Today came my C88 NW from intl-outdoor and I did some test with this very nice flashlight, also some beamshots so here we go:
My first impression it's solid, little bulky as I was used to thin Fenix L2d body.
I like its deep smooth mirror-like reflector - looks very good! emitter is well centered with two plastic things, it came with
greased tail-cap thread and thermal compound under the emitter.
I only had to put some grease between head and body where it was missing.
As E posted it is indeed different from the Ultrafire version in threads and heatsink (I'll get to the heatsink later),
- I agree the Ultrafire is easier to mod and I would prefer that design, but this new version is not bad at all!
Okay, some measurements:
I only have NiMH AAs, and most of them are old so at first the tailcap readings were
low 0.05
med 0.2
high 1.0
and the true is that battery holder is also not much by default - need mod.
Interesting was that I could barely fit the GP brand NiMHs inside the body tube, I'm wondering how eneloops would fit. Could somebody measure internal tube diameter of Ultrafire C88? - just for curiosity.
Some other notknownbrand NiMHs from local market -which performs very well I was completely unable to fit inside.
There was only maybe +0.5mm in tube width missing, so for testing I wired external pack of 6 (paralell 3+3) and with
this got expected tailcap readings:
low 0.1
med 0.8
high 2.75
So here are few beamshots, distance to house wall is about 20m, all shots were taken by f2.8, 1s exposure, iso 100.
C88 Low 0.1A - in real it is little brighter, guess low light conditions needs better camera :)
C88 Medium 0.8A
C88 High 2.75A -the light output on high is really amazing!!
Beamshots comparison with Fenix L2D premium Q5: (output from xml C88 is much stronger than L2D, but this is still good light :)
L2D Turbo -the tint of the led in Fenix is probably cool white, color rendering is visibly much better with NW in C88
L2D High
Now because I was curious how the smaller heatsing in Cyclone will perform, and how effective will the heat transfer to the body be I did also this test:
1.left the original heatsink with emitter without change - as it came
2.put some grease between head/body because the heat was barely transferred to the head without it
(better would be some thermal compound but this will be ok for the test)
Current from batteries was between 2.75-2.65A, 3.6V
begin: flashlight temperature 24C, ambient 21C
after 6min: 33C head, 36C body
after 12min: 41C, 43C
after 18min: 45C, 46.5C
Temperature was measured with infra thermometer, the flashlight was laying on soft chair (so almost no cooling from bottom), was without tailcap and partially wrapped with tape to hold good cable contact for full amperage.
Picture taken after testing, current went down to 2.6A
I was positivelly surprised that even with smaller heatsink the heat was transferred very well across whole flashlight, in real-use the light will be better cooled,
applying thermal paste to body/head thread could also help a little.
So overall - good flashlight I think!
If somebody will try it with the driver more than 2.8A - please post results! I'll do it but do not have parts yet.
And one question - I'm not sure about the glass - how do I know if it's AR coated or not?
