A budget AA light by Lumintop.
You all know what it looks like and i can’t remember where i had an image host account…
Got a EDC15 in today, it’s nice and tiny.
I bought it for NiMH battery use, haven’t tried 14500 Li-ion yet, but i bet it will get quite hot because it already warms up in the highest mode on a NiMH cell.
>> Okay i have 1 picture from my Aliexpress review:
LOW - MID - HIGH - “TURBO”
- Low is brighter than the low mode of its little brother (EDC01).
But i’m glad it’s not a moon or firefly mode i will never use.
- MID is a lowish medium level.
- HIGH is quite a jump in brightness from MID.
It’s brighter than the highest mode of the EDC01.
- “TURBO” is quite bright for an AA light on a NiMH cell.
It’s another big jump from high.
So on a NiMH the mode spacing is not perfect but it’s good.
MODE MEMORY:
It has mode memory.
I don’t know why.
I’d rather have it always start in low or in medium like the AAA EDC01.
I have no mode memory, so it’ll be a surprise when i turn it on…
MOD FRIENDLY!
Yes it is, just like the EDC01.
Just screw out the pill and you can do whatever you want to do to it.
But the pill is threaded counter clockwise, to prevent it from unscrewing when the battery tube grabs it when you turn it off.
LED:
No idea what LED it is.
It looks like a 4040 size but the solder pads are 3535 size.
Very cold white.
Not my cup of tea.
I already replaced it with a Nichia 219C.
Accidentalky put in a 5000K one, it was in the 4000K box…
It’s okay though, it’s a nice 5000K.
OPTIC:
A pebbled TIR with a very wide beam / flood.
Probably 60°
If that’s what you want it’s fine.
No tint shift or pebble artefacts.
But i replaced it with a pebbled 20° one and put in a suitable centring gasket.
It’s a bit taller so i put in a thinner O-ring for compensation.
The thing has a bit of throw now, much better i.m.o.
It’s good to have those parts in stock.
TWISTY TWISTABILITY:
All good.
A quarter turn is enough to turn it off and not turn on by pressing down the head.
Little twisting force required to operate.
Mine had a problem though, it turns out the assembly person accidentally put in 2 springs at the bottom.
Needed quite a bit of force to turn on.
I thought it was a bent spring that couldn’t be compressed flat enough (stacking its coils), but i pulled out 2 entangled springs.
Kind of funny.
OPINION:
Not clear to me why Lumintop chose to put in a cold white LED.
Not clear to me why they opted for a 60° flood optic.
It’s fine if that’s what you want, but it’s definitely not what i want.
But i personalized the thing by modding it, which is always preferable (to me) over keeping everything stock.
I’m hesitant to try it with a 14500 Li-ion battery.
It seems my Jetbeam JET-1 MK has lost quite a bit of output on NiMH cells because of running 14500 cells in it.
I don’t want that to happen to this EDC15, so i think i’ll stick to NiMH AA cells.
Let me know if you hate reviews without pictures.
Thanks for reading.
