Banggood offered me a coupon code: MoonlakeR5 20% off
“Moonlake” https://goo.gl/TtXzhX “(afiliate)”:http://www.banggood.com/Moonlake-XP-G2-R5-Two-Group-Modes-EDC-Mini-LED-Flashlight-p-1065438.html?rmmds=search81291852082482016060
I had my eyes on this one for over a year and when I saw there was only 1 left in the color I pulled the trigger.
As you can see it comes with a lot of extra’s even an extra switch and AR lens is included. But no clip. Not in the pictures is the lanyard but it’s a standard black one.
It’s a nice looking AA light (no 14500) although a bit heavy and big, can be compared with the skilhunt H15 in weight and size. The H15 is even smaller. It has very thick tube walls and nice anodizing. The threads are also not that great and no lube at all on them. The knurling is just for show, not deep enough to provide a half decent grip.
The modes are (in order): High, mid, low, strobe, SOS with memory. Turning off and on sometimes makes it next mode memory: really fast off/on keeps you in the same mode, long waiting between off and on keeps you in the same mode but sometimes off on is registerd as a half klik. I don’t really have another light to compare this with but I think it is something “normal”. The switch is a reverse clicky and can be finicky sometimes (not switching modes) but not to the point that it annoyes me. It has a nice feel though.
The light is suposed to have 2mode groups: with and without blinkies. But I can’t change this, it’s blinkies all the time. I have asked the store about this but answer wasn’t really clear:
How do I turn on the FL when it is already on in low mode? So I asked them to make a video and upload it to YT (see what I did there lol)
The LED is supposed to be a CW XP-G2 R5 but I have no way of checking if this is truly the case. I am not so fond of CW but the tint looks nice for a CW.
The beam pattern is not that bad, no weird artifacts but it is not perfect:
There’s the hotspot, the spill then a darker ring and some more spill.
There is a plastic thingy around the LED as some kind of protection to keep the wires from shoring out on there flector. A nice touch I think. The reflector is made out of aluminium and NOT smooth (don’t know how I should call it). The star sits on —a nice massive- copper- hollow pill and has thermal paste in between (not too much but enough). The wires running from driver to LED are not the thinnest. They are fatter than the ones presoldered on the pineapple driver which I plan on putting in.
As you can see there is a spring on the driver side which is great but since it cannot run on a 14500 I wonder if it’s really necessary. I believe all AA cells have a button top.
Some teardown pics:
I haven’t really used this light in times of need just played around with it, so cannot really say how reliable and/or great it is, that’s why I called it an overview rather than a review. But aside from some minor points I think it’s put together rather nicely. I will not keep it as it is, as soon as I get my tips for my soldering iron I plan on putting in the pineapple driver and a nichia LED. Sorry there are no runtimes but I’m not set-up to do this and I don’t have any decent NiMH cells (I plan to visit Ikea pretty soon).
BTW I payed full price for the FL except for some points I used.
Pictures were taking with broken screen smartphone so the colors might be way off.
I hope this was to some extend helpful for people thinking about this light as a potential host.