✌ FREEME - Haikelite HK90 3*Luminus SBT90.2 High Lumens 3*21700 Flashlight - ALIVE

Interested. Thanks.

Shared.

I am going to order another one of these. Because the one that I ordered September 7 and shipped October 8 has a 22 digit tracking number that points to nowhere. Nothing. Maybe my BG FM HK90 will eventually be delivered. I am going to order another one from someone who has experience with Neal. If I order two HK90, maybe that is twice the odds of me being able to see one of them in my hands while I am still on the hostile surface of this planet in this evil age.

I am not in a good mood, because two hours ago, 1638 Cedarwood allowed their oversized power breed to threateningly charge me, from one third of a block away, barking deeply the whole entire three seconds from one third of a block away. I made a conscious decision to just simply not defend myself, and it stopped one-thirtieth of a second away from me and barked up my nose. I told her to stop letting her dog out, and she cussed me out. That's how it is with evil people who hate their neighbor, in violation of Gods' second most important command.

Started a thread on a HK90 tear down here: https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/64075

I am wondering if current production is happening. It looks like I am going to be the last person on earth to receive his first HK90, but there is a possibility that I may be the first person on earth to have two HK90. The first one that I ordered on Sept 7 and that was shipped on Oct 14 is at unknown location, so I ordered another one. I was one of the first people on earth to receive the X65 in December 2016, and I was also one of the first people on earth to have two X65, one in each hand, shortly after that. What a glorious beam that was to see. Now, four years later, it is time for me to do the same thing with the HK90, God willing. But if not, then I will have to order another GT94, and see what that beam, one in each hand, looks like.

Anyone else out there still waiting on delivery of this light?

Thanks for doing and posting the teardown, that is like so way happening!

I'll be posting progress on the modding there as well. Isn't much to do, but don't have much time to work on it.

Just got mine in for review, flat tops don’t contact properly so I need to solder or source some 21700 BT’s which won’t be easy.

One FT 40T cell was contacting and gave me 9400 lumens at start up, stepdown started around 25 seconds after thermal calibration.

Muggle mode seems bug free so far.

Yep - I had a similar problem, thats' why I solder blob'ed the cells. I realize that may not be an option for you, specially for resale.

I’ve just tried, all I’ve ended up doing is melting the battery wrap lol. There’s a company in the US called IMR that sell modded 40T/30T. Just hope it isn’t a 3 week wait with a sh*t load of import duty.

Edit: ordered some 8mm x 1mm magnets locally, so hopefully they’ll work.

I've done many. Tricks:

  • dab on plenty of flux to the batt top (I use a flux pen)
  • use a large surface iron tip - I use a large slanted head one with a big flat top
  • though it sounds scary, get a lot of solder on the tip of the iron, then hold it to the batt top for a few secs as flat as possible. You need to do this in order to heat it up enough to get a good bond. Results may not always be a perfect round blob but for me it's close enough
  • Usually I'll go with a 2nd tip full of solder to get it bumped up enough - doesn't need time, or as much time for bonding, not always necessary

IMRBatteries, Liionwholesale, and 18650batterystore are the 3 US batt retailers that are pretty good in pricing and quality. Liionwholesale probably has the best support, but haven't used the others, really.

Cheers Tom.

I would caution against magnets in this type of application where there is very high current (they are extremely poor conductors) and a multi cell layout. What can happen is the magnets will shift from shear forces as the head is screwed on, and this could short the cells if they cut through or slide under the insulator ring/wrap.

Better to buy some low temp solder and use TomE’s method if BTs can’t be sourced.

I am glad that you got yours, for two reasons: 1. I want to see your review. 2. It means that mines may arrive later or sooner. I ordered two HK90: One September 7 from this group buy, and another one on October 26.

Back to 1. There are lots of reviews, but only a few reviews where the reviewer posts his throw and lumens measurements. :)

Gonna be a while before my batteries arrive from the US. I’m not gonna try soldering again as any slight lack of smoothness will scratch the hell out of the head contact and the solder could pop off too like a magnet could.

Terrible battery set up by HAIKELITE.

I got a set of 3 40T's and set of 30T's all soldered up - works great! Been doing this for 4+ years, least since the prototype days of the Q8: https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/39069/3850

Never had problems or issues with any of those solder topped cells - still have most of them.

Hhhmmm, I should make a vid of it, but I'm not good with videos.

I soldered a 14500 for my Tool AA but it did flake off once so I’m hesitant to do it more. This is a real strange decision or oversight by Haikelite.

Well, I've been expecting this to happen eventually with 21700's. Age old argument around about carrier vs straight SRK/Q8 style tube with brass ring for batt+ contact.

For drivers and LED's like this (very high amps, turbo FET), I prefer the brass ring batt+ design over a carrier because there's less transition/contact points and therefore less resistance. Also the carrier designs will be more expensive, more complicated, subject to parts that can be cheapened down. I've worked with high quality carriers but all those are in expensive lights. However the BLF GT line of lights have excellent quality carriers, made by Lumintop.

Back in the days of the Q8, it originally was difficult to find high performance 18650's with button tops. Only because we demanded it, it eventually became more commonly available, least this is what I believe from what I seen. In the days of the Q8, we had battery dealers like Liionwholsale jump on the Q8 bandwagon with special deals/discounts of button tops for the BLF Q8 community, and Banggood and Neal of course also had some great 30Q BT deals helping us.

The triple 21700's should become more common, and for 3V LED's like the SBT90.2, OSRAM's, SST-20/40's, 351D; Nichia's, etc., parallel configuration will still be around a while. Unfortunately the HK90 doesn't have the clout (number in sales) to demand this of the battery retailers for providing button tops.

Unfortunately along with high performance button top cells, came the cheap, poor methods of doing a proper button top. Some BT's have the button just sitting on the top, secured by an outer wrapper - no spot welding. Also the quality of the metal used in the BT varies greatly. BT's are very much subject to quality problems resulting in increased resistance, negating the result of high performance cells. 30Q BT's from 2 different sources can have different resistances all because of the BT - we've seen this.

I see IMR has BT's on the 30T and 40T, though for $2 more which is a big bump in cost - hope it's a quality top done right.

Nightmare, IMRbatteries.com are only delivering to the US/Canada.

Looks nice