These days it has become almost impossible to find a low budget light sporting a genuine Cree emitter. Latticebright LEDs now dominate the low end of the market.
One exception has been the Hugsby brand, so when I spotted the new (to me) V1 on eBay , I was curious to see if it continued the trend.
It was ordered from one of the many Tomtop eBay stores and arrived in 18 days.
It came in the typical white box but this one was stronger than usual and actually had some useful information on it.
The light itself is actually a complete re-design of the SK68 rather than the usual copy and is mostly the better for it.
Overall build quality is very good, as we have come to expect from Hugsby. The knurling and anodising are well done and the threads are nicely cut, clean, well lubricated and as smooth as silk. Thanks to the new design the clip is fitted backwards and is VERY strong. It almost feels like it’s welded to the side of the tube.
One thing I like about the re-design is how mod friendly it is. No tools are needed to completely disassemble it and get to the LED and driver.
I can’t decide if the switch is screwed in or just push fit. There are no holes in the retaining ring for turning but it has resisted all attempts to push it out.
The LED does indeed appear to be a genuine Cree XP-E2. The marks on the plastic surround were present on arrival.
Notice how deep the LED sits in the pill.
The star is of an unusual design and the LED pad does not appear to be dead in the centre. The pill is solid and the star is well fixed in place with thermal glue.
Again we can see how deep the LED sits in the pill. In contrast, my other SK68 has the LED nearly flush with the top.
Beamshots. I apologise in advance, but my camera and it’s operator suck at beamshots. :SICK:
Zoomed in (or is it out?)
Zoomed out (or is it in?)
As you can see, the zoomed out beam is totally weird and looks to me like a giant eyeball. My theory is it’s caused by reflections off the sides of that deep pill. I’m going to experiment with some black paint to see if I can improve things. In real life the emitter die is clearly in focus - not just the round blob in the photo. Must get a better camera.
Otherwise performance is slightly better than my Ultrafire SK68 but not significantly so.
As for the driver, I’m afraid it’s a bog standard 3 mode with strobe and the dreaded next mode memory. Why Hugsby, why? It’s 2016 for goodness sake, you’ve known for years that everybody HATES next mode memory! :SICK:
My crude and no doubt inaccurate tailcap measurements showed 0.65A on high and 0.2A on low with an Efest 14500. So significant room for improvement with a better driver.
In conclusion, the good points:
Great build quality.
Mod-friendly design (with the possible exception of the tailcap).
Solid pill.
Genuine Cree LED, and XP-E2 as well.
Good value at the price paid (£3.73 / $5.22)
The not so good points:
Backwards facing clip which for me was a bit too strong.
LED not well centred on the star.
That ’orrible driver!
Weird beam pattern when zoomed out (in?), possibly caused by the pill design.
Out of the box performance not significantly better than cheaper alternatives.
Despite the negatives I feel it’s still the best of the SK68 type lights out there at the moment, but could so easily have been even better.
Update: Quick experiments with a permanent marker have confirmed that the ‘eyeball’ effect is indeed caused by reflections from the side wall of the pill.