eBay C8 "Cree Q5" for $5.98: Avoid!

Out of pure curiosity, I decided to order a cheapie C8 that was posted in the BLF Deal Alert thread. Well, I received it today; even for $3, it's not worth it.

Summary

Bad:

- Generic Chinese emitter, probably 1W, tint is corpse blue. Side-by-side, it makes an actual XR-E Q5 look neutral white.

- Major hollow pill. There's a 1mm rim for the star to sit on. Also, the pill is not very deep so it only just threads into the head. Go too far, and the plastic reflector will rattle around.

- Ano is barely there on everything but the head.

- Machining is rough, threads are thin, rough, uneven, and sharp.

- Plastic Glass lens (edit: I was mistaken here, the lens is glass, dirty, hazy, cleanable, glass)

Good:

- There are O-Rings, one of which (tailcap) actually forms a partial seal.

- The reflector looks OK, even though it is cheap plastic.

- Glass Lens (Edited, glass was just hazy and looked like plastic)

- The head machining and ano isn't that bad.

Honestly, I didn't expect much from this light. If it had a Q5 (XR-E or XP-G) I would not have complained. As delivered, I have already asked for a refund.

Thanks for the warning! :slight_smile:

yuck. thanks for takin one for the team mate. :~

Thanks for posting. Perhaps there are some morticians out there that would enjoy the friendly corpse-blue beam. :bigsmile:

Crap… I have one incoming from that same thread…

We have the same on ebay here, I just thought about ordering one as a host yesterday. So thanks for the warning. :smiley:
I guess I spend a few more bucks for a better host then.

You pay for what you get. Sometimes you get lucky and get a good batch. Most times you don’t. That’s why many have ordered off of good reputable sites like manafont.com etc…

Thanks for the heads up. I have one coming my way too.

An excellent quality XML C-8 is available for less than $15…

I don’t see why anyone should waste their time with dollar store level junk.

I agree 100%.

thanks for the testing Relic38.
without this, it might be still sold all over the world.

sorry all for the bad deal alert. never know about it before :frowning:
the alert has been edited to link to here.

Yep, Relic38 is dead on on his assessment. I just sent message to vendor asking for a refund as ad says Glass Lens and Premium Cree Q5 LED.

Out of curiosity, I tired my FT brass C8 pill for fit (I do on every C8 I buy and it never fits). It actually fits diameter and thread wise, but the tube won’t screw on more than a couple threads. So the tube or pill would need to be modified. The body, head and tail are decent. The reflector looks good, but feels cheap. May melt next to a real emitter, may not. So, to be made useful, this light needs:

  • a solid pill
  • a real emitter
  • a real driver
  • a glass lens, and maybe
  • a durable reflector.

Three of the above would be provided in any decent host. Yeah, probably not worth $3.00.

You can give a bad review to them.

One showed up, one didnt. I was so disgusted with the one I got. Didn’t even care about the other…pathetic light… I wasnt expecting much either. But just total crap…

Does Ebay really have product reviews? I think that they did for awhile, but haven’t seen them recently.

What they do have is seller feedback, but that’s mostly for feedback on the seller, and not the product.

Plus, they only give you like one line to enter, and they seem to often obfuscate the info about what the item was, so it’s no help at all in eval’ing products. With all of that, if a seller has 1000 feedbacks, and, say 1 or 2 negatives, which don’t have any info about the product, it’s going to be buried.

For a dollar more you get any decent C8 on ebay. Prices range from 9.99 to 15.00, I guess you just got one from a bad batch.

Yes they have. check it out here. however, I see review is mostly for entertainment product like music and movie. I often being asked for review whenever purchase music cd.

and we can also write a guide in here..

Well, I fixed it up a bit. I put an XM-L on a thick 25mm star right on top of the pill rim. That gives way more contact than the tiny 1mm lip for a 20mm star. I got rid of the next-mode memory, braided the springs, and modded the driver for a little more output. I got it up to 2A now, I can probably get it to do 3A if I want to. The reflector base needed a trim to flatten it a little, not all the way though. The beam is a little ringy, but it has a nicely defined hot spot.
Considering I’m getting a refund, after the mods it’s a useable light now.
I still would not recommend anyone order it though. There are way better C8 options out there for even a dollar or two more.