Don’t ever do business with this scum. They guarantee delivery or refund and partial or full refund if the items are not as described.
I received three C8 XP-L lights supposedly 2000 lumen. I knew that was a flat lie but expected over 1000. What I got was three $20 C8s that didn’t even put out 800 lumens. I disputed with picture evidence of the driver, the LED and beam shots next to known output lights like Lumintop TD16 and Thrunite TN12. I also checked amperage (2.78A).
AliExpress did not issue one dime in refund.
The seller Johnny Chen sells phony goods and lies professionally.
Spread the word.
If you got real XP-L leds and 2.8A driver then it sounds fine to me. Like you said, obviously not 2000lm, but it should be around 1000lm at 2.8A.
It may look like less output compared to the other lights you mentioned, but that could be the differing beam profiles.
Anyway, for $20 each it would be better to buy known quality, like Convoy or ThorFire.
It depends on the flux bin
A XPL HI V2-1A wont get you close to 800 OTF
While a XPL HD V6-1A get above 900 OTF lumens at 2,8A
If you got AR glass, uncoared you loose lumens
Also a DTP copper board helps about 10% flux over an aluminium as the LED keeps much cooler
http://pct.cree.com/mobile.html
At 2.8A
As example V2 at 80 dC 846 LED lumens
Vs a V6 at 50 dC 1085 lumens
When you order on Aliexpress why not order from Simon the owner of Convoy with asking for 15% BLF you can get a DTP C8 with new driver and AR glass below 20$
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Clear-Convoy-C8-with-XPL-HI-LED-copper-DTP-board-and-ar-coated-inside-new-firmware/32732511943.html?spm=2114.13010208.99999999.262.7OLyq9
I think it’s not aliexpress’s fault.Chinese flashlights always like this. The same model may vary in their specs. Eventhough they come from the same factory or dealer, different lots likely to have their spec or some parts changed without mentioning. Their advertisement always exaggerated.
The three lights I compared all are running the XP-L v3 led. All are running the same battery and all had 7135*8 drivers. The AliExpress light was noticeably dimmer.
I have bought a lot of Convoy C8s to sell and gift.
I have seen around that some ultrafire and others are driving a little harder. In fact there are some advertising 7135*10 drivers.
Does convoy have any driven above 3amps?
Convoy lights go up to 3A, and if you buy them from Convoy Flashlights on aliexpress, you get the real ones which are pretty good quality C8’s with genuine leds and drivers.
Personally I never put my fate in the hands of the buying system, if it is Aliexpress or Paypal. If I look out well in what I buy and avoid scams and clearly too expensive deals, I usually end up getting what I pay for.
The trick is advertised lumens * 0.1 = expected lumens 
So you should expect at least 200lm from that flahslight.
Out of all AE purchases I ever received only about 1-2% were not as described/fake. The AE experience depends heavily on what product/category and which shop you buy from. Almost all of my semiconductor parts (electronic parts like mosfets, caps, resistors,…) are from AE and they are all fine.
With flashlights, as stated above, if you know which shop to buy from you’ll have a great experience. Don’t buy electronics from stores that sell everything from diapers to jewelry. There are honest and good stores like Simon’s Convoy store or the Dito Outdoor Tool deals we had for 11/11.
Maybe we should start a sticky post with links to all decent flashlight related AE stores? That would be very useful.
Forget the Dito store
Even if it was to only 3$ reduced light and advertized 1000 lumens it was a very blue XP-G2 at 1.5A
Heat transfer to body was very bad
Thin springs
Bad switch
Thank you for your feedback, Lexel. This means we’d have to report which products are good as well. My Dito AAA SS light was very nice and better than expected.
DITO !
My DITO AA SS light, Yes it’s AA & not AAA is very chunky with great output, good tint and came in a nice plastic box.
Above all paid only $3 via 11.11 sales. It must be one of my best purchases of 2016.
DITO… :rage: :rage:
I paid for 3 flashlights and he only send one….
He told me that he will send the 2 missing ones….
Lets see what I will get.
Others mentioned what I should have originally:
The store within AliExpress has a lot to do with the experience. The jerk that claimed I was a “Professiona Liar” when I filed my claim was Johnny Chen of Dancelite. I bought (long ago) a light from Dancelite on Amazon. It was junk. I didn’t put 2 and 2 together that Dancelite was a store selling in many venues.
So, to qualify, Don’t buy from Dancelite and Johnny Chen. HGe’s a crooked jerk selling garbage with false claims.
However, that shouldn’t exonerate AliExpress from handling the dispute. They did nothing and their “judgement” was no return and no refund. As I said, i provided pictures of the generic driver which was supposed to be 7135*8 and beamshot pics next to known output lights. That seemingly isn’t proof enough.
Lesson Learned
So you bought a product that claimed the impossible (and you should have known that), but are now upset that it doesn’t live up the claims while otherwise working as would be expected? :person_facepalming:
I think you share some of the responsibility here.
can you just do paypal dispute? they favor the buyer usually and not the seller…
I think Aliexpress has very poor credit card security. I have a card that I’ve only ever used in 2 places: Aliexpress (just once), and Paypal (a few times).
I just experienced over $1000 in credit card fraud. The charges were for various Aliexpress purchases (obviously not by me).
The odd thing is that the only item I bought from Ali was about a year ago, and I’m sure I never requested they store my card details. However, they must store the card anyway, and not protect it very well.
The other option is Paypal was hacked and my card details stolen, but I’m much more confident that Paypal is using proper security.
Oh, and the 1 item I bought a year ago from Ali turned out to be incorrectly described, thus useless to me. It was only for about $10, so I left a negative review and ate the loss. I’m not sure if the vendor could have got my card details (I think those are kept by Ali, and the vendors don’t have access), but who knows?
Anyway, I had to cancel my credit card, and I will never deal with Ali again, unless they support a trusted payment provider such as Paypal. It’s just not worth the hassle of getting your card stolen.
To avoid that use a virtual credit card or “online credit card” from your bank (can have different names) - use it for AE, make sure product is functioning and you don’t need charge-back and DELETE the card.
I wouldn’t use any high-limit cards or real account data on AE or any foreign website.
What is the link to that dito store?
I don’t think there’s anything like that in Canada, at least not from my bank. They like to sell prepaid cards, which charges you a fee to activate as well as fees if you don’t use it up within a year. Plus there’s always a few dollars left on the card you can’t use. So it ends up being an expensive way to pay for stuff. I have used prepaid cards to put on file with Google and Apple (because I don’t trust them) but other than that I don’t like them.