Review: Ozark Trail 200L - 4AA Light from Wal-Mart

Ozark Trail 200L

Reviewer's Overall Rating: ★★★☆☆

Summary:

Battery: Alkaline - Four AA
Switch: Side Switch - Pushbutton
Modes: On/Off
LED Type: Cree XB-D
Lens: Plastic
Tailstands: Yes
Price Payed: Gift - Costs about $19.00 In WalMart
From: Wal-Mart

Pros:

  • Aluminum Body is manufactured well. Smooth finish, Nice Ano. Sized well for hand held. Side Switch. Threads are smooth as silk.

Cons:

  • XB-D led is underpowered. Plastic lens. Plastic reflector. No heat sink. No Modes.

Features / Value: ★★☆☆

Basic Flashlight. It turns on and turns off. No special features in this light. It's over priced compared to other lights with multiple modes.

Design / Build Quality: ★★★☆☆

The design on the outside is great. The body is appealing visually and manufactured well. The threads are as smooth as I have ever seen on a flashlight. The ano is good, but I imagine it's type II. The plastic reflector and plastic lens are probably better for an outdoors light, but I would prefer an aluminum reflector. The interior battery holder/switch assembly is innovative and well done. Where the light completely fails is the XB-D led with absolutely no heat sink at all.

The pictures should give you an idea of this light. It is not made to be improved upon. No heat sink, an XB-D and no way to mod it, makes it a no go for me.

Battery Life: ?????

I have no idea of the battery life. The Mfg states 3hrs 45min run time. With 6 AA Alkalines, I would think it might last a half hour to 45 minutes before it went dim.

Light Output: ★★☆☆

MFg states 200 Lumens. I would say that is fairly close. MFg states throw of 169m, but I can tell you it's throw dies out after 50 yards. Any farther than that, it can illuminate, but not well to distinguish anything clearly. It is a Thrower for sure. It has a very small spot and little spill. It throws a tight beam. The problem is the under powered XB-D can't put out enough to be an effective thrower.

Summary: ★★★☆☆

It seems like the designers took a lot of time to make a nice looking light and the outside body is sleek. The threads are just smooth as can be and the design of the battery holder/switch is neat. It seems like someone else came in and designed the led, reflector and tin plate heat sink. It ruins the light for me, as it is screams cheap and amateur. With the fact that it can't be modded, it's worthless to me, but in looking at it as a non-flashoholic, it's probably a step up from a maglite, since it is brighter than a mag and it is good looking.

ISO100, F:2.7, Daylight WB, Shutter 1 second. Both the above and below shots.

Shutter Speed 1/15 second, to show the spot diameter better.

Thanks O-L.

Thanks for taking one for the team .

Thanks for the review, O-L. You saved me from spending $19. Laughing

Oh C'mon O-L! You're giving up on modding it that easy? That's not the Old-Lumens I know! Thanks for the review though.

-Garry

It was sent to me, by another member. The idea was to possibly mod it, but the way it's set up, I just don't see that it's worth it to mod. It's a shame, because my first thoughts, when looking at the light, were how nice it looked and how darned smooth the threads were. If they had just taken it one step further and left a little room for a heat sink or made a heat sink, it would be a great light to mod.

Thanks for the review.

Added beam shots in the review.

It looks like you could make space for a heatsink in there. If the driver is single layer PCB, if the traces above the switch are that wide the whole way, you could cut the driver in half and solder it back together as a multi PCB driver to make some room for a heatsink. I have a razor saw (.011” thick blade) that could cut between that switch and the SMT components easily.

+1 thanks for the review though.

What, no Nichia 219 in its future? :cry:

Thanks for taking one for the team

Thanks very much for the review! Frontpage’d and Sticky’d.

Thanks for reviewing this light Justin. From the nice pictures it looks like Hman might have a point. There seems to be room around the reflector for a properly sized copper cap(1” or 1 1/4”) a shorter, smaller piece of pipe with the space between filled with shot/solder. Think “inverted” heat sink. If the battery holder can be modded or replace to 3s2p then the driver might be bipassed to a 105C. If not there are 5-mode 2-cell drivers that should work with the 6-8.4V of 6 nimh cells. If you really like the host, a way can be found to mod it but the cost will likely go up with a new lens, reflector, and copper. I’ll mod anything if it’s free but might not buy this if it’s too much of a pain.

I believe you could make it two part and shove one part inside the hollow. To me it's just not worth the effort, when there are so many lights out there that lend themselves to modding.

Thanks for the review.

Was going to recommend this to a colleague.

But no heatsink?

Big thumbs down.

For a light that's used for normal flashlight type runtimes, a heatsink that just adds a big dumb mass inside to store up heat is pretty useless. What matters is if it can shed the heat as fast as it generates it - which this light is capable of, with some tweaks, without filling the insides full of copper.

The flimsy aluminum plate needs to be swapped for a 1/8" copper plate, and whatever star of your choice bonded on top. The heat transfer on this light is decent, for two reasons. One, the plate under the star is clamped down tight between the head and battery tube, which is a whole lot better thermal path than anything P60 based. And two, the outer surface of the body, where that heat will ultimately have to jump the gap to the air (or your hand), is probably double the surface area of a typical 1x18650 light. Is it now pointless to play with P60/18650 lights, too?

The only potential issue I see is possibly the driver board, though I would probably take the easy way out and bypass it altogether with a jumper wire. Oh, that and the $20 price tag... but if you already have one (I do, haven't cut it up yet), why not? (and then you can stick the leftover XB-D in a Mag Solitaire or something!)

Was going to recommend this to a colleague.

But no heatsink?

Big thumbs down.

I disagree with most of this review. Heat sink or no heat sink, this has been one of the best budget lights I have ever purchased. I have used it almost daily around the house for the past year or so I have had it, and it has worked flawlessly. 200 lumens is a good amount of output for just general use and it has never got hot at all while I was using it. I even did a runtime test on it a while back and the light just got lukewarm during the 4-5 hours it was on. I use NIMH cells in in exclusively. The one test I did was with Energizer Recharge 2300 mAh cells and it ran for about 3 hours before any noticable reduction in brightness. I kept another light near me that was also rated at 200 lumens to compare while I was testing. Ozark Trail just released several new models at my local Walmart also, including a 500 lumen 2 mode version which I picked up. It is even better than this light, but I will save that for another thread!! ;p).

Welcome to BLF. Thanks for your input.

-Garry