Hi, can anyone who has purchased any of the Solarforce lights/bodies from Lightake confirm that these are genuine? They just seem a lot cheaper than ITC, especially with the drop-in module included. I'm looking for an interchangable 1/2 x 18650 body with/without drop-in.
I've been lurking around this forum for awhile now - and thanks to the helpful reviews from Don et al., I have now ordered an Aurora SH-034, Solarforce Skyline 1, and Hugsby P31. I've been buying mainly DX lights, with my collection consisting of; Trustfire TR-1200 (took over a month to arrive), Aurora AK-P-3, Uniquefire HS-802, 502b host with MCE (M Bin).
I bought a Solarforce L2 with extension tube from Lightake and I was wondering if they are genuine too. This is the only L2 I have ever seen in person, so I have nothing to compare it to. It is very lightweight in construction compared to my Skyline I. Compared to a couple Ultrafire wf-502bs I have, it is a lot lighter construction. The fit and finish seems ok, but it just doesn't seem like it would be very durable at all. Everyone gives rave reviews about the L2, that is why I bought one. I am not very impressed with it. I would definitely rank the quality of construction, below the wf-502bs that I own. I have a SAIK SA-28, that is similar in construction. I would like to hear from someone that has purchased Solarforce L2s from several places and see what they think about the ones from Lightake.
- biggest hint they sell a cheap R5 version and an expensive R2 version, so the expensive one may be the real deal
So they come likely from the same production facilities as the Ultrafire WF-504B and the Uniquefire L2 and are just labeled "Solarforce".
The closest copy of the Solarforce L2 is the Ultrafire L2 , at least when it comes to optic similarities. Don't know about threads.
On the other hand.... my neighbour has the Ultrafire WF-504B and it is not substantially worse quality than my original Solarforce L2R.
I would say buy the cheap counterfeit body + a quality drop-in from Solarforce or other quality brand manufacturer. On a second thought, since the original bodies are on sale right in ITC webshop ... go with the original.
I thought the L2 would tailstand and it was the L2P that would not, but after looking it seems like you are right. It seems like most people who sell real solarforce lights (ITC, sbflashlights, Lighthound) also sell accessories and lightake does not. From the picture of the drop-in in the cheap model, they are not Solarforce, which I don't think Solarforce allows (the expensive model seems to have a real one). In fact, they banned solarforcestore.com for selling offbrand drop-ins and, despite the name, that store no longer sells anything by Solarforce. So there are fakes out there.
That's ITC. I think they sell genuine ones, but I ordered one from them and 2 months later they had never shipped it and stopped answering my e-mails. So I went through PayPal to get my money back. I know most people have good experiences with them, but I'm not ready to try them again.
Yeah ITC shop are genuine from all I’ve read. They’re fairly cheap when they have the sales although not quite as cheap as LT particularly if you consider the extension tube and you don’t want the strike bezel.
It also depends where you live though. They misleading claim to have worldwide free shipping in all the listings I’ve seen but actually only some items really have this. For other ones, they require tracking for everywhere other then the US or Australia depending on the where the item is listed. While I can somewhat understand their desire for tracking since if you pay by PayPal the seller is taking a risk if they choose to ship without tracking (since basically if they can’t prove it arrives any dispute about it not arriving will come down in favour of the buyer), I never liked misleading claims and their claims to provide worldwide free shipping even on items where they don’t provide/make tracking compulsory is clear one of those IMHO. It irks me more that I don’t even really understand their policy, why don’t require tracking on items listed in eBay Australia and sent to Australia and items listed in eBay US and sent to eBay US? I’m aware some places are riskier then others either because of their postal services or the people living there although as I remarked to them, I strongly suspect NZ Post (and NZ) is safer then USPS (and the US) and it’s possible one of the reasons they’re reluctant to send to NZ is because of bad experience or insufficient experience (although they didn’t say that to me) but this still doesn’t really explain the thing I remarked earlier. Nor for that matter why some items which you would think are even riskier then a host (perhaps riskier then a naked LED too although no so sure about that) like http://cgi.ebay.com/Solarforce-Sand-L2-R2-Cree-300-Lms-SS-Flat-Head-Torch-/270484135183 have genuine worldwide free shipping (do they always include tracking or something?) It may partially be because they re-use that shipping thing in all their listings. Mind you if you really want to be a pain, you can try taking their claims of worldwide free shipping at face value and say you didn’t notice the shipping info or thought it was wrong since they claim worldwide free shipping and then complain to eBay if they refuse, from what I’ve heard eBay will sometimes demand sellers honour the listing details.
