AstroLux A01 AAA Nichia 219B Review - Winner winner, chicken dinner. An excellent, Neutral tint High CRI LED keychain light!

Budget lights often take some tweaking brand new out of the box to work properly. If you aren’t ready for that, you aren’t ready for budget lights. Or maybe you are because with budget lights you can still throw away half of them and come out ahead. It’s just a shame not to take a few basic steps at fixing a light before you throw it away or try to return it. Fixing lights yourself is one of the main reasons BLF exists. Tightening a retaining ring, sanding the end of a tube, these are just basic. It feels great to bring a light to life like that.

Anyway, I’ve bought 4 A01’s and they’ve all worked fine.

Actually, they are to be no more… The Astrolux brand will have to find another manufacturer as Manker and Banggood will not be working together anymore. I do not know that this will happen, and with there could be some property rights issues to the designs anyway. Yes, even in China, there are some property rights in situations like this… I had a Stainless steel model in the works, and a “A02” AA version as well. Do not expect those anytime soon, if ever…

Members like choombak (a drug reference name, I am guessing?) and their disproportionate complaining here for what they have gotten for bottom dollar drive manufacturers away. They also drive members away from good lights and if they get one that needs an adjustment, perhaps their first foray into modding.

I knew next to nothing about LED lights when I joined here just over a year ago. I now do everything but firmware to my lights, and will get to that in time. It started with spring bypasses and swapping an emitter… With help from members here and the more positive attitude of the forum back then, I did this. Now we have members that have low post counts, long times lurking and the attitude that a budget light should have Ferrari QC. Then they spend more time complaining about what was, than they do fixing the issue, and end up throwing away the lights… Incredible…

@choombak, you are a knucklehead for throwing those away, I am sure plenty of members would have paid shipping and 50% of your cost to get those lights. I really doubt you did this anyway… You have more money than sense if you really did throw them out. As I said, the emitters alone would have gotten you $4 ea…

Say it ain’t so! I would love a SS and an AA version. I really hope Manker and BG can look past the Cometa fiasco and give the partnership another chance.

Doubtful. Razor Thin margins and three times the work. It is a shame because they would really listen to our ideas.

anyone tried to modding this flashlight??:slight_smile:

I’m new to this forum (and forums in general). Is there this much drama here?

Haha - welcome……

I’ve been here a little while and, aside from the occasional blip, I’ve found that things here couldn’t be more friendly.

I like the fact that we can talk here about things such as clone knives really freely yet on a knife forum I’m a member of I there would be hysterics a-plenty and I would probably be burned at the stake……

Does Ferrari even have good QC my mate works for them here they get a lot of returns maybe we should go with Honda! ReManG already copped me bitching about the led being out of center… I would 100% recommend this light! the LED is such a small issue but the DOA they would give you a refund for any ways? If you do want top quality AAA maybe go for the lumintop tool it is about double the price but you get what you pay for. hahaha i just looked at mine and the LED isn’t centered with the lumentop! bahahaha

Are we aloud to swear in the forum? fudge me silly i failed by saying this!
!

!

This is the Astrolux! I think the Astrolux wins!
!

!

A light you buy for $10, likely was manufactured for less than $5. There’s not much room for extensive quality control on budget lights. Besides, most of the things you’re complaining about are irrelevant on a small floody light like this.

The only thing I really expect on a $10 light is that it works, or that it can be easily fixed to make it work (like I had to do by stretching the spring on one of mine).

IMO, the A01 was an excellent light for $9. The emitter is really what makes this light stand out. The quality isn’t perfect, but I have $100 lights for that. The A01 is a nice, simple light, that gives really nice tint, a good selection of output, and is inexpensive enough that it won’t freak me out if I lose it or break it.

Excellent review, thanks for all your effort providing the facts about the A01.
Im sold, bout time i upgraded my little aaa p2.

I agree that there’s little to complain about given the price point. Some people are extremely picky. Given what was covered in topics about this light and the fact that BLF gets an extra discount, it should be understood that the QC won’t be as solid as with more expensive lights. I had an issue with my copper A01, sent in a photo to show it, and BangGood followed up with a brand new light. They could have just mailed me a battery tube, which would have been fine as long as it worked.

If a US manufacturer was producing this light, we’d be paying at least 50% more. While it would feel good for some to buy that instead, supporting local jobs, the fact is that many people would still opt for the cheaper because of how people see the world (me first, everyone else after). So, with China still having a lower cost workforce, the job gets done there. And really, some of these lights are probably very close to margin, if only to help establish the brand and pave the way for more expensive models.

The flakiness/flickering on my two orange lights was solved by the usual ‘all of the above’ — cleaning threads, checking tightness of the driver (it can be too tight, it can be too loose, it can be just right, no idea what’s going on with that), smoothing every electrically conducting part, putting conductive lube on, and “wearing in” through lots of cycles of off, on/change mode.

Happy with them now. No surprise it took some time to get rid of the flickering. Still puzzled, I’ve never had other lights where the driver could be tightened down too much, but whatever that is, backing it off just a quarter turn or so gets rid of that part of the flickering.

Yes, the driver and LED is all mounted in one pill that you can easily unscrew. I changed the MCPCB to a DTP copper sinkpad.

It might be that the spring isn’t long enough (like on one of mine), and unscrewing the pill shortens the distance the spring needs to reach. You could try stretching the spring, instead of loosening the pill.

choombak is not a drug reference name, rather an Indian word for “magnet”. And can we steer clear of personal insults please! Name-calling always derails the discussion, and is counter-productive to thoughtful exchange.

While quality is always subjective, I am surprised stating observations is construed as disproportionate complaining on this forum. If manufacturers are smart, they’d rather take a clue and fix trivial QC issues that may nag consumers - especially given this is low hanging fruit. Issues in this light are telltale signs of extremely poor QC (trying to squeeze as high a profit margin as possible), making the light utter unreliable. A dead light is as good as no light.

Oh, and Banggood did come back on my DOA light - they want me to send a video of the light to show them the problem (!!). I guess “light does not work at all” does not cut it for them. For those who enjoy them, please have a reliable backup.

I’m quite confident that every single person who reads this forum has at least 1 backup light….

That what I keep thinking but then I keep always finding myself short 1 and need to get another

At first I was thinking I should EDC one light, with some batteries as backup. Then I thought, why not EDC multiple lights with batteries in all of them. No need to swap batteries out in the element. More fun that way!

I have 2 1xAAA flashlights in my pants pocket, and 4 flashlights of a variety of configurations in my jacket pockets. I have 3 different keychain lights on my keyring, and 1 more little LED light in my Victorinox Midnite MiniChamp.

I’m ready for anything.

Ready for a new Big Bang? :slight_smile: