Here's what CNQG original black logo looks like
Is that bezel ring stainless steel or chrome plated ?
(magnets stick if chrome plated steel)
“Cotton” not “Coton”; sorry.
Can you guess the breed of dog my wife has? 
Left: SRK Right: UV-S5
Both have SS bezel.
Got my black sky ray king from fast tech today and well, extremely disappointed. my 3 amp xml U2 p60 drop in puts out more light then this thing. seriously.
It will be interesting to see how Fast Tech handles this situation. From most people’s reports, their Black Sky Ray King produces no way near the output of the “original” Sky Ray Kings (if it works at all). I have one on order and will definitely not be happy if they expect me to pay return shipping to China (close to $30 from what I have experienced) if the output is substantially less than the Sky Ray King I currently own. How they handle this situation will determine if I ever order from them again and I’m sure it will be the same for many others.
Edit:
Just saw that for North and South American customers they have a return address in Florida.
I have cleaned off the inside again (the black was even on my batteries AFTER the first cleaning) and do find that the output seems brighter.
It was $39 and is showing a very bright light. It seems about the same as the TM 26 at 1700 lumens. The cotton swabs are black, from cleaning it, but it is working.
If it doesn’t die out on me, it is a real budget light that proved its worth.
All these different looking logos, I think i’ve seen 3 different versions now. At this point I could care less if the machining is off. I’m worried that the light output of the fasttech SRK is low. Fasttech emailed me and said it is an authentic sky ray king and there are minor machining differences between batches. Well that is ok, I can handle a few machining errors for $42 but the output listed on their site is 2500 lumen and that is the part that bothers me. I had trusted fasttech to give us honest product information before we buy.
Despite what a lot of people think magnets CAN stick to stainless steel, there is no such thing as a 100% austenetic stainless steel, they all contain impurities that attract magnets to some degree, this is due to the ferite and martensite make up of the material.
FMS, my black SRK arrived today DEAD as a dodo, due to a manufacturing defect.
Firstly without a doubt it had been taken apart before, I suspect it was resent after being rejected, the base cover was loose over the end, the switch outer ring was nearly off, but worse the light didn’t work.
Whoever did the machining, machined the depth for the driver board too deep, so that the part of the body that carries the batteries doesn’t make contact with the outer copper/brass ring of the driver board, I put a bit of tin foil in to test this theory, then it worked, I will be making a SS or other ring to go inside to fix permanently, it’s just less hassle than sending back.
I have the fasttech UV-S5, which is MUCH better quality than the f/t supplied SRK, I also notice on my new SRK that I have to be very careful screwing together as the seal is too big, and pops out the slot, so this has to be pushed in otherwise it would get torn doing up the body.
I’m 100% seriously unimpressed with fasttech now, having to do repairs, it could be seen on mine that it had been apart, presumably sent back as faulty and resent as good to myself, I’ll certainly think twice before ordering from fasttech in future.
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I also have the fasttech golden UV-S5 purchased some months back from FastTech. It is perfect. Bright as heck. The bezel looks a matte dull stainless but does not even respond to magnet and I therefore speculate it is NOT stainless steel but some alloy. Could care less if it was made of plastic…. as the light is SOLID 
I was going to get the new FastTech SRK in black and am glad I held off for the holidays even moreso now due to all the negative feedbacks coming out about the new SRK’s from FastTech.
I was going to get the new FastTech SRK in black and am glad I held off for the holidays even moreso now due to all the negative feedbacks coming out about the new SRK’s from FastTech.
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As soon as my batteries are cooked I’ll post up what I think regarding light output, they’re about 4.15V at the moment!!
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Well thought the thorough cleaning had fixed it, but no. Last night using it it started to flicker and light output dropped- flexing the head would cause it to work then cutout. When it was working it was actually significantly brighter than before.
I think the other posters are right that the body is not machined well and only has intermittant contact with the driver board. I decided while we were all waiting for Fasttech to return from hols I’d see if a DIY fix worked.
I cut a ‘washer’ ring from a plastic container lid (was going to cut up one of the GF’s high temp silicone baking dishes but got caught… :zipper_mouth_face: ) using the driver as a template to trace around, then sat it in the flashlight body under the driver- the driver still has just enough room to snugly fit without being loose.
Then I thought seeing as the batteries seem to be a very tight and might (?) be causing the driver board to flex, I’d place some washers (1mm approx) under the end tailcap board.
Putting it back together now it feels everything has a nicer fit and so far I haven’t noticed any flickering even when flexing the head- will test more when it’s dark again.
My bezel seems to not be magnetic- wouldn’t matter to me if it was though.
I feel a bit sorry for Fasttech- obviously their supplier has let them down with this batch, given how nice they are to deal with thus far I’m sure they won’t let us down with a reasonable solution hopefully.
Bought a 4-pack of Gillette Mach 3 blades from fasttech - they are rubbish. Blunt rubbish. Certainly fake.
My gold Sky Ray King, which arrived in the same package, is, however, a very nice piece bit of gear. Tried to post pics, but failed. Having trawled the internet for pics of ‘authentic’ SRKs, mine does appear to have most of the ‘authentic’ cosmetic features, as well as being very tight, and very bright. No complaints whatsoever with the gold $42 SRK (so far!).
Just stay away from the Gillette Mach 3s!
Hmm. I have the UV-S5 and the threads are anodized and the switch is fine. It’s also incredibly bright, but I don’t have another SRK to put it up against. I bought one of the early UV-S5’s before the cheaper ones came out. If you notice they still have both on the site. It makes me wonder if the more expensive one came from a different factory or at the very least if the later run was skimpy. My suspicion is that quality control is going to be all over the place on all of these models.
As for the NW tint I agree. I should have gone for that. This one is just glaringly white. I much prefer the tint of the Trustfire 3T6 that I have, but it’s not even close to being as bright.
I think the idea is to get one that a magnet doesn’t attract to, meaning its stainless steel. Magnets don’t attract to stainless as well.
My fandyfire SRK has a dull looking bezel that a magnet doesn’t attract to…
Whether bezel is stainless or cardboard…doesn’t matter. S5 has to be an alloy which is probably what most others have. Non-magnetic it is. Stainless steel will attract magnet. So will chromium.
The guts is where it’s at. Bright, well made. superb. Fandyfire uv s5.
The notion that stainless doesn’t attract well to a manget is not true. Stainless contains a blend of steel. True alloys are non-magnetic, and so is the bezel of the Fandyfire uv S5.
Bought mine 12/7/2012 and there was no cheaper ones back then.
EDIT:
Oh, cleaned threads properly and those are/were anodized, but are crappy and have lost some anodizing.
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Bought mine 12/7/2012 and there was no cheaper ones back then.
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Hmmm, even more interesting. It seems that it was hit and miss back then as well. The threads on mine are most definitely anodized unlike the Rook I bought from them (which I love anyway). The switch is solid. The batteries also don’t rattle as some others have mentioned, but I am using Sanyo protected ones.
I guess I just got lucky. I had it up for sale in the classifieds and decided to take it down before anyone bit on it. I’m glad I did now that I’m reading more stories about the bad ones. My only complaint was that it came in a skimpy little white box with no padding inside like the one shown in the pictures. It came in a bubble wrap mailer that had dead bubbles. The box was smashed, there was no 0-ring and the lanyard was as cheap as they get. It did however come very fast and it’s been a great light.
It gets HOT though, I’m talking about wow this sucker is hot I need to put it down hot. I only ran it on high for more than a minute once, it’s that hot.
of animosity directed towards Fasttech .I doubt their aim is not to flip the switch after carefully crafting what I feel is a pretty darn good start of a new company,to all of the sudden throw their hard work out the window and knowingly start to sell junk.Whew…that’s a long sentence.I’m sure the’ll do whatever it takes to make things right with the “faulty” SRK. I have 5 SRK’s from 3 dealers.Yeah there is a variance in brightness among all of them….whatever.I will continue to do business with Fasttech because…well they DO seem to care about their customers.That’s all I have for now.One more thing…in this flashlight hobby ,which can get above my budget real quick, I find the SRK still to be cool enough that if I get a dim one …I’ll drop another $39.00 to try again.
^Yup. One or two bad products does not make a bad dealer.
What makes a bad dealer is an unwillingness to listen and change according to customer feedback and needs.
They are my no.1 battery supplier as of late with the exception off the standard 26650 KingKongs and all their batteries have been top notch for me.
Even the CheapoFires. (Yeah, I'm a cheap ass. But I'm not going to buy NCR18650Bs for a $6 Sipik Clone)
It's really hard to ensure that all products you sell are top notch especially if you add like 50 products a day as FastTech have been.
Just a bummer that it was the SRKs they have seem to all be screwy since they are so popular. Lots of bad publicity, lol.
Eagerly awaiting my Roche M170 to come, and hopefully a P25 in the near future. :bigsmile: