Thanks for the review Chicken Drumstick. it seems that the second version if it ever comes out should have the bugs ironed out. The picture off the TIR has me intrigued, it looks more like a reflector than any TIR I’ve seen. Does it have a reflective coating on the inside?
Great review……Thanks!
Without mixing words here; shitty workmanship |(
I waited for the pre-sale to be done and the shipping to start, then I ordered with hopes that when my light ships it’ll be QA’d better; we’ll see about that. This kind of makes it harder to trust another project from Ric again.
Assembly required, and fitment issues are unacceptable and Ric should give back 50% of the purchase price, as this is nothing more than a cheaply machined and hurried put together Chinese light; probably would have been better to have be sold as a cheap kit.
I do not agree (thanks for the review, very useful to compare it to the Eagletac). The finish is not good in many of the lights, but it still is a great project IMO, and not at all a reason to distrust the maker. He did manage to bring a really beautiful and different, very small and good performing (no pwm 
) flashlight on the market, in a section (small 1x18650) that has so many similar quite boring examples. Part of the cheap chinese design that you mention is a whole load of easily avoidable construction mistakes that I find in many budget lights. With this light however everything is very well thought out, that part is not cheap at all (it is the same feeling that I had with the Xeno 03). The poor finish does not make it a bad light all of a sudden.
Great review Chicken and very thorough. I hate that people are having these issues. I am very happy with mine so far. We did have to install a couple of o rings but since they were included in the box I consider that to be pretty minor. I have had a couple of mode skips while trying one handed operation but that is true on most of my twisty lights including ones from Eagletac and Olight and my tank E07 009 that everyone is so crazy about. The output is great and the fit & finish on both mine and my brothers seems pretty good. Maybe we were lucky though. I use only unprotected Panasonic cells so cell non-fitment is not an issue for me. I also played with mine against my D25LC2 last night and think it compares pretty well. The DQG has more output in Lumens but the ET has a little more throw because if the XP-G die.
The two lights I’ve tried now work flawlessly. I find the price very appropriate for what we received. This is a brand new light design. And a unique one at that. Not a copy or one that has been reproduced 1000’s of times. That fact alone justifies a slightly higher price even if the light was on par quality wise with slightly cheaper light.
All things considered, these DQG’s are nice little lights and worth the money Ric is charging for it. I applaud Ric on doing a nice job of coming out with another unique and nice light.
And OP, very nice review!
Bought 2 of these lights. Both of them do not work. No response to my e-mail.
What cells are you using? You need button top ones to make positive contact, flat top ones won’t.
I am using AW CR123 batteries. I have 1 mode- it is maybe 10 lumens. I also sanded the tube.
OH! Have you tried just a single 18650? Sometimes drivers will go into single mode if too much voltage. A Mini-02 I have does that (go into single mode) if I use unprotected 16340.
Edit: Is this light even spec’ed for 2xCR123?
Yes-I have tried 18650 battery. Same result; 1 mode maybe 10 lumens. The quality of this build is shameful.
Maybe you’re discovered a hidden “firefly” mode in these lights :)? Just kidding :)!!
It does sound like there’s something wrong, but it’s kind of strange that you got two of them that have the same problem… I got two also, one in CW and one in NW, but both of mine work fine.
I wonder if maybe using the 2xCR123 batteries might’ve damaged something? As I said in earlier post, I didn’t think these were spec’ed for 6+ volts. Did you see that specified somewhere?
This is a family-friendly forum; please edit your posts with the foul language.
I picked mine up from the post office today. Overall I’m pretty happy with it so far but a little bummed my protected 3400mah’s Panasonics are too fat to fit.
For protected batteries that do fit I am a little worried about abrasion on battery protection circuit when inserting/removing cells. I noticed that the cell wrapping at the bottom that covers where the connection runs down the side of the cell is becoming abraded. The area is only 1mm or so in diameter where the protection circuit wraps around the bottom of the cell as that area is slightly raised. If the connection becomes exposed and touches the side of the tube will it short?
For now I’ve added some Kapton tape on top of the abraded area for extra protection.
-PG
did you use the cr123 before or after the 18650? it does not mention anywhere that these are capable of running 2xCR123, so im guessing you fried something
Great review. Thanks for sharing!
8)
You may be right. However, it would have been nice to get some directions with the package!
Hi,
Did you use the 2xCR123 with BOTH lights? Or just one of them?
I guess that what I’d say is that, even though I’m still kind of new to flashlights, I’ve already learned the hard way (killed a couple of lights), that if a light is either not spec’ed for a certain voltage, or unless you can find positive evidence that it can support a certain voltage, then you’re taking a risk trying something beyond the spec’ed voltage.
If it does turn out that this is what happened, then the unfortunate part is that, based on an earlier post where someone removed the driver to take a look, it’s not going to be an easy fix, I think :(…
Ill quite the headline and some specs:
Its very clear from the description that its only meant for one 18650 battery.
OK, I have no problem to admit I made a mistake. Still, this was the worst quality light I have ever bought in terms of build quality. I learned my lesson. Time to move on from this subject.
Casey,
I don’t think anyone is trying to beat up on you, we’re just trying to figure out what happened :(… As I said, I’ve killed a few lights myself, and I’m guessing that even the more seasoned folks on here have done that, probably a lot more than I have :)…
Anyway, if I were you (and I am not you), I’d just try to contact RIC, either via his websites or via PM, and let him know what happened, and see what he says.
I have no idea what he’d do, but to me, there’s no harm in trying.
I think the fact that you mentioned that you had tried 2xCR123s in your earlier posts is a sign that you were being honest and open, and truly didn’t know that 2xCR123s was bad, so, at least, that’d be to your credit.
Anyway, that’s JMO…
Jim
Edit: I actually think that the description/specs on the website are somewhat vague. They say no “protected 18650”, but they don’t specify voltage range. I’m not trying to argue, but just mentioning it, as you might want to suggest that they put more info on their specs to clarify the voltage range, which I think might’ve avoided this problem?