Skilhunt E3A (AAA twisty) - First Look

Took some comparison shots with some of my AAA flashlights. Not enough to open a new thread, hope that’s OK for you.













oooh, i actually been eyeing the edc01, cant believe its significantly bigger, hm…

edc01 (new worm), is a 3 mode light, arguably more versatile, and batteries can last longer

The E3a comes on at a brightness, 90 lumens, that drains an AAA in 30 minutes… to me, that is a waste… but its the smallest, lightest, highest CRI aaa option, if someone wants a keyring light for example. I personally choose not enlarge my keyring. My lights are easier for my use, separate from my keys.

the edc01 is rated to go 4 hours on its medium of 30 lumens, plus it has a 5 lumen low, plus a high that matches the E3a… however, there is NO High CRI edc01 option.

to get High CRI aaa, another option is the aaa Tool from drop.com… comes in fancy metal too… $lippery

so, for simplicity, the tiny E3a, with high CRI, is king of the little light Hill

try them all, then decide :money_mouth_face:

But it runs 60 minutes on an AAA. :wink:

my mistake, you are actually correct… E3a are great little lights,
zeroair did a runtime and review

and it did last 60 minutes on an AAA, which is impressive :+1:

Runtime on these is impressive! I’m flummoxed that the new Skilhunt E2A AA can’t keep up despite more capacity and larger host. Zeroair’s review shows the E2A is stabilized at only about 65 lumens.

Thanks gchart for these very interesting runtime graphs.

I wonder how a primary lithium would behave: if any of the "super-reviewers" has one at hand, I'd like to see it too on a graph.

I have bought a couple of E3A as gifts (and will buy more when I find a super deal), and plan to include a primary lithium in the gift, for people who don't have rechargeables and a charger.

OTOH, here are the result of a few attempts to improve the beam, since I didn't like the beam irregularities from the stock pebbled optic (though only visible in "white-wall hunting"). I've tried the following lenses from Yajiamei Store:

Smooth lenses:

  • 20°: strong color shift
  • 45°: OK but strange beam shape, slightly squared
  • 90°: very visible central dark spot

Frosted lenses (they call them "Shamian"):

  • 20°, 30° and 60°: all OK, no color shift, very smooth transition between central area and spill. I'll probably stick to 20 or 30 degrees, not much difference between both anyway.
  • 90°: central area is darker and more purple.

In conclusion, if you like smooth beams without significant color shift, do your E3A a favor by replacing its pebbled lens with a 20-30° Shamian one, or 60° if you like a more "wall of light" beam.

Unfortunately I was not able to take nice beamshots like some of you do, my attempts did not do justice to the beam improvement, but my eyes do see the difference.

Cemoi, thanks for the write up. Useful information for sure.

Personally, I find the stock beam nearly flawless and very pleasing. May I ask you what issues you saw?

See this post in another thread, and posts #55 thru 58.

But as said earlier it is only visible at short range (1' from a white wall), by picky flashaholics like me

Different LEDs I guess.

E3A is using the Samsung, E2A the SST20.

Emitter efficiency is probably part of it. The E3A he tested was neutral white, but not high CRI. The E2A is 95 CRI. That should cost it around 30% efficiency.

It’s more than that, though. Zeroair’s graph for the E2A shows about 50 lumens/W on medium and 63 lumens/W on high.

His E3A graph works out to around 120 lumens/W.

Even considering the SST-20’s are not the most efficient emitter around, I would have expected them to be able to achieve over 80 lumens per W on high with a comparable driver. And a stepdown should not be needed at all on the E2A when running on AA batteries. It seems to use the same logic as with 14500 batteries.

I have an E2A and am happy with it - the size and hand feel are great, and the optic they use makes a superb beam profile in my opinion. It’s not the light to get if you need maximum output or runtime, though. It’s a good light that would be great if they improve the driver.

What color temps are the various versions available on Skilhunt’s Amazon page? They don’t even say if netural or cool white. I ordered the high-CRI version as I’m sure that won’t annoy me. But if there’s a significant color or lumens difference I might need a second one! Right?

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08B86BNYL

New colors added.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4001144192612.html

Noice!

Wonder if HA2 or HA3…

Superb colors!

I especially like the dark green and dark blue, but having all of those choices is best for everyone.

Ohhh no. Maybe we can get a special price on a pack with all colors included? :disappointed:

Slate and black are HA3 I think, but don’t quote me. Everything else is level 2

I’ve ordered an orange one. It should arrive today or tomorrow. I’ll report how the color appears in reality.

According to the product page, only Slate Blue is HA3.

How do you see this?

LOL :smiley: I said don’t quote me!

I stand corrected.