deal alerts: @ ebay, all flashlights below $5

Pregulla wrote:

Not ebay, but $3.61 for Hugsby XP-1 is a great price

I love that Hugsby and a good deal so I ordered one (not 2). Aliexpress sent me email warning that the buyer protection was about to run out on the purchase. So I opened a claim and said please wait as long as possible for the package to arrive. Next day I was refunded. Aliexpress said the vendor could not produce tracking information.

Anyone else that bought from this vendor may want to see how much time they have left to open a dispute.

For $1.79

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Hot-LED-3W-260LM-waterproof-Lamp-Clip-Mini-Penlight-Flashlight-Travel-Torch-AAA-/271978994847

AAA lights

thats cheap!

Probably fake...

Hugsby XP1 for $2.95 , but crazy cheap.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/CREE-XPE-R3-LED-1000-Lumens-Lamp-Clip-Mini-Penlight-Flashlight-Torch-AAA-Tool-/271979065071

$3.26

And its bigger brother.

fake?

2x AAA

http://www.ebay.com/itm/CREE-XPE-R3-LED-1000-Lumen-Lamp-Clip-Mini-Flashlight-Torch-Penlight-AAA-Tool-/281793308726

Those are fake. You can tell by looking at the clip. The real ones have a notch in the clip to attach a lanyard.

I recently did some mode of the “600lm” ones and SK68 clones for their bad tint and low lumen outputs. The results are amazing. They are better than my original SK68 that I always use as a benchmark in light output. It is especially true when using 14500 batteries. The output with 14500 would easily be higher than 300 lm according to my best estimate.
Your XP-E2’s are good but one need to reflow them. Not everyone can do that. I found some in Fasttech works well. I have used this and this on my smaller 600 lm ones. They works great. At a better price point these LEDs should be good. I have ordered a few for my “sk68”’s but haven’t received them yet.
My conclusion is that the best way to get decent small flashlights is buy some cheap ones and replace the LEDs.

There are a rash of Fake Hugsby lights surfacing, and those look like the fakes. Someone here bought one and its horrible compared to the real ones.

I cant justify spendin even 1$ on these crap emitter lights unless they are well built and with long runtimes just like those cockroach lights do.

I doubt any of these are any good, Ive used so called police-lights and they have been crap compared to well built light.

You get what you pay for and Im not that rich to afford to buy cheap crap again :D!

I’ve lucked out on a few occasions on ebay where I’ve bought the following on auctions

2x 501B with a decent 5 modes XML2 dropin for around $3
1 x UniqueFire HS-802 with a green LED for about $5
1 x C8 with XML2 for about $5

All were good working examples. Quality of what would be expected for each model type

I’ve also bought rubbish too. A C9 torch for $9 which has a hollow pill, plastic reflector and low quality host.

Sometimes you can luck out, other times cheap does = rubbish. I find that auctioned items are normally when some true bargains can be found. They are very few in number though.

I got them already and tested them out. Now they are installed in the small “600lm” flashlights. I think they are genuine Crees. Their tints are good. The light output are good also. I tested their light output on my home made IS. It is not calibrated so I cannot give the accurate lumen values. However, relatively, they are very good. For example, the reading from a Convoy C8 at highest brightness is 20000 lux from the IS. The two small ones with the replaced LEDs gave me 9000 lux with 14500 and 3000 with AA. Conservatively, I would divide 30 to get the lumen number but again it is not calibrated. (Edit: I made the dividing factor wrong. It should be 30, instead of 300. Corrected.)

Good to have a warning. They are too cheap to be true.

Nonetheless, I have been using a non-Cree AAA twisty light from eBay from 5 years ago. I put some dx tape on the lens, an it's a great little bedside light my wife used. No modes, just on off. And with the tape a pretty smooth beam.

But Iwouldn't like to have as my edc.

These things are cheap nowadays anyway. To make it clear, my sk68s were from Amazon and DX at $3.5 to $4.5, not from GB.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Red-2000LM-CREE-XM-L-T6-LED-Flashlight-Lamp-Torch-Focus-18650-3-Mode-Neuf-/131582950911?hash=item1ea2f47dff:g:L0AAAOSwl8NVXCkj

Bought this item, and it came in brown but I took it apart and its a real cree. I wish I hadn’t lost it. Cost the same as an SK68 but it uses a 18650 battery and does cool white.

Are you sure? Can you post a photo? Many of them shows as Cree on the base plate but actually not.

I lost the flashlight, I have a side pic of it… but it won’t help to identify since its too blurry. At this price its probably fake, but I didn’t know they’d put so much work into a fake light. I was looking at the ultra fire site to identify the flashlight but I didn’t find it. Want it anyway?

Never mind if you don’t have it. I was just curious.

I have several of these lights, my versions all have real Cree XPE inside them. But they were bought before the cree-fake-craziness, can’t guarantee these new ones would be the same.

Do you know what size of the driver it fits? I am looking for one of the cheap Ebay flashlights for testing LEDs and 17mm drivers. Right now, what I have cannot do both that well. sk68 uses 14mm drivers, I think, Ultrafire SH98 and E17 uses 20mm driver. I can use them to test LED with no problem but cannot really test 17mm drivers. P60 cannot test LED because it has to put the reflector on in order to turn it on.
All I need is a flashlight with a pill that can accept 17mm drivers. If it can easily access the LED from the front will be even better. There are quite a few of 18650 flashlight on Ebay for about $3 but e.g. this and this but I don’t know if they accept 17mm drivers for my purpose. Hope somebody can help so I don’t have to by something useless even though they are cheap. Thanks in advance.

If you’re using this for testing as you say then this may just be the one you want.

It does use 17mm driver, 16mm LED base, and better still you can remove the zoom and reinsert the pill only - bare LED straightaway accessible for whatever tests you need to do.

The brown one is here for $3.34 shipped

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Quality-12W-cree-XM-L-T6-2000Lm-LED-Zoomable-Mini-Flashlight-Torch-Lamp-18650-WB-/191514368617?hash=item2c97255a69:g:GkgAAOSw2XFUhT7w