Review: $1.30 Ultrafire M5 R5

LED Flashlights – General Info 1 x AAA Flashlights
1

Hi, i got the ultrafire M5 R5 the other day and I like it. It has been on the market for two years now but I did not find a review on it, so this is my small one. I got it from dx for $1.30, like quite a few others

It is quite small, but not as small as the ITP A3, or the Thrunite Ti. It seems very sturdy and I find it good looking. The clip is too stiff but it can be reversed. Anodising is good, and the clip seems to have some low quality PVD-coating, fairly nice. Threads were lubed and go very smooth. One-handed operation is the easiest I have experienced with AAA-twisties.

It has a nice deep OP-reflector. The led was off-center, but loosening the front end of the head, shifting the led board a bit (=not glued, has white heatsink paste), and tightening it again solved that nicely.

The head opens up in two parts, the middle section actually being the pill, the driver and the led board seem directly mounted on this body part, nice for heatsinking, on an IMR battery the body got hot really fast. The reflector screws into the front end of the head, I tried to tighten it a bit more but this caused the front o-ring to pop out. For me it is not a big deal that the reflector can not be screwed very tight, but the o-ring groove should have been a bit better. Between the two head parts is a thick rubber o-ring that presses the led board down when the two parts are screwed together. In an earlier version of the M5 it appears to have been a hard plastic ring (that ruined the focus), this rubber one would also have not been my solution, but it seems to work alright.

A white wall shot against the Thrunite Ti. Ultrafire on the left with a NiMh, Thrunite on alkaline on the right (the output of the Ti is not much different on NiMh). The Ultrafire has a nice beam with a few faint rings in the spill, with a bigger hotspot and higher overall brightness compared to the Thrunite.

Numbers:

On fresh Duracell alkaline: battery draw 2.15 A, fast declining to 1.9 A then slowly going down. Output 94 lumen, fast declining to 84 lumen, then slowly going down.

On NiMh (Duracell 'stay charged'): battery draw 2.43 A, fast declining to 2.00 A, then very slowly going down from there. Output 136 lumen, fast declining to 125 lumen, then very slowly going down.

On Efest 10440 IMR: battery draw 1.8 A, fast declining to 1.7 A, then slowly going down from there. Output 360 lumen, fast declining to 335 lumen, then slowly going down.

I did not measure runtimes, but you can roughly estimate it from an average current draw and capacity of the cell (my runtime guess for NiMh is about 25 minutes).

Conclusion:

This flashlight looks well build and I can not yet think of a reason why it would not survive some long and rough use. The output on NiMh batteries is excellent. For the big wow you can have a quite insane output on IMR 10440's (for <10 minutes that is), the light heats up quickly then, I think the heat dissipation is not bad at all. It is on my shortlist for emitter upgrade and copper board .

Thanks for reading.

2

Really? So many lumens? How many lumens is your itp for comparison?

3

Nice! Thanks for the review Djozz. Really good timing. I have just been playing around with mine, received it today. Its nice. Very happy with it considering the paid price! :wink:
I was about to place an order for some batteries… I don’t really need 4, but these enelongs are cheap, not much more than 5$! … And I have not heard anything bad about them.

Otherwise a 2-pack of Eneloops would cost me 7$, here.
I know FT, have 4-pack, but I really don’t need more than 2 at most.

I should be able to use a Nichia 119 without issues if using normal batteries.

But putting in an XP-E2 (de-domed?) or XP-G2 and using 10440 is a bit tempting! J)

I still have issues deciding… I should probably just stick to Eneloop and Nichia 119…

4

That is a nice little review, thanks.

5

Nice review, thanks! I wish I had been able to get in on that deal. :)

6

I just received mine today and I think the slightly larger size makes it more useful compared to my itp a3

I have an XP-G2 R5 3D sitting unused, so I think that will be going into M5 along with an eneloop. Not sure a 10440 is very useful with only one mode :stuck_out_tongue:

7

I just did some extra OTF lumen measurements (I trust my ceiling bounce calculation quite well nowadays, some flashlights with various known output measured pretty close):

ITP A3 (XP-G R5 ti version) on NiMh: 67 lumen steady

On the same freshly charged Efest IMR 10440:

ITP A3 (XP-G R5): 290 lumen at start, levelling at 250 lumen within a few seconds, then slow decline

Thrunite Ti: 205 lumen at start, levelling at 195 lumen within a few seconds, then slow decline

Ultrafire M5: 372 lumen at start, levelling at 313 lumen within a few seconds, then slow decline

This series was quite closely repeatable without recharging the battery, so the sharp drop at start is likely a heating up effect (hmmm, copper?).

Now to bed, zzz

8

Thanks Jos,

its 2:34AM in Holland now.. you`d better go soon!

372lumens is crazy...... wow

I think I should get at least 1 set of 10440 now..

9

Thanks for the excellent review, djozz!

Here's a DX review by lousie. Looks legit.

10

Thanks for the review, djozz! Still waiting on mine.
R86, those Enelongs are good, well worth the $5. I have three or four sets. :slight_smile:
Raccoon City, that is the best written review I’ve seen in a while. I think lousie deserves 10 extra DX points for that. :smiley:

11

Im one of the 14 people who found his review useful…. …for a good laugh! :smiley:

12

Thanks djozz for the review. Great review.

13

Thanks for the Review !!

Everything was fine one day.
After 3 days of use, the thread is destroyed. Now the battery is not holding. flashlight has separated into 2 pieces in my pocket, the thread is worthless.
But I will not claim anything for 1.3 $.

14

I think this is realistic. I’m measuring 1.08 Amps at the tail cap on mine at 4.08 volts and using a protected TrustFire 10440. My computed OTF is about 335 lumens. :slight_smile:

15

So what exactly happened to it? The threads can’t strip that easily can they?

16

thanks for sharing. should be getting mine any day now.

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Which battery from Fasttech is recommended for this light?

19

: >

20

That is bad news, sorry to hear that. I have screwed mine open and close many times now (in the middle of modding it) and although the threading has quite some play, it keeps the flashlight tightened very nicely. So it is down to bad Ultrafire tolerances I guess.