REVIEW: Manker Nichia AAA Keychain light aka "Boney" PIC HEAVY

Took it camping this weekend and found out I will be continuing to carry this little budget gem… I had it on the keyring and would use it to walk around the campsite by hanging the keys inside the shirt collar (t-shirt) with the light outside pointing down, worked great, I am really liking this little light. It gave plenty of light in a truly dark place that I could look for firewood, walk around and see what and where I was going and even seemed much too bright in the shelter if there were no other lights on… Comfortably brighter than my DQG 18650 Tiny III on low mode…

I was playing with the light at work, drop testing it. About 5 feet onto concrete several times ( I had done this a few other times) and the light quit… Now I get to cut apart the pill to see whats inside, and have a host for modding this little light. I have to say, it took quite a bit of nonchalant torture prior to giving up. At less than 6 bucks I bought it for, still impressive.

Now what to do with this light for modding. Any suggestions?

Awwww.
One drop and it dies
have you asked the place you got it whether they’ll replace it?
EDIT, my mistake, multiple drops

That shouldn’t happen for a “cockroach — survive everything” light.

Aside — for anyone trapped in a longtime dark with a little AAA light, I recall Gransee of Arc Flashlight pointing out that at least for his Arc AAA, once the battery is down to where it’s doing a “moonlight” — you’d get more light by leaving it on continuously from then on, instead of turning it off — because turning the driver back on was more of a drain on the cell than the minimal moonlight drain.

Not sure that generalizes to this light, but as a general counterintuitive notion.

Its always the last drop that gets it… It was by far above 20 drops from about five feet before it died. I have some time at work waiting on things to complete, so I fiddle with the lights I am carrying. The last few weeks it has been this one, and initially I dropped it from about shoulder height accidentally, so it lived and I continued to drop it. Initial drop was onto office hall tile (linoleum?) and most of the rest (accidental and purposeful) were onto epoxied concrete.

This thing never stopped producing light, I ran out of patience actually on one 7 year old “new” battery. The lumen would get below one, then when turned off, it seemed the battery recovered some and you had 3 or so lumen (decreasing steadily) for half the time the light was off roughly before the light was as dim as before. It did not quit making light, I ran out of patience.

FWIW, you can probably fix your CMG Infinity by hitting it with a hammer.

Seriously.

Get a straight slot screwdriver, place it strategically by the threads around the driver, and tap it with a hammer. Here’s how it looks after four taps:

The issue is that the driver loses contact with the body, and by deforming the body a bit you can restore contact. Quick, easy fix, and then it’ll probably perform as it was originally intended.

OTOH, mine was only about a lumen of light and had a tint of like 8500K. It was cool fifteen years ago, but now I just don’t really care about a lousy blue lumen, even if it’s bulletproof.

That is probably what happened to mine… It is long gone now. Nice work on yours, if only this forum had been around back then…. I agree on the output, mine was at the most a couple of lumen, but it beat lighting a candle or the heavy incandescent lights of the time for what I wanted. It and a spare AA would have given a week of light all night, spectacular for the time. I used mine for about a year before it just gave up the ghost, maybe three AA’s digested by it.

How hard do you think it’d be to replace that LED? I’m thinking my favorite PC Amber Rebel, if I can get a 10mm Sinkpad in for that (not sure I can find that size for the Rebel, yet)

The “pill” and LED are one unit, so it looks like the entire assembly has to be replaced. When I have time, I will cut the old pill apart to see what is in there. For a rebuild, I am kicking around a joule thief idea, perhaps with a UV LED, just ideas at this stage…

Huh, so it’s just a section of tubing with everything “potted” making it a solid lump, you can’t pry out the board the LED is on, nor the board the spring is on, to get inside that thing?

So any piece of plumbing copper might replace that whole pill?

Yup, this could be fun to mod…

Good review. Thanks man :slight_smile:

Thanks for review :D!

Will buy couple of these, cant be beat for the price as I was looking at these cockroach lights and read that CPF thread the other day!

Also, looking forward your rebuild posts folks, really tempted to replace original LED with something with either warm tint and/or red and UV ones!

If you are done with your CMG infinity, then you can put it into a galvanized pipe nipple with two hand tightened, threaded caps (CMG wrapped in plastic before inserting), or in a piece of 3/4” copper pipe with two caps, to make it a EMP protected, last ditch flashlight. Even if you aren’t much interested in such a thing, at $2.00 or so for parts, it is still worth considering as a bullet proof storage holster.

I fell for it again.

Already have a dozen AAA lights but could not resist pulling the trigger after reading your review.
With some support from M4D M4X’s deals page (at the end of OP) the damage was only EURO 4.19
After 4h 43min I got a mail from Banggood that my order was shipped.
Now I only have to beat my wife in the race to the frontdoor.

LOL, thanks on the review compliment, sorry you have to race the missus to the door, but leave flowers if you lose….

It is a nice little light, try the scotchbtite trick to make it more floody if you don’t like the stock beam….

I like the way you think sir! Unfortunately the CMG was trash canned when it gave up the ghost, was not so handy with electronics back then… But I have a couple of Manker AAA’s sitting around…

i also used some sandpaper on my LED

... and polished the “reflector“

(sorry for just the link - i maybe find out how to insert a slideshow later)

how do you like the beam profile?

Wow! Very good!

That is a polishing job… You like it more with the LED sanded? I thought it made mine whiter and more floody…

thanks guys!

unsanded the spot was uneven - now its smooth and nice spot
before polishing it was no defined spot and ringy…

Got one of these today, think I paid like 5 bucks, cant beat that.
How are you guys getting the “pill” out? I hope its not threaded in, since there arent any holes to stick plyers in.
Would like to do the mods you guys have done to it.
Light output is nice, but if I can get rid of a bit of the blueish hotspot it would be great.