I like the look of this, but the 18650 Tiny hasnāt inspired me tbh. I still fail to understand how someone can design and build a flashlight that is too small for itās intended batteries
A mm wider and 3mm longer would not have affected itās physical size but would have solved these issues.
With regard to my own experience, I did pre order a Titanium 18650 Tiny.
It looks great, but needed a fair bit of work to it to make it work at all, I had to sand the end of the body tube flat and finish it off, fit O-rings, reassemble the optic and it still didnāt work as it should with High being very difficult to activate, would take about 10 attempts to get it to select this mode.
Rick did offer a new LED/driver module and I also paid for one of his recommended non protected 18650ās. Sadly these bits never turned up.
After a bit of chasing Ric did offer to send me a brand new 18650 Tiny flashlight free of charge. I salute Ric for this and this kind of customer service is the only reason Iād purchase from them again.
The replacement 18650 Tiny was black not a titanium though. It worked much better out of the box, but also seems less bright on high than the first one. And Iām sad to report, despite EDCāing it, this one now flickers and is a bit of a PITA to use. One handed operation is not really possible and when using high after about 30 secs on time itāll flicker and often change modes, this means you have to tighten the head even further with two hands to stop this, but this then makes it very tight to then turn off.
Visually the light looks brilliant, but when I compare the overall quality to my EagleTac D25LC2, Iām sad to say the DQG is a looong way behind
Hoping this 26650 one is a superior product as Iāll likely take a punt on it
Counter-point: I ordered, and received two of the original 18650s (one black and one TI/gold, and one NW and one CW). The only thing that I had to do with them was move the O-ring, per the info that RIC provided early-on, and they worked fine, once I figured out where to put the O-ring :).
Even though I didnāt have major problems, I did take advantage of RICās post-sale offer for the 18650s and got 2 of them. If you didnāt receive the batteries, you should probably email or PM him (they donāt come with tracking if I recall).
I didnāt enounter any problems with battery sizes, though most of the batteries I have are unprotected batteries, including some 17670s from laptop pulls.
Did you not have to fit 2 small black O-rings to the body too? I had to do this even on the replacement one, which was many months later.
Hence why I got a 2nd flashlight for free. Although it still bugs me that I have the better looking titanium one collecting dust on the shelf
No offense, but isnāt that kind of missing the point. The light by itās very name is ā18650ā Tiny.
And it fails to accept most 18650ās. And recommending to use unprotected ones with a driver that doesnāt cut off until 2.5v is I think a bit of a copout. If this was a UK based company theyād get legally linched for selling a product like this.
As for the batteries, I have:
Solarforce branded protected 18650ās (unknown origin) - these do not fit the battery tubes on either light.
Intāl Outdoor branded Sanyo protected 18650ās - again these do not fit the battery tube.
FastTech Sanyo 18650 protected - way too fat to fit the battery tube
FastTech 2900 Panasonic protected 18650s - these fit the tube on the black light, but not the titanium one, however despite being a button top, the light wonāt turn on.
EagleTac branded 3100 Protected Panasonic - this is the only 18650 I have that fits the battery tube and turns the light on
I do plan on buying an IMR 18650 in the hope itāll fit. But I donāt see why I should be forced to use non protected cells.
I donāt have any 17650ās, I do have a Sanyo 16650 though, but for some reason the lights wonāt work with them either. And my 2x16340 to 18650 EagleTac insert wonāt fit the 18650 Tiny battery tube either.
Re. the O-rings: Itās been awhile, but I think that I did have to put one addl O-ring on (but it came in the box) on one of the lights (I think I posted about that on the original thread).
Re. you last comments: I guess that what I was trying to say is that I didnāt have trouble with any of the batteries that I had, and I didnāt go looking for batteries that I didnāt have that wouldnāt work (I think I posted about what I had that worked on the original thread also). I know that others had problemsā¦
EDIT: BTW, Iām (also) not trying to get into a debate/argument. I was just trying to mention that, at least for me, the lights I got were ok. Again, thatās not to say that others didnāt have problems.
BTW - how are your 18650 Tinyās holding out? Iām quite disappointed that my replacement one is so flickery now. I love the size and beam profile. But the physical act of using it and the frustration it brings when it acts up, means I never EDC for more than a day to two before it gets put back on the shelf.
Since this one has an electric side switch, and there are wish lists being madeā¦ Ide really like to see a UI where if l-m-h you hold the button from off and get it to start on high or maybe have that as a hidden moon light. Also maybe an option for xml2?
L-m-h hold for moonlight and double click for strobe
Although I like the light very much, the main dissappointment with the DQG 18650 tiny in my opinion is the extreme bad heatsinking of the led, causing 30% lumen drop in a few seconds that could have been perhaps only 5% if the heatsinking had been done well, what a waste! I hope they mount the leds in this new light on metal core PCB's (direct bonding to copper please!) instead of onto the driver board.
On the design side I liked the DQG18650 more, this one does not appeal to me much..
Or you can go heavy on the viaās under the center pad like pilotptk did for his tripple xml driver combo. That might make things easier in this case since its a tripple, you can have a hole in the center of the pill for the positive contact and still have a good heat path.
I wonder how difficult it would be to fit 12 lm7135s 3 xpg2ās and a mcu on the top of the same board, that way you could have a really good heat path really simply
I see that Ric put up two pictures of the front side, with the TIR. It is a bit of a disappointment to me that (it looks like that) the standard 20mm TIR is used, while in this size head a bigger TIR would have fitted (with better throw, or more efficient XM-L2 could be used with the same throw), or perhaps best: a slimmer head could have supported this TIR.
(sorry that I am not positive about this one, I really like all the other lights that he introduced lately, still eying the brass 18650 one :-) )
I do bellive that there are 5 led tirs available for prettymuch the same sizeā¦ how about a 5 xpg2 version instead of a tripple xml versionā¦ that would really make for a nice and toasty turbo mode also its going to be really hard to decide
between this and blf s2