Glad to know that it is indeed below the BBL. Do you have the DUV value at max output. How does tint compare to Cree 5A/5D?

I’m surprised this actually measures 2,520 at turn-on considering the 95 CRI emitters. I was expecting more like 2,000 and below. It’s unfortunate FF didn’t size the body a little larger to be compatible with a wider range of 21700 cells. I wouldn’t mind donating some 21700 to them so they can size their future 21700 lights right.

DUV value I do not have, but X: 0.386, Y: 0.378.
3872K
Measurement for Turbo.
XP-L HI 5D I have in Skilhunt H03, of course lower power H03 can also affect the color, but in general 5D is more red because it is more under the BBL line.
XP-L HI 5D
X: 0.378, Y: 0.371
4036K.

If there is an XP-L 5D in GTmini (I’m not sure about that), only the stronger one is:
X: 0.362, Y: 357
4430K

Take a look at my collection, all torches are with charts, you will have a comparison
Regarding lumens, this is the reading immediately after switching on and falls very quickly. There is really nothing to be proud of. More importantly, it works well with over a thousand lumens.

Plugging in your coordinates to obtain DUV results in the following:

PL47 = –0.0010
Skilhunt H03 = –0.0020
BLFT GTmini = –0.0037

Therefore SST-20 FA3 tint is unfortunately not as rosy as the Cree 5A/5D tint, which I really like a lot. FA3 tint should look a bit yellowish in side by side comparison with Cree 5A/5D. Thanks for the info.

Got mine last night. I Love love love the tint of the 219b, but I’d guess it’s really sitting at around 800lm on high. It really doesn’t like my Samsung 50e, if I screw it up tight the light won’t work, unscrew half a turn and it kinda works but can flicker like theres a loose connection.
It works fine with my 18650 cells :-/

Before I go back to FF can you guys tell me if the top part looks ok?
The reflectors look damaged and should the hole in the plastic be there?

So 17 Track finally shows a status, I got the shipping notice email on Nov 27 from Jack with a tracking number. The tracking gave no information until now which says my item was accepted today, Dec 13 …… but still in China.

I get the sinking feeling I’m on the 35 day end of the delivery window.

I forgot to write, the drainage with the AUX turned off is 72 microampere. Considering two glowing diodes in the switch, I think that the result is very good.

I think you are right to be concerned. Everything shown in your photos seems to be fundamentally wrong.

LEDs not aligned with optic. One of the four locating pegs on the optic broken off. A globby mess of solder attaching the spring bypass, the spring apparently barely soldered to the driver, perhaps even just pressing on it. Possibly also accounting for the crushing/dents/no contact/ reports. No driver retaining ring/current path. Sloppy driver fit. Presumably just relying on glue to retain it (though it is hard to see any evidence of that). Threads in head and on tube anodised, (insulating) instead of being masked, or cut afterwards, to provide a bare metal contact surface, nor a current path to the reverse of the driver outer ring.

And those threads at the head look so rough, and un-lubricated. The square ones at the tail look more respectable (but again, would it have hurt to apply some lubrication ?)

You could take a look at both ends of the tube and see whether the anodising has been sanded down to bare metal for continuity, if not, maybe worth a try yourself. But don’t over-do it, it seems to be quite short enough already.

Yes, good. No need for disabling the switch LED (also not possible in this design, because that pin is now assigned to the AUX. LED board).What did you measure with AUX turned on, please ?

Texas Toasted, Weller 107 doesn’t freeze in the freezer. :wink: (no ice necessary)

My SST-20 version has not come in yet. Got my XPL-HI 2 weeks ago. Has anyone not recieved their order yet?

No lights yet for me. I received my shipping notice for two models - SST and Nichia - on Nov. 18th. USPS is still waiting for the package from overseas, according to the tracking number. Delivery estimate was 15-35 days, and it’s only been about 24 days. Trying to be patient, not easy.