A couple of weeks ago, I posted here asking if anyone had any input regarding the C8 offerings at Manafont. Based on the glowing reviews of the KD model, I wanted to purchase one for gifting, but preferred purchasing from Manafont. I purchased MF's SKU.6944 5-mode C8 XM-L to evaluate it. It arrived yesterday afternoon, and so far, I am very impressed!
The light is branded with the 'Ultrafire' logo on the side. Overall, it seems very high quality, to my standards.
Cons:
There are minor machining marks visible when you look closely, but they are minimal. The head is anodized a slightly different shade, but you really have to look to notice. Overall, the anodizing is okay; not as high-quality as the finish on my Ultrafire WF-510b, but still acceptable.
The emitter had some dust on the dome, but the light was easily to disassemble for cleaning.
The switch doesn't feel great, but so far, it hasn't caused any issues.
Noticible PWM on mid and low modes.
Pros:
This light is BRIGHT! I installed a freshly-charged 18650 cell and took the light outside after dark to compare with my other lights. This light is very close to my 5x XR-E TR1200 in output. My normal target, a light-colored barn at 700ft was able to be brightly illuminanted, similar to when using my TR1200. The illuminated area may actually be larger than the one from my TR1200.
This light is much smaller than I expected. It shares similar design styling with the TR1200, and I was expecting something slightly larger than this. It's actually small enough to drop into my pocket; the large head diameter means I probably wouldn't want to carry it for long that way though. I think a holster purchase would be next.
The LED tint is very nice (a personal observation, YMMV). The light doesn't have any green or blue to it. My only other experience with an XM-L emitter was apparently a VERY bad bin and was dim with a lot of green to the output. This light's tint/output is excellent.
The aluminum reflector is smooth and free of defects.
I tested the tailcap current using a freshly-charged 18650 cell that had been salvaged from a laptop battery pack.
High - 3.8A
Mid - 1.3A
Low - .13A
At low, the output was similar to what I was observing from my XR-E RC-G2 with unknown emitter bin and battery condition, but with a wider hotspot. It was definitely not blinding, and would be suited for up-close work and times when runtime would be preferred over brightness. The light does have disco mode, and for those who care, the SOS is a true S-O-S. I have not yet received my eBay light meter so I'm not able to measure that yet, but hopefully it will be here soon.
For $21.95 delivered, this light looks like a fantastic piece of hardware!
I'm sorry to bump a thread from weeks ago, but did your ebay C8 arrive yet?
I saw several around that pricepoint on ebay and they either sold as non XML or they sold as XML and some feedback stated the light had another emitter...
I bought this light on ebay and after that I found this forum. I know should be the other way around or else I would have orderd on manafont. But I got the light withe the logo like shown on your last to pics. Does it mean I got an fake light? And also the quality of the cree is not as good and is less powerful?
I'm pretty new at this but I measured at the tailcap and it says 1,75 A at high (0,8 A at mid and 0,08 at low). The battery is an red Ultrafire 3000. I played around a little bit with this light so it maybe is not completely full.
I also have an Ultrafire WF-502B with an P7 cree and this slowly walks from 1,50 A till 1,69 A on high. So maybe it could just be the batteries?
I found I charged it wrong. I charged it on lion setting (4,1 v) now i charged it at lipo setting (4,2 v). Measured the battery and it was 4,16 V. Now it does 2,35 A.
how2: which batteries. And your right the P7 is SSC. I'm new to this so sorry for that mistake. And the only difference I found between Cree and SSC is where it's made and the one is only led in series and the other one could be parallel. I don't think that is a big mistake.
Jacobhl: I don't exactly know what you mean. A pill does need to be hollow to put the driver in?! It looks exactly the same as in this thread: https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/4253#comment-80441 And it seams he also got a mimic looking at the cree logo.
Stippier do not worry about it. Nice to have new people. what charger do you have?
This is the order I would buy. Make sure you buy protected batteries.
You could go for XTAR 18700 2600 mAh Li-Ions group-buy for $13.50 shipped to you but these are very long and may not fit your charger. Email them they should still sell it at that price.
Protected TrustFire 18650 3.7V 2400mAh $10.89 I have 3 sets of these.( Look aroung you can get them for less than $10)these are good and a newer version Protected TrustFire 18650 3.7V 3000mAh $11.70 but some say that they are only 2400mAh other s say 3000mAh.
I'm using an Imax B6 Ultimate charger something similar to the Turnigy charger I did see come by on this forum. I use it for my RC hobby. So the size of the battery is no problem.
I also have an standard (video cam) charger where 2 battery's fit in. I do not use because I heard that it has no cut-off.
The Xtar's sound interresting. Gone look how to order those.
But you think the battery is the problem and not the light. Because I still can contact the seller/leave a negative feedback on ebay.
I bought these before but didn't test them yet, they measured 3.93V new after being on my shelf for 6 months or so, good ebay seller also, never had a problem with them. Just don't buy the 3W, $2.50 police lights if you really want a 3W light, but those do make nice cheapo presents :)
Stippier Only a few light are driven to 2.8Amps correctly. My Trustfire X9 ranges from 1.5Amps to 1.9Amps with the same batteries my UltraFire TH-T60 Ranges from 2.5 to 5Amps depending on the battery. This is driect drive. Some of my XPG (1.5Amps) and XRE(1Amps) light are driven at 1.7Amps. This is bad for LED life
It's better for the LED if it's at 3amps or less. So don not worry. You can always change the driver later.