*** NEW *** Haikelite SC04 2x26350 / 2x26650

LED Flashlights – General Info Other Battery Type Flashlights
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I got the Haikelite SC04 from their aliexpress store. I first modded the LEDs to SST20 2700K JB4 95CRI from Convoy. Here’s a quick look at the disassembly. The main gotcha is that the reflector does not slide out or unscrew out. It is held down by a screw on the driver side. One you remove the screw and take out the reflector, there are 4 16mm XP-sized MCPCBs wired in series. The brown stuff is not glue, so the MCPCBs can easily be taken out.

Since I don’t need the capacity of 26650s, I tested with 2*18650 protected Keeppower 30Q and these battery converters to keep the weight down.

Pros

  • The UI has a choice of ramping UI and several predefined modes UI groups. I chose the 6 predefined modes group:
    2lms -> 50lms -> 150lms -> 750lms 1500lms> Max 5000lms
  • Shining the light at a fan, I couldn’t see any PWM effect. In the lowest mode, my phone detected a flickering effect. Since I couldn’t see it on the fan blades, maybe it’s super high frequency PWM, or some kind of electrical noise. Whatever it is, I could not visibly detect it.
  • At close range (about 3 walking steps in front of me), the hotspot size is similar to a Convoy C8 XM-L2, but it doesn’t have a sharply defined hotspot. It has more of an orange-peel reflector type smoothed out dropoff from the hotspot to the spill area. When walking at night, I felt only a small amount of “tunnel vision” at this close range, so it’s quite usable.
  • At the max mode, the beam is concentrated enough to reach a large bush at 200 meters, despite ambient light coming from nearby building construction.

Cons

  • When the flashlight is on, the side switch is lit blue, and it has PWM. I can easily see the PWM effect by waving the flashlight around or by darting my eyes quickly.
  • The LED centering gasket is loose, not centered, so the LEDs aren’t centered. The gasket is round, different than the pictured square gaskets. They also fit a bit loosely around the LEDs, allowing the LEDs to shift around slightly under the gasket.
  • There’s no physical lockout. I unscrewed the head so the o-ring is visible, and I can still turn on the flashlight. There’s no difference with loosening the long tube adapter, or by loosening the tailcap.
  • The minimum required battery current is not specified. I first tested using these protected LG MJ1, max 8A due to the protection circuit. I can run the max mode from fully charged 4.2V down to 3.0V without tripping the protection, so that’s OK. But when the battery is partly drained (example, 3.6V), and I change modes, the protection circuit trips. This suggests that during mode changing, the driver causes a large pulse of current drain from the battery, tripping the protection circuit. These protected KeepPower 30Qs 15A max are OK.
  • I once saw a bright spark when screwing on the tail cap. This was also reported here.

UI Improvements

  • From off, add a long-press shortcut to the lowest mode. Right now, if I want to change to the lowest mode, I must cycle through the max mode, which is an eyeball fryer, especially at night. Also, if I forget that the last used mode was the max mode, and then I turn on the flashlight, I can also fry my eyeballs.

Conclusion

The SC04 is a good concept. It’s like a budget, compact version of the Thrunite TN40 quad LED searchlight. I like it more than I thought I would, because it’s usable at close, walking range, and it’s also capable of reaching far if necessary. Haikelite needs to fix the cons and make a version 2. Then this will really be a good buy.