Review: Sipik SK98 from Tmart

LED Flashlights – General Info 18650 Flashlights
1

Hello,

Tmart sent me this Sipik SK98 for review

It's a zoomie using an XM-L and a single 18650 battery.

Reviewer's Overall Rating:

Summary:

Battery: 18650
Switch: tail clicky
Modes: H/L/Strobe/SOS
LED Type: XM-L
Lens: Plastic Aspheric
Tailstands: Yes
Price Paid: Sample, lists for $12.95
From: TMART
Date Ordered: 08-12-13

Specifications

Brand Sipik
Model SK98
Emitter Type CREE T6
Brightness / Lumens 1000 Lumens
Power 5W
Bulb Quantity 1
Light Color White
Lightbulb / LED Lifespan 100000 hours
Modes 3
Mode Arrangement Hi > Lo > SOS
Lighting Distance 100m
Battery Configuration 1 x 18650 batteries (not included)
Input Voltage 3.7 - 4.2V
Runtime 1 - 2 hours
Switch Type Clicky / Clickie
Switch Location Tail - cap
Lens Convex Lens
Reflector Aluminum Smooth / SMO Reflector
Material Aerospace aluminum alloy
Color Black
Dimensions 4.53" x 1.10" x 0.87" / (11.5 x 2.8 x 2.2) cm (L x Head Dia.x Body Dia.)
Weight 97g / 3.42oz
Clip Yes
Waterproof Yes
Lanyard No

PROS: Small enough and lightweight enough to be a belt carry EDC. Sturdy clip. Good as an everyday kick around light that you don't want to have to worry about getting damaged. Inexpensive with an adjustable beam.

CONS: Any zoomie is a big compromise. It's meant to be an all round light, but it sort of fails all round. When you zoom out to get the square die thrower, it just looks strange. Square die is just not what you expect from a light. When you zoom in to get the flood, it becomes just a soft glow of sorts. Flooding an area like a mule would and it's not very bright. If you just adjust the zoom for in between, it's almost acceptable. This light whined terribly on high and I don't care for the blinky modes nor the blue white led that is a "cool white".

Overall: If you have to carry only one light and you can accept a compromise, I would say that a zoomie might work for you, if you need flood and throw in daily use. It's not expensive and with an 18650 you will have longer run time than 3AAA.

On to the tear down:

The tail cap threads are dry as a bone and they are the cheaply cut style threads. They need lube before using this light. The clicky spring has the brass cap over the top. I don't necessarily think this does much, other than to help save the battery from spring wear.

I found several marks where the ano has been chipped off during assembly of the light. Overall, the aluminum is rough and so is the finish. I would imagine it's type I or II and it's not hard for sure. It's just an average inexpensive ano on an inexpensive light.

The lens is plastic and is the standard 23mm in diameter.

The Aluminum pill. At least the wiring is covered up with a nice plastic cover, so it cuts down on defects in the beam.

The pill is hollow, of course. It's fairly well made, better than I expected.

The body opening where the pill sits in.

The Slider ring for zooming. Being as the light is new, it slides smoothly and it's tight enough to stay in place.

The "Guts". The XM-L is on a 20mm x 1mm aluminum star. As I said, the pill is hollow, so there is nothing backing the star right where the led is. That's a total no, no as far as I am concerned. I wish these MFGs would change their thinking on this. The driver is 20mm in diameter. It makes lots of noise on high and I wouldn't want to have to use it as is.

Beam Shots:

Standard with no light

FLOOD

ZOOM

The first photo is with no light on. The second is full flood and the last is full zoom. It's not a really bright light. I thought it would be brighter. I did not do any amp checks. To me, it's just not bright enough to bother what the amp readings are. It will be brighter soon though...

Thanks to Tmart for letting me review and mod this light for giveaway!

2

you have a sweet home!

3

LOL, that’s it, just the one room.Tongue Out

Good thing my wife made it how she likes it over the years, otherwise there would be bare walls and wood floors and a big flashlight work center in the middle of it all.

4

Thanks for the review OL. Do both the clocks on the mantel work. They look like lovely old pieces. You also have an old style light next to them. Are you planning a mod on it?

5

Do you think putting copper grease on the threads of the pill would help with heatsinking?

6

Thanks for the review Old-Lumens. Hope you don't mind me sharing my first impression on the light as-well.

I got the light 2 yesterday. It arrived in 17 days.

I only paid 7,3$, it was on sale. I don't regret spending the money. IMO its a 3/5 at most you are spending 10+$

My light may not be 100% the same as Old-Lumens.

High starts on about 2,12A to the emitter and declines towards 2 amps fairly fast.

Mine does not have any PWM sound. :)

Next mode memory.. :Sp

Same pill as old lumens.

Dry threads.

No thermal paste.

Zoom feature was a bit too tight to comfortable one hand operation.

Tailcap does not screw on all the way when using long protected 18650 (say NCR18650B).

Flimsy spring on the tail.

Emitter was not centered

Anodizing on my was quite nice. Im not saying its good anodizing, just saying it was evenly applied and no marks to really complain on.

I like pocked clip is not super stiff as some lights are. Its nice.

How do I remove the (next-mode) memory? I would consider the driver to be decent if it did not have the next mode memory.

A fun fact. The hotspot when fully zoomed in is about 9,3 times larger than my XT-50 with de-domed XP-G2 with 3A Qlite (I bought that light as a host). Needles to say, it does not throw anywhere near the same. The N-light XT-50 have far superior thermal design, and larger lens and head. The stock SK98 have much wider and useful flood compared to my modded XT-50. Guess you cant have it all... This stock light does not impress anyone who are into lights in any way. Despite that, I think its a bit cool having an oversized Sipik SK68. :)

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Thanks a lot for the review! Frontpage’d and Sticky’d.

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Ill answer my own question on how to fix the mode memory, or should I say, Relic38 probably answered it here.

I have not tried it yet though..

9

You need to be pretty good at soldering to do surface mount stuff dont you?

10

Any long use tests on high? These are reported to do a bit of self melting on high from several other sources…just a warning before you try.

11

No need to test for long use. It gets hot fast on high. Easy to tell it won’t run on high for a long time without having some kind of problem. Like most small lights, it just does not have the mass to run for a long time without overheating something.

12

I was curious as to how long it takes to get in the approximate “danger zone”. I probably shouldnt buy it for myself though anyway, since I do like to run my lights on high for longer periods, and my little Xiaozhi stands up to this use, though its *edit: $16 vs $13 with the above link for sk98.

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Temp in degrees C every minute starting at 0 minutes:

21.1
25.0
27.3
28.9
30.2
31.8
33.3
36.1
36.5
36.5
37.1
38.8
39.6

That’s 12 minutes. I decided to stop before it went over 40 degrees. the point where it stayed at 36.5 for a minute may have been me making an error in taking the measurement.

Temp measurements were taken at the kurling on the zoomer using an IR thermometer.

14

Copper MCPCB and thermal paste should help the emitter a ton compared to stock.

High (2,65)- medium (0,65)- strobe

High (2,62)- medium (1,31)- low (0,35) strobe - sos

After moving the positive emitter wire you will get higher output. Emitter output is very sensitive to input voltage though. 2,65 was with NCR18650B at 4,1V, so even if you might see three amps using a fresh good low discharge cell, you will only have high current in the beginning.

Information about how to do this was found here. Thanks to nofearek9. I just hopefully made it more clear.

As I understand from Relic38s memory fix, a 330K resistor goes on top of the the capacitor (the brown thing) in the same when as when stacking resistor on top of each other right?

15

You guys need to start one thread and gather all the driver info like this, in one thread, where we can find it again. I will forget this valuable information by tomorrow morning and I will look for a week and never find it again, LOL.

Thanks for the info!

16

Isnt that the same driver as in your UltraFire LZZ-F15 ?

and in many other lights these days.. like the Skye Eye F13, Winfire, Paisen z6 u2, etc etc.

17

Yes, that’s the place to put it.

Higher resistance will reset the mode slower. I personally like to use 100k or lower resistor to get memory to reset under 2s.

18

Aren’t you bypassing the driver and just direct driving by moving the positive?

19

Cool. Thank you RaceR86 for the driver mod summary and illustration. You just significantly upgraded my SK98.

I want to repeat the advice to check you heat sink connection. My emitter base had a plastic reflector insulator under it.

20

I removed that little thing on my driver, but still have 5 modes.....

Sorry OL for going off topic!!!