This TrustFire Z5 is from 365SHOPPING on Amazon for $17.17. It is my first buck driver flashlight.
I give it three and a half out of five stars. ★★★ </span style>✬</span style> ☆
This is sometimes called TrustFire Z1, but Z1 is also an angle head CR123a light.
It has been reviewed before: https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/3223
Pros:
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Bright. It came with an XM-L2.
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Brightness insensitive to battery charge state and quality.
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Long run time.
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Nice build. All threads are snug, smooth and slightly trapezoidal.
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Unusual design, inside and out.
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Smooth uniformly anodized finish, nice color.
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Mode memory.
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Good two handed grip.
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Near unity duty factor in the lower modes. Current varies with the buck switching cycle, but (I think) there is no pulse width modulation. This further contributes to the run time / brightness combination, and probably to LED life.
Cons:
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In all but the narrowest zoom positions, there is a bright ring around the spot.
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Homely, some say ugly, appearance and feel, in spite of extensive machine work.
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Unhidden blinky modes.
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Poor one handed grip.
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The included cells and charger are not useful.
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It says “Brightness up to 1600 LM” on one side.
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B42 comments below that the head became loose after a drop that would only have scratched most flashlights.
The included cells say “UltraFire 3000 mAh” on them, which is not encouraging. My charger reads the capacity as 478 and 490 mAh for the two cells. The charger looks alright, but does not come open easily to see what technology it uses. I read 4.38 V across a cell the included charger was charging. So I put the charger and two cells in a baggie labeled recycle.
It tail stands but is tall and wobbly.
Click to view full size.
The star, instead of fitting in a hole in the pill, fills the 32 mm. space in the sliding bezel part of the head. It sits directly on the end of the fixed head, held on by rubbery heat sink compound and two small screws. The forward zoom slide is limited by a step of the ID of the sliding head hitting the back of the star. This provides an extra thermal path directly from the star to the finned outer head, at full zoom. B42 comments below that the head became loose after a fall. It seems that the head being held on only by the huge star is a structural weakness.
There is a piece that fits in between the star and the lens, keeping the lens from sitting on the dome of the LED. It is secured, along with the lens and o-ring, to the sliding head, by the bezel ring. This spacer limits the backward zoom by hitting the front of the star.
There is a separate aluminum part screwed onto the battery tube, apparently to improve grip, with its own o-ring. Perhaps this is a separate piece to allow the battery tube to be cut from from a small diameter tube. Or perhaps they did it just to show off their skill with the numerically controlled lathe.
The o-ring at the tail is too thin to seat against the inside of the tail cap. Perhaps this is where the vacuum is broken so the head can slide.
The threads, on the tail cap, between the battery tube and head, on the little odd handle piece and on the bezel ring are snug fitting, well shaped and fairly smooth.
The pill is visible only from the back of the head. The driver appears to be soldered to some sort of pill. The head slides on one o-ring.
The driver is on two perpendicular boards.
It has a busy lumpy look, maybe like a jeep. The finish is nice looking, smooth and uniform, but not unusual. Half a star off for using so much machine work without making it look or feel better than that.
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It draws 1.2 A from the included 2 x 18650 cells, charged to 3.8 V, as they came, 1.09 A with them freshly charged and 1.16 A from two Panasonics charged to 3.9 V each. This negative input resistance looks like an output current regulated buck converter.
It has the usual five modes, but it has mode memory. Contrary to the description, it has an XM-L2 Cree LED. This model may have actually improved over the years of its production, rather than deteriorating as some do.
Testing the driver, with an old XM-L and a fraction of an Ohm added by the meter and connections and the cells charged to a total of 7.6 V., I read 2.4 A. in high.
The lens is 28 mm., like an SK-78, ZeusRay or other common 1 x 18650 lights, but most of that is aperture as with an SS-A100. The focal length is fairly long, giving a small spot and slightly increased throw.
Sipik SK-73 on left, Z5 on right:
Both the throw and the total output are a bit better than those of the SK-73, which has unusual output for an unmodified budget light, having direct drive with no resistors in series. (I would give the SK-73 five stars if I were reviewing it now.)
And zoomed to similar size:
The spot is brighter at the edges than at the center, both partly and fully zoomed out to flood, so half a star off for beam shape. This is due to a shorter focal length at the edge of the lens than at the center. Zoomed to spot, the outer part of the lens over focuses and forms a halo around the square spot. Zoomed out, part way or to flood, the outer part of the lens produces an outer part of the spot that is more focused and therefore brighter than the central part.
This can be mostly fixed by substituting an Ahorton lens. See below.
Outdoor beam shots of an earlier example.
Summary - - - - - - - - - - ★ ★ ★ ✬</span style>/2 ☆
The 2 x 18650 configuration gives long run time at consistent high output in high mode and also very long run time in the lower modes, with the various disadvantages of size and multiple cells. This light seems to fulfill these expectations well and is nicely made. It is a somewhat unusual old design that has not been highly imitated, perhaps for good reasons.
I take off half a star for the non-uniform spot, half a star for lacking the beauty that such good machine work and 4,000 years of pottery tradition should make possible, and half a star off for depending on internal parts to hold the case together.
