kept seeing this headlamp constantly on Facebook and many other places on the web and I as well as my coworkers have been in need of a decent headlamp that is bright with good battery life reasonably comfortable and so on.
Well I finally just ordered one. At a cost of only $19.99 including shipping, even if all emitters were clones I would change them out and have some fun with it.
You will see pictures below of what I have opened up thus far, really just to see the emitters. And I will be asking for opinions as to their authenticity.
It looks that the center light uses a XM-L, I have not taken it completely apart yet but the driver must be total junk. 2 fully charged Panasonic 18650 cells loaded into it and it was no brighter than my little mini Cree with the Q5.
The lights on either side of the center (main light) are 2 smaller housings. The emitter in those to me appears to be a Q5. Again I could be wrong, it may or may not be a clone. I know very little about this company. I do know that if you call them they actually answer the phone but, you get very little answers. Questions are handed off to support and they contact you. I asked them to email me and gave the nice lady a list of about 10 questions. Like on the box it clearly says "Revolutionary focus technology. I can't find anything anywhere that can be adjusted as far as beam focus. I asked about the emitters, I asked if there was a plastic liner that the straps fit on like it shows in the websites picture. The battery pack is in the back and is covered by only a thin piece of rubber, yes you read that correctly. It can be pulled open very easily. That part does rest against the back of your head which can hep keep that from happening but, this causes another problem. You have 2 18650 cells mashed into the back of your head while you are wearing it..
It is suppose to charge the Ultrafire 