Could you adjust your pictures with that "100 %"-trick (point 4).
Ma sample pull 2,1A from a alkaline. should be a good 600mA to the led.
Photos repaired!
Just buy it already!!
But once you get it be sure and remove the pill and put a piece of electrical tape on the reflector and cut a hole out for the LED to pass through.
It is really a very nice torch, a real sleeper that needs more attention in my opinion!!
I love mine!!!
Very nice review Fran, that's an impressive output level for such an inexpensive light. Thanks for bringing it to our attention. Hmmm, so no pocket clip and no tailstanding. Those are two very important features for me, unfortunately.
Frontpage'd and Sticky'd. Thanks for the review!
Hmm, bright on Eneloops you say... I wasn't impressed with the two I had looked at, when they were on sale for small money on DX . Every one of the 8+ Hugsby's P31/P32 I checked were brighter. You must have a new driver version.
Hugsby P32 left "old" Skyray SA-1 right (look how much dimmer the side spill is)
(pic has an angle to it, beam radii are the same, distances from wall are the same, both on "fresh" eneloops)
A friend is now trying to implement the Shiningbeam low voltage driver in his Skyray SA-1 together with an XP-G R5.
The copper ring is an oil drain screw gasket from my Yamaha...lol... I'll let you know how it works out.
Ok thanks for the info.
But...... the dude is. Mine is brighter due to a possible new driver revision? or yours are not bright due to QC issues? There is the question.... chinese cheapo lights..... that has happend to me with other lights. I order one light on January, it is good, I order the same light on June, is bad.....
It wasn't just one but 2 Skyray's, that would mean that there was (or is? beamshot was made November 2010) most likely a complete batch which is considerably darker on Eneloops than the Hugsby's. Just a heads-up for potential buyers. Here is the old thread about them back in 2010.
Maybe I should take a photo showing how bright it is comparing it with all my AA lights with a NiMh cell in all.
I have to charge all my NiMh cells and find a big white wall in my house....
Hope my mobile phone camera can catch the difference in output among them...
Also your estimation of 150 lumens (OTF) with 1.5 A (on the tail) strikes me as very optimistic. The theoretical ouput with a perfect driver and no loses is 120 Lumens. (1.5 (tail) /3= 0.5 A , Q3 at 0.5 A (to LED) ~120 Lumens) Either your DMM needs a calibration or you are using China-Lumens. ;-)
Yes, somehow I am using china lumens. I dont know the exact amount of lumens, I only can confirm that is about 30% brighter than all the other lights I have (F20, AA-S1 etc)
My multimeter is working perfectly, I have checked and rechecked it measuring other currents I know and no difference. Also I changed the battery and the measurements are the same
So, If my AA-S1 produces the same light than Don´s AA-S1 (100 lumens), then my Skyray will be 130 lumens.
Yes, as you can see all my lumens estimations are "chinese based". That´s because I always use a chinese light for reference.
However, it continues being my brightest AA light with NiMh
Dons UniqueFire AA-S1 needed 2195mA to reach that 100 Lumens on NiMH and your Skyray is 30 % brighter at only 1.5 A ? Something still is weird. I had very similar effects when I used the inferior leads on my Voltcraft 91 DMM (cheapo 10-15$) and when I used a 100+ Euros Metex 3630d I had up to 0.5-0.7 A higher current readings. What DMM are you using? Do you have the possibility to cross check your DMM against another one?
My sample pulls 2,1A from alkalines. It is bright but i would say 120 lumens tops. Pretty decent for AA cells. If ony did not have the low cell quirks...
I tested it with 2 multimeters.
The most expensive one costed me 60 euro, and is the one I use always to measure the draw in all my flsahlights. The other one is a 4 euro one and gave me the same results.
Sure, guys, the DMM is working perfectly, and with those test probes I have succesfully measured many lights. With those probes I have tested from 0,1A to 6A. Good measurements.
I re-checked some minutes ago my AA-S1 and it draws 2,2A from a fresh charged NiMh.
Ah, now it starts to make sense. Thanks for re-checking and sorry if I was too annoying, but I was starting to doubt my own measurements. You seem to have a very efficient SkyRay S-A1 compared to the ones back in 2010.
My S-A1 starts out drawing over 2 amps on NiMh then settles to around 1.9A after 30 seconds or so.
Mine was bought from lightake about two months ago and yes it is very bright on NiMh.
What makes this light appear so bright is the well defined hotspot. It has little side spill as compared to other lights so the overall output is less but the nice hotspot makes up for it. This light seems brighter to my eye than my Fenix LD10 but i think that is not really the case since my Fenix has alot of side spill so I am sure the overall output of the S-A1 is less than my 100 lumen rated Fenix. But who cares about all these ratings the S-A1 is a really nice and Bright torch!! It throws great and has a very nice beam free of artifacts. I highly recommend it!!
I agree on the beam quality, the XR-E lights I have are mostly ringy. I like the very useful side spill on my XR-E OP better than the XP-G,E SMO that I have , but even the center spot on my Hugsby's are brighter than the Skyray's.
I would like to see XP-G or even XM-L with XR-E-style primary optics.
Hey, just noticed Kaidomain has this with an R2. Could be that DX has a new batch with R2's, but didn't update the description.