Okay, I am the happy winner of the Pioneer C8 that O-L was giving away in the other
thread. I just got the light today in the mail (thanks O-L).
As reviewed by O-L, construction is excellent. Anodizing is pretty good — very matte finish. I didn’t read the banggood instructions not to use a protected cell in the light. I tried a protected NCR16850B, it didn’t fit because the tube diameter is too narrow to accommodate the extra thickness of the cell. Non-protected fit without problems.
The UI does work on this light as described in the operation instructions on the banggood description. It’s kind of tricky because you need to quickly half-press successive (5) times to gain access to the settings mode (somewhat similar to Zebralight’s interface).
The really cool thing about this interface is that you can program the light start dim or a bright. So it can possibly please everyone! It doesn’t have any mode memory! And you can program the brightness levels of each mode as you desire.
Here’s how I describe the operation of this light:
It has 3 modes; which I’ll just call Mode1, Mode2, Mode3. It will always come on in Mode1 from power off (no last mode memory).
Full press and release of the button to turn the light on (normal reverse clicky operation) gets you into Mode1.
While the light is on:
One quick half-press will go to Mode1
Two quick half-press will go to Mode2
Three quick half-press will go to Mode3
Here’s where it gets intersting. Mode1 and Mode2 can be programmed to your desired level of brightness! To gain access to this:
Turn the light on:
Go into the mode you want to program, then do five quick half-presses. The light will start to incrementally ramp up in brightness from whatever level it was last at. Do a half-press (or full press) once you reach the desired level to save it. The light will keep looping from dimmest to brightest levels until you save.
I think Mode3 also can be programmed to another desired brightness level or it can be made to do strobe or beacon or slow flash. I haven’t quite figured it out; it’s not quite as straight forward as programming Mode1 and Mode2 programming.
Anyways, it’s a neat interface. You can easily jump around from any of the modes. No need to scroll through each one until you reach your desired one.