Review: Saik SA-125 2*AA Cree LED flashlight

As promised, did a short review that took a little more time to complete since it was fun to take it apart and make pictures of its guts, my cheapo DMM is broken so no tailcap reading or any other DMM action, also, take the tape measurement with some 1mm error, both DMM and digital caliper are on their way to me(got the DMM already), but for now enjoy this review :)!

Saik SA-125 Cree LED 2xAA single mode flashlight review, paid 6.41$ at Lightake.

The reasons for buying this flashlight, actually two of them were 1)it was the cheapest 2xAA flashlight from China that came with 2)real Cree LED and not some generic no name weak LED.

Pros

  • Cree LED
  • Takes two AA batteries
  • forward clicky, which means momentary light activation as soon as you slightly push on the switch, you dont have to actually click the switch in case you dont want the light to stay on permamently
  • rather attractive design for flashlight at this price point(some might like it, some might not)
  • feels lightweight, weighs around 43.5 grams without batteries and 95.5 grams with two AA 2000mAh Eneloop rechargeable Ni-Mh batteries

Cons

* as expected for flashlight at this price point it doesnt have real annodization on it, its just thin layer of black paint that scratches rather easily

* not waterproof as advertised, it has two o-rings, one for tailcap and one for head, but there is no o-ring for lens, thats where water will ingress

* crenelations in bezel show up in beam profile, you will see it on outer parts of spill thus deforming the beam, see gallery bellow this review

* LED’s are not centered and that shows in beams profile, hotspot is not even close to being somewhat centered in the middle of beam and the steeper the angle at which you shine your light upon objects, the more its hotspot will shift away to the side of beam, its very visible, see gallery bellow this review

* not constant beam profile and brightness among my lights, one is considerably brither and has tighter hotspot while other one is not as bright and has floodier beam, see gallery$video bellow this review

* light is not 260 lumens as advertised, see below for comparison video between both SA-125 and JetBeam BA20 which has 270 OTF lumens

* light runs really HOT, dangerously hot when left runnig for couple of minutes - there isnt much heatsinking between LED board and flashlights body, Im quite confident that 2*14500 will fry it almost instatly :D! See gallery bellow this review for pictures of pill

* and that brings us to fact that for some reason after running for around 5-10 minutes the light will turn itself off, not sure if it has something to do with light overheating or its just another quirk of it

* tried to test battery life but was able to do so only once when using AAA batteries with AA adapters, which gave me “stellar” 10 minutes of battery life from 800mAh cells before the light became unusably dim, soon after that LED started to flicker and the battery was empty. Battery life with AA batteries should be around 25-35 minutes at best given that rechargeable Ni-Mh batteries have 2000mAh-2400mAh capacity depending on battery model*
*Tested current draw with multimeter - draws roughly 1.2amps, thats around 1.5h on Eneloop 2000mAh, but that is in the best case scenario, in real life this light never worked for more than 5-10 minutes…

* switches on both lights failed to work after playing with them for less than one day, they will work now only as long as tail switch is pressed, as long as you release your finger from switch, no matter if you actually clicked it or not, the light will turn off

Other throughts

+/- lens is plastic

+/- plastic “matte” OP (orange peel) reflector with lots of small OP “wrinkles”, dont know whether I should call it LOP (light orange peel) or OP

+/- feels kind of cheap in your hands, but then again, it is CHEAP and doesnt work good, so its epitome of word cheap in its worst meaning Verdict: Not worht it, avoid this flashlight, there are better options out there for the money.

Verdict
I dont have enemies, but if I had some, Id give them this for surviving the apocalypse!

After some miscommunication Lightake issued me full refund for faulty items and gave me 5$ coupon code as compensation for troubled items.
Thanks to their CS for taking care of this situation!

And heres the gallery:

Side by side

Both lights, one with head and tailcap unscrewed. Noticed o-rings on both ends of flashlights battery tube, water will not ingress there, however it will near lens, since there is no o-ring or any other water protection

Clearly visible, how “centered” these emitters are

Crenelations show up in spill, not as visible in farther distance, but clearly visible and to beam profile elitists it might be deal breaker in closer distances :smiley:

Flashlight 1, beam is not centered due to poorly placed LED, this one is brightest of the two and has tighter hotspot, due to less than stellar camera performance Ill point out that its more pronounced in real life than it is in pictures, but you can clearly see how hotspot has shifted towards lower left corner

Same problems in flashlight 2, except this one is not as bright as with less tight hotspot

Pill is screwed in, not fit-pressed, which is good, because it allows to easily remove it from flashlight in case you need to do so

Plastic reflector and lens, reflector is matte, not as polished and reflective as in other flashlights that I own, I dont think its a feature, more light is lost due to not reflecting from it and going out the front of this light. Its some sort of OP/LOP with lots of tiny OP wrinkles

Poor heatsinking between LED emitter and flashlights body, no thermal paste there and hollow space below LED emitter, right between LED and driver board. There should be some more heatsinking, I think

And heres the driver board of this flashlights, let me know if you would like to know the numbers and designations written on them

Switch in the tail is screwed in, which is good, however in this flashlight it doesnt add any benefits, because due to switch’s architecture its imposslble to take it apart and fix it

Tailcap taken apart, this is as far as it will go, you cant dissemble it any further, there are no other parts that could be safely pried off or unscrewed

No way to dissemble it, thus no way to fix it, thus I couldnt care less if the switch is pressed in or screwed in, unless I plan to use this light as host

Dimensions


Thanks for reading!

Thanks for the review! I’ve been really into 2xaa lights and this looks like it could be a nice mod host as I like the simple knurled styling.

Just need to fix up that water proofing and heat sinking. Hmmm.

Thanks for the review!

I’m looking for some good 1 or 2xAA lights, but this surely ain’t one!

Cheers!

Appreciate the review. It’s good to know the bad as well as the good.

Thanks very much for the review! Frontpage’d and Sticky’d.

Thanks, Mr. Admin!

Little update - dont buy from Lightake.Com EVER!

As you can see by review both of my items are faulty and in non-working condition.

Initially they offered me either 50% refund or 5$ shipping compensation+full refund once I return crap items to them.

I escalated to PayPal stating all the issues with seller and item and PayPal wants me to send items back to seller at my own expense ignoring prior communication that I had with seller regarding this issue.

So, avoid Lightake and F* PayPal for siding with scammers!
Recently they have been terribly slow and it looks like next time I will have to simply tell that my item was not received when I get a lemon!

I had problems with them in 2010, I beleive.

They gave me a “stupid” solution to my problem, and since then I stopped purchasing there.

Yes, Customer Service of LT is not good at all

Thanks veer for the review! Glad I didnt pull the trigger on this one and waited for you to get yours. Might be a descent mod host though. What size is the driver? Thanks again

Had a similar problem with paypal where they wanted me to send back the item I received, shipping was not worth it. So I called paypal and explained the problem to them and they refunded my money. It seems they have generic replies for the problems when presented to them through email. It seems that when you speak to them on the phone that they understand the issues better especially one like this one!

Good luck hopefully you can get that worked out!

Oops, sorry, it’s really Sticky and Frontpage now.

Problems with lightake? hmmm…. sounds familiar to me

Thanks for this interesting review/diassembly. I was going to buy it at DX, but now not… You have saved me 8 bucks

Updated review with current draw data:
Tested current draw with multimeter - draws roughly 1.2amps, thats around 1.5h on Eneloop 2000mAh, but that is in the best case scenario, in real life this light never worked for more than 5-10 minutes…

hi, thanks for the review, I bought one of these sa 125 flashlights, it ran ok on 2 x aa batteries or rechargeable ni Mh, but the 2 z 14500 Li ion’s fried it instantly. the seller is going to replace it but he needs to change the battery specs on the item listing. John.

**I have one of these flashlights that I like because it uses 2AA batteries instead of 3 AAA batteries. My only problem with it was that the switch quit working. I seem to have poor luck with push button style switches since they don’t stand up. I had a Radio Shack 275-694 SPST Rocker Switch in my parts drawer and decided to replace the defective switch with the 275694. The new switch is a more reliable design and is easier to use than the old push button type. The RS switch is about 1/4” shorter and about 1/4” larger in diameter. Needless to say, this required hogging out the switch’s end cap. This was definitely more trouble than it is worth, but I like the flashlight and I am confident that the modified flashlight will be reliable. The flashlight is still reasonably attractive. One unexpected benefit is that the square collar on the rocker switch prevents the flashlight from rolling.

I think this would be a worthwhile modification for the manufacturer to make, but I don’t recommend doing it yourself.

Ted

I have beening using several single mode, 2 x AA, Cree P4, Ultrafire C3’s as my toolbox lights and have a several more in draws around the house. And it’s quality is steller compare to the this light.

http://www.dx.com/s/ultrafire+c3

cheap and cheerful and to my suprise and amazement have lasted years of abuse, only one failed when i drove over it by accident, stripped it for useable spares.

Thank you very much for your review and confirming my faith in the Ultrafire C3 as the goto cheap arse 2 X AA light.

edit

Just ordered the 2 X AA stainless steel C3 for a laugh should wieght the same as a brick :bigsmile: but at least if i run over the sucker it has a chance.

Thanks for your comments, yes, I’ve had problems with the switch as well. I find the fault comes and goes, they effeminately need a new switch design. I have three of these now, one for parts because I put 2 x 14500 Li-Ion in it, instant death . I am now using 2 x AA rechargeable NiZn “Nickle Zinc rechargeable batteries, they are rated at 1.6 V when charged they are nearly 1.8V, so give a nice bright light.
Good on you for replacing the switch yourself, you now have a great little flashlight. John.

Mine sit somewhere in box, unused, I think in the end I managed to get my money back from LT, not sure, but I think it was the case :D!

Saik have similar light in 1xAA config, I wonder how good that one is? And Nitefighter, which seems to be of higher quality, also have one that is similar in 1xAA config and costs very little:

I know a search for components on the site, and I often use it and hope to help you

http://www.findic.us/map/price/a/1