4.80 AA light from Fast Tech

Anyone have one of these? It looks good, especially for the price.
http://www.fasttech.com/products/1601/10009202/1815003-u-520-1-cree-xp-e-q5-250-lumen-3-mode-pure-white
Thanks,
Jerry

I think I see a very ringy reflector on one of the pics…
Could have a really ugly beam.

Its a nice light for the price. Good output. Takes aa or 14500. Will not take protected 14500. Its a rather compact light compared to sk68. Only downside is plastic lense and reflector.

I have two, work very well…currently on my keyring as we speak

http://www.fasttech.com/reviews/1815003/150830

The others are also spot on

Definitely not ringy. I have 6. It works very well.
Very nice light for the price. Brightness about 100 lms with AA. 225-250 lms with 14500.
I thought 14500 would fry the driver easily, but not in my test.
I’ve been playing rough upto 20 min (with Sanyo 14500, like 20-25x), amazed that it still endures very well. I used thermal paste on the star.
Somehow I expected the test unit fail with 14500 after rigorous tests, but so far so good.
Basically, I left it on table for 20 min untouched with no additional air circulation (like a fan), measuring the head with IR temperature gun.
15 min - 60C
20 min - 65C
Room temp: 32 C
If I hold it in my hand for 15 min, I can feel the heat, but still able to hold it without a problem. It feels very warm with my hand absorbing the heat.
Plastic reflector, but glass lens

Runtime:

- Alkaline AA - 55 min

- Sanyo 14500 840mah - 50 min

- Fake Trustfire Flame 900mah - 20 min :bigsmile:

- Sony NIMH 2000/Eneloop 2000 - 55 min

  • Eneloop Pro/XX 2550 - 90 min

Looks good. With that price I won’t worry too much about it being scratched and abused. Does anyone has a photo of holding it in hand?

That’s a good idea to understand very well the dimension, thank you.

I bought one... glass lens, plastic reflector.

No pics, but:

It will take a 17mm driver.

It will take any LED on a 16mm PCB.

On mine, the driver sits a bit deep, so I had to add a ring of solder around the negative contact ring to make contact when the battery tube is tightened.

Protected cells fit.

Good thermal path as the LED doesn't reside in a pill, but a flat shelf that is a piece of the light.

The pill shelf is flat, so you would need a good adhesive to center and retain the emitter. Although, there is a divot in the middle of the shelf, directly under where the LED PCB will sit. I used a file, followed by lapping the shelf smooth to machine out the divot and make a mirror-polished flat surface for the PCB to sit on.

Reflector is an oddball size, I haven't been successful in locating a good aftermarket reflector or TIR optic.

I was able to use a rotary tool to slowly sand the reflector opening to fit a standard XML centering insulator. The emitter sits deep in the reflector, but is well centered, and at a good optical depth (die surface is completely visible around the full surface of the reflector).

Mine now has an XM-L2 emitter with the 2-mode DD-High driver from FastTech, running 14500s. With fresh cells it is very bright, but extremely floody. This light also gets very hot very quickly. With good (better than my two-year-old Trustfire) cells, I can see this light getting so hot that you would be unable to turn it off without getting burned (danger of a twisty).

It's a cheap host. During my mod attempts, I accidentally and destructively dedomed three XM-L2 emitters trying to get the reflector centered, before I got it sanded down to the right size. I kept working on it though, and finally got a working light. I would prefer it didn't have the keychain loop. Compact, ultra-budget, single-AA mod host, one of the only I've found to date.

Thank you very much for the informative sharing man. Now I am seriously considering to buy one of these. Since we have XP-L nowadays I think I don’t need to force an XM-L2 in there, or maybe I will put an XP-G2 for a little throw. :slight_smile:

I'm sure an XP-L would have been best, but I didn't have one of those on hand.

Now I want to order a new light and an XP-L to mod out... see if it works out better than the XM-L...

For those that are on the fence about the Fasttech price. How about $3.74 ? I’ve ordered quite a few from buyincoins and they took about 12 days to reach the US.

http://www.buyincoins.com/item/53459.html#.VGZMWjTF_fh

Thanks, All,
I decided to order 3 and give and them a try. If they are OK I’ll order more for gifts. I have been gifting the Tank 009 TK701, but they have gone up to around $9-10.
Jerry

I received these lights yesterday, and for the price I like them. The threads are not so fine that they would strip easily, and the front easily screws on. I got 3 hours run time on high with Tenergy Premium batteries, and with Chinese Alkalines from Harbor Freight got 6 hours on low mode.
It is smaller than the Sipik 68 although it does not zoom. It has two modes and strobe, which I could do without. The beam is not ringy and has a nice center hotspot.
https://www.fasttech.com/products/1815003

I like them and believe they will be reasonably rugged so that I will gift them. I prefer AAA lights, but these are not bad.

Jerry

Does anyone know if the ones from buyincoins are also 3 modes?
I know in the description it says 1 mode, but wrong descriptions are a normal thing.

Thanks.

Answering to my question, in case someone was wondering the same.

The ones in BIC are 3 modes with next mode memory ( :Sp )
Pretty small, shorter than a MXDL 3w (AAA) that I have. (only the body, not counting with the keyring clip, obviously)
If it had a clip it would be a nearly perfect cheap EDC flashlight (size wise), but the keyring clip isn’t bad either, just a matter of personal preference.

edit
Bought two (actually bought three, but were on two different orders and the last one arrived first, go figure)
One of them is pretty decent, draws ~0.9A on high, ~0.25A on low (on a Ni-MH), just great for a small EDC light.
The other…draws ~0.9A on high and ~0.75A on low, no wonder I didn’t notice much difference between modes.
Dunno, might have been a one in a million problem, or might be a usual lack of quality control.
But hey, it’s a cheap AA twisty, you don’t find them very often.

Disassembled the one that draws 0.75A on low. (the other one works great so I don’t want to mess it up :wink: )
No thermal paste under the star.
But has an o-ring between the lens and the reflector (shouldn’t it be between the lens and the head? ), an o-ring on the head (in the middle where it unscrews) and another between the body and the head. overall it’s well equipped with o-rings. :bigsmile:

The .9A and .25A seems like a much better spread of Hi to Lo, the .9A to .75A is the High and not so low modes, wish it was lower

They are good little lights

When I saw the title I thought it’s a 4.80 *A*mps light :slight_smile:

no it’s a $4.80 AA battery light

I know, disappointing :smiley:

Don’t know how reliable the seller is though.