The difference between a good keygos ke-5 and a bad one... beam shots

So i bought one keygos ke-5 and it came really under driven, so i had a replacement sent which i thought had something wrong with it but turns out i just needed unprotected batteries!!!

NOTE: The keygos ke-5 WILL NOT WORK on:

XTAR 18700 protected cells

Tank 007 18650 cells

Iv found it works extreamly well on these i bought from TORCHY THE BATTERY BOY…… Great seller on ebay

Here is a link to his ebay store:

torchy the battery boy ebay store

So the unprotected cells got the second light working but the first i received is DEFINATLY UNDER DRIVEN….

Here are th pics from my early morning findings

Oh one last thing…. tailcap readings

Good ke-5: high; 2.86a

Bad ke-5 : high; 0.15a



Ok dont laugh at this but its early here and the pizza box was the first thing to hand to prop up the lights!!!


Heres the shot of the two beams…… pretty obvious which is which!!!

Iv had an offer to do a driver change on the bad one which i will be taking up……

So yeah…. thats my two ke-5’s!!!

Mmmmm, pizza! 0.15amps is pitiful, juuuust pitiful. Hope you get it sorted mate.

Uhhh…I have an Xtar 2600mah in my ke-5 and it works just fine. o.o

i think they must vary so much with how or who builds them… someone else told me to try unprotecteds as they had a similar issue apparently.

Hmmmmm, I can spot a slight difference there, I hope the knid soul can get your driver swap sorted. :wink: :bigsmile:

lol yeah :slight_smile: i only just spotted the difference myself!!! :slight_smile:

My ke-5 is also very very fussy about batteries. (So are my REAL sipik SK98 — not the ultrafire clone — and also my hd2010). All three lights work with any unprotected battery, but protecteds often have issues. In fact, my ke-5 will ONLY work with like 5 out of my 25 TFFs. Xtars do not work. But like I said it works perfectly with any unprotected 18650, although it flickers with lower mah unprotected 18650s.

what do you guys mean when you say protected batteries wont work. like the flashlight just does not turn on? or does it act funny.
because i do have this light…the thrunite tn11s. it will turn on, but once i start to cycle through the modes, and when it reaches the strobe mode, it suddenly turns off.
thats with using two rcr123’s, but when i stick a 18650 in there, it works fine

Protected batteries are typically a bit longer, so if a lights a bit close you can crush the boards (switch and/or driver) and they won’t work, this maybe your issue with the two cell vs one cell, slight difference in length.

I’m having a real issue with a jm05 clone, in my case, it won’t even stand in protected cells, so I’m going to have to doctor the tail cap area, lucky it was damm cheap or I’d be really pissed to be honest, as it is, it is unusable.

>>>>>>what do you guys mean when you say protected batteries
>>>>>>wont work. like the flashlight just does not turn on? or does it act funny.

Apparently, depends on the mood of the light, alignment of the planets and what kind of battery is used. Sometimes it just blinks VERY BRIGHTLY once and shuts off. Other times, it blinks BRIGHTLY and then goes to disco mode. Other times — with mine anyway — nothing at all. OR, it will work fine for a while and then shut off and refuse to be turned back on.

Once again, the ke-5, HD2010 +AND+ sipik sk98 ALL act similarly. At least mine do. And there are other reports of similarly haunted 18650 lights. (The HD2010 seems to work fine with any 26650; it just has probs with 18650s.)

Unprotected batts = no prob. Protected = some work; most don’t. By “most” I mean Xtars, TFFs and various protected chinese crapfires.

I didn’t investigate other protected batteries as I mostly use name-brand flat tops (pack pulls and new ones) anyway in 1-cell lights.

Batteries with a protection circuit board soldered in.

Almost all my 18650’s are protected, they won’t run some lights, I may get a flicker as I screw down.the tail cap, but can’t screw it right down - too long. Or you can screw it down but it bends over either the + or - spring till it shorts, either way, it won’t work. And then some people find direct drive lights like the hd2010 for example over load the protection circuit and it shuts down - too high current draw.

Hope this helps.

Given your list, I would hazard a guess the lights go direct drive and the protection circuits don’t like it up ’em Mr Manering, they don’t like it! :bigsmile:

hmm…my hd2010 does fine with the 2600 xtar’s