My 3-mode SK68 broke down, so I opted to find a replacement. I ended up buying a couple with some spares, and I decided, well let’s tear them down and see how they are.
Here’s a complete teardown of the lights. I’d like to note that the manafont light was very difficult to disassemble without doing any cosmetic damage - everything seemed epoxied together. I ended up using needlenose pliers to pinch the pill off (don’t even attempt a screwdriver, I tried)
A look at the drivers. Note how the 3-mode and UltraOk seem to be from the same manufacturer. Also note the thinner wires on the manafont, and the different o-ring configuration (more on this later).
At this point, since my 3-mode was disassembled, I decided to throw it in an oven to see if maybe the solder might reflow. The UltraOk is more or less identical, so we’ll compare just these two. Both seem be using XR-E LEDs.
Here’s something I think it important. The manafont pill has much less surface area for the LED to contact - meaning you’d overheat more quickly.
When you put the emitter boards back in, they seem similar from behind.
Here’s what seems to be an easy way to ID the build easily. The manafont style build has a green ring, and the ultraOK and 3-mode builds have a black ring.
I think this will be the biggest difference you will notice. I noticed some of the SK68 I’ve bought for friends and family feel different - some slide around easily, some feel like they won’t budge unless you give it a good amount of pressure. The difference is the o-ring configuration in your SK68. On the left, the manafont (green) build went with an o-ring on the battery compartment, and a metal ring inbetween the pill and focusing ring. On the right, the black builds use an o-ring instead of a metal ring. The result is the black build feels more sturdy when focusing. I also believe it’s a better design - in case of water, the o-ring would stop water from coming in from the front of the pill so as long as you don’t refocus, and water is unlikely to get in through the screw threads. The green build does have an o-ring on an nonmoving part, but I doubt that metal ring would stop much water from flooding the front and eventually leaking into the driver. I did notice they provided an extra spacer in front, perhaps to help slow leaks. The best way is just to have o-rings on both parts. Fortunately it’s easy to retrofit both, and the metal ring comes off easily for replacement in the case of the manafont.
Now what about light output?
Unfortunately, I can’t do an outdoor test and don’t have time too, and taking pics of beamshots with light in one hand and DSLR in the other doesn’t work too well. I will describe the differences though.
The green build is slightly loopsided, whereas the black build is quite centered. I did notice that the green build can throw slightly better - as noted in my quick informal light meter results:
Tests made using identical batteries at 10 feet.
Black
Flood - 60 Lux
Throw - 1100 Lux
Green
Flood - 60 Lux
Throw - 1400 Lux
There you go. As for which is better, I can’t really say, but I can say I’m disappointed that I paid a premium for the manafont light and got something that seems to be built more cheaply in everyway. But then again, my black 3-mode broke down on me after being dropped a few times. Who knows?
