Nice review and pictures. Thanks 
Ok folks, here is the full video review much earlier than I anticipated having it done. I am going on vacation later this week, so I needed to crack down on my day off and finish it. All the stress test stuff is later in the video. The light is frozen, thrown at objects, and dropped from a two story window.
Nice video review!
Tank you, love your video reviews
Thanks for reviewing the SG5 mhanlen, i was wondering whether or not the runtimes were anywhere near what they claimed.
love that video review very nice and funny at the same time
Love the video! Love the use of the abandoned house for backdrop too. My wife did ask me "What the $&%# are you watching?" I think because I was laughing at a video about flashlights!
Are you a comedian for your "day job"?
-Garry
No, but I write a separate script for the video. I revise it over a few days. The first version has a few or no jokes, then I add some more… then I take out a few. I feel if I didn’t add a few jokes these would be unwatchable by anyone but 3 of the most diehard flashlight fanatics- especially clocking in at an excruciating 15 minutes. I literally spent all day on this yesterday. The abandoned house is located in a local state park, right in the middle. You either have to hike to it or ride a bike. I figured it would make a nice backdrop for a review. I don’t like all my pictures and videos from different reviews to look the same. So I read my script into my computer final cut pro… screw up a lot- and edit out all my flubs.
I got these lights last Monday. Not too bad! The side affect is the girlfriend complains I’m not paying attention to her.
“What are you doing on your computer, you’ve been there all evening!”
“Umm, working on this thing.”
Fantastic review. Thanks. Enjoy the holiday.
If it were any other reviewer I would probably have passed up watching the video, but since it was an mhanlen production I knew it was going to be good! This is the honest truth. You do good work. I know you must have hours and hours into this! Now excuse me, I have to go check my freezer and see if I have any misplaced items there.
-Garry
It happens! Thanks again for the kind words- it is my hope that they’re entertaining… and also I try to put info in there for non light people to be able to understand the videos.
Anyway onto some more info. So I was able to finally run the light on Med2 mode with eneloops. I got some very bizarre behavior. Seems the light gets a little warmer than usual on med2 AND it runs significantly less than on Max mode. However the output is sustained… and it just shuts off… sort of like when using a 14500. Anyway, I thought that this couldn’t be right, but after running three separate tests (with 3 different eneloop 3rd gens) yesterday and the light always just shutting of roughly around the 2 and a half hour mark- I guess it’s not a fluke.
I am currently going back and testing the 14500 on med2 and then the eneloop on Max, and see if they hit the same targets as I have posted above. I said it before… but this light works best on 14500s. Anyway here is the chart… it’s also been integrated into the main review. Now I’m really curious what med1 mode is like. I don’t know if I’ll get to it this week, but when I do I’ll post my findings.
Is it just me or is the M2 mode with an eneloop trying to act like the max mode on an eneloop.
I agree. I am going to be re-trying a few of the other tests… med2 on 14500 and eneloop with max, to make sure my light is behaving correctly. I’ll report back.
Edit: 8/28/13 - I tried an Energizer industrial this morning, and it seemed to have behaved the same on Med2 as the Eneloop but with less runtime. So it’s definitely not the batteries.
Edit: 8/29/13 I’ve been going back and trying 14500s on med2 and I’m now getting about 3.5 hours. I barely got an hour out of a newer duraloop today on Max. Seems like the runtimes aren’t getting better.
Seems like it’s a programming error then.
I haven’t seen any others reporting this yet, so i guess it’s a wait and see problem.
Thanks for your efforts in finding out the problems.
We’ll see. I’m on vacation right now, but I’ll be doing some more runtime tests when I get time in a week or two. Otherwise it works fine- it does get pretty warm on alkalines though.
Well an owner of the SG5 over on CPF reports that he squeezed 9 hours out of an eneloop on med 2 mode. Which means my 2 hour runtime, is probably due to a defective unit. So as long as you buy the light through a retailer, if you run into this problem you can exchange it. Or maybe mine is just the lone quirky one.
Read it here.
Or here is the quote.
At least one person got one that’s good. Maybe you did get a duff one then. Thanks for the review, updates and tests.
Yeah, I was going to do additional runtime tests, but since it seems like my light may not be behaving right, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of use adding that data to the mix. It’d be safe to say that if you get 9 hours on an eneloop, then my reading of 6 hours and 45 minutes on med 2 on a 14500 might not be accurate for a correctly functioning light. My med1, high, and turbo on 14500s were all better than the manufacturer specs though. And my eneloops on high and turbo were also pretty close to manufacturer specs too.
So, it has great runtimes provided your unit is properly functioning.
EDIT: 9-12-13
Another CPF’er weighs in. Looks like it’s working properly on a cheap NIMH for them too. Here’s the quote.
I’m considering picking one of these up to go with my 3 ZL HL’s (H50, H51c & H52w), how thick is the tail cap material? Could it be filed down to be flat so it can tail stand securely?
I can’t say with 100% certainty, because the interior of the tailcap is covered with a PCB soldered to the spring. The PCB appears to be glued into the light making it difficult to remove. If the interior of the tailcap (under the PCB) is flat like I suspect, then it seems you could file down the tailcap to make it entirely flat. I can’t guarantee it though.