Anyway that’s my rant for the day
BTW another thing is ITC don’t re-emberse return shipping and only have a 30 days warranty on dropins. I mention this because I was tempted to go their R5 dropin but the lack of modes, cost (once I found out I would have to pay $17 not $15) and poor warranty made me decide the DX R5 is perhaps better even if it’s known to sometimes die. Of course the Solarforce R5 is probably better quality so you’re less likely to have to send it back but the combination of factors put me of it. Mind you from what I read the Solarforce R5 doesn’t always seem to perform well with 1x18650 although I don’t know if the DX is any better. It didn’t help that that ITC shop themselves can’t seem to provide clear specs on the R5, the listing title says 3-18V, the item description says 4v to 18v and when I asked someone about the R5 they told me it was 4-11V then when I asked for clarification I never got a response (perhaps it got lost in my other questions at the time altho I did sent it in a seperate e-mail)
I ordered a sand colour L2R from them with flat bezel and they sent me a black one with strike bezel, but then they sent me a sand colour for free after I complained. So 2 for the price of 1 is nice. So I ordered a second 3 mode low voltage drop-in for my second L2R body.... the addional drop-in was significantly darker than the first. So they sent me an additional drop-in for free (unluckily also not as bright). So I got 2 bodies and 3 drop-ins for the price of 1 body and 2 drop-ins. Communication was good , when I contacted Jo (Managing Director of International Trading Company & Solarforce) directly and not so good when I mailed with other people there.. most likely due to lack of English skills on their end, but they always responded fast.
The drop-in story can be read here with pictures: LINK
ITC are listed on the Solarforce site http://www.solarforce.hk/PRD/main.jsp as a dealer. (LT aren’t but it doesn’t mean much, I think it’s clear LT isn’t an official dealer.)
I also don’t see any MC-E or P7. In addition this http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=229730 is quite interesting. Other then not tailstanding, the genuine L2 tailcaps don’t have lanyard holes. Well the L2-S3 tailstands and L2-S4 somewhat tailstands but these are quite a different design and don’t have lanyard holes. In other words, it seems clear to me the tailcaps on the LT ones aren’t genuine.
Great, thanks for the info guys. :D Will probably go for ITC once the skyline 1 arrives. I'm looking to build a powerful thrower with an sst-50 p-60 drop in, running off 3 x 18650s.
@1000yardstare: heat distribution is likely to be a problem for the configuration you're planning. The L2 doesn't have good contact between drop-in and the head. Minimum would be a tin foil tweak to fill the gap.
At the very least. The P60 format is not ideal for such high-powered devices. If you can get stuff machined where you are, I'd go for something that looked like the Malkoff dropins with very tight tolerances so it makes good thermal contact with the body - and make as much of it out of copper as is practical.
The Skyline 1 arrived in record time - about a week before I expected it. There was no sign as of a week ago (I'm about 250km from home just now) of a dropin I'd ordered a week before that.
Their normal shipping isn't as bad as DX, but they tend in that direction. I've always got what I ordered though - I presume the dropin has arrived since last week.
Thus far I've had no complaints about them at all.
I contacted Solarforce and was told that these are infact counterfeit lights as suspected. Now we will see what Lightake plans to do to correct this situation.
In China counterfeits are obviously less considered a crime, but as greatest form of flattering. Most likely nothing will happen. Makes me wonder if the more expensive ones are also counterfeits. Maybe we see some Folarsorce, Larcesorfe or Ecrofralos next
What do YOU think? Lightake will (eventually) pull those products, and that's it. Gees, what's up with you guys? You want "jenyouine" high quality super durable flashlight bodies for a few bucks? Won't happen.
In my opinion the deals in question are a steal (hehe) no matter what factory they're from. I couldn't care less if one hk company is copying from another hk company.
It is so f'ing obvious these models came of the *fire factories that I seriously question a) your intelligence or b) your china/hk shopping experience.
