Review: Sunwayman R01A Gold

Sunwayman R01A

Reviewer's Overall Rating: ★★★

Summary:

Battery: 1 x AAA
Switch: Twisty
Modes: 1 (+ moon mode with almost empty cell)
LED Type: Nichia
Lens: None
Tailstands: No (well, kind of, barely on a perfectly flat surface)
Price Payed: $15 + shipping
From: Battery Junction
Date Ordered: February 2012

Pros:

  • Long runtime (way over 10h, with a good alkaline AAA)
  • "Hidden" moonlight mode (= additional 10h of runtime, when there's no juice left in the cell)
  • Anti-roll head
  • Square threads
  • Good knurling
  • No battery rattle
  • No PWM
  • Constant brightness
  • IPX8 water tight
  • Serious "bling bling"
  • Comes in a nice box, well suitable for gifting!

Cons:

  • Relatively low output (approximately 10 lumens)
  • No modes
  • (Doesn't tailstand)
  • Fingerprints are well visible in the mirror like surface

Features / Value: ★★★★

The light comes in a retail package:

..which contains the light itself, two extra O-rings, split ring, warranty card, and user manual.

There are no extra features: One mode, about 10 lumens for well over 10 hours, and moon mode to reach home even if the cell is almost empty.

UI is pretty normal: Tighten head to turn on. Loose to turn off.

Value for money: Ok. You can get way brighter lights for this money, but this is very good as an emergency light!

Design / Build Quality: ★★★

Design is near prefect. Anti-roll head is a very good idea AND helps to turn light on/off. There is no battery rattle at all, even when turned off! Tail has a hole for split ring for key chain attachment. Someone might prefer a tailstanding version, but frankly: 10 lumens and tailstand doesn't mix.

Color is, again, a matter of taste. I like the "bling bling"-factor, but dislike the clear head which attracts fingerprints like a magnet.

Anodization is very good overall, the light has square threads, and knurling is quite aggressive (which I like!). Let's see some details..

Square threads:

A look to inside: There is a spring at the end of body tube, holding the cell in contact with the driver (also when off -> no battery rattle!):

The threads were smooth and well lubed. The O-ring is well placed and feels tight enough -> must be water proof as advertised:

Some measurements:

Length: 70mm

Head diameter: 16mm

Body diameter: 14mm

Weight: 24g with cells (= ready to use), 14g without

And the bottom line in the quality: Absolutely nothing to complain!

Battery Life: ★★★★

Very Good!

I measured the current draw to be 60mA -> runtime would be way over 10h with a good alkaline AAA.

In addition to this, there is a "hidden" moon mode, which should give an additional 10h!

Light Output: ★★

Not much, but good for an emergency light. I estimate the output to match the advertised 10 lumens.

But then again, 10 lumens is enough for most cases. And there will be light for hours and hours.

As you can guess, the light produced by a Nichia led is quite blueish. This can be seen in the following white wall beamshots.

Two white wall beamshots (WB: Daylight)

Summary: ★★★★

Good quality flashlight for emergency use. Provides the minimum necessary amount of light for hours and hours.

Recommended!

The End (pun intended):

Thanks for reading & watching. Hope you enjoyed the review!

Nice pics .

Bling or no bling , though , a dim blue beam ?

I was thinking about getting the desert yellow version, so this review was very helpful. Thanks.

Thanks!

Yes. A dim blue beam. Just like in Fenix E01. You may think of Sunwayman as a "pimped version of Fenix".

But both of them are still useful, as Dsoto87 reasoned in his review of Fenix E01

Are you going to frost the emitter ?

Seems to be a popular mod .

I ended up buffing all of my fauxtons and a couple of headlamps with xxfine steel wool to even out the beam . No more bond wires showing up in the beam .

EDIT : Didn't mean to sound so negative about the tint .

I just wish that the lights with these emitters had a whiter tint , that's all . I do own several .

Thanks for the review!

Yes, thanks for the review! Seems like a really nice host for the money but i just can’t get past the weak emitter. Finish is a bit too gaudy for my taste.

Nice review there _the_! Very nice pics too!

Nice review!

Odd, there are also neutral/warm colored Nichias available AFAIK, so why not use them?

I've had one for last couple months. The blue emitter was so rotten. Even my EO1's look white in comparison.

I pulled the head apart and broke a lead to the LED and have yet to solder it back coz am waiting on a replacement led with better tint. That's how blue and puny my version was. Hated it.

Each to their own, but the EO1's tint is superior to these IMHO > of course, i've only handled this one sample.. YMMV

Hmm.. I'm interested doing the same operation. Any instructions for doing this? Especially what not to do?

Took one for the team, again.

Here are some photos of the internals of the head:

There's a small O-ring between the led and the head for waterproofing. The led is tightened to head with a hollow plastic screw, accessible from the driver side.

Driver was slightly glued to the head, but it was quite easy to remove. Note that there are no leads: legs of the led are directly soldered to the driver => don't lift the driver. Just tilt it a bit to get access to the plastic screw.

But here comes the fail: I had difficulties to remove led legs from the driver board, so I tried to press the legs from below with a heated soldering iron (with very thin tip). While doing so, I managed to remove also the small component shown in the photo below, thus ruining the driver.

Does anyone know where to get a new driver board?

thanks for taking one for the team. ( i am back on de team aint i? hehe :glasses: )

so is this torch (i mean its construction, the head internals) better built than the Fenix E01? The SWM is 9.99$ on DD and i am still waiting for my Fenix combo (LD01/E01) to arrive, argh.

Interesting observations by others on the inet, tested Eneloop runtime appears to be 7.0hours@10lm only which is the same as Lumintop Worm's runtime on Lo-mode with 14lumens (unfair comparison because the Worm costs 25$!!). Personally i am not interested in low lumens lights .. but the 9.99$ are an interesting price point for an otherwise expensive flashlight company.

Thanks again for the review!!

I have just ordered two of these (red for Her and grey for me) at DD
Overly blue tint sounds discouraging but we’ll see how it it
Otherwise good to read it seems to be a well constructed EO1 clone :slight_smile:
Thanks for the review _ the _!

These just arrived a few minutes ago, appear to be fully identical to Fenix E01 internally which is just what I was expecting

I hasted that, there are some differences

will try to do some comparison later on if there is any interest

Just got one free with nitecore EA81. Nitecore gets 2150 lumens on AA. Don’t know why discontinued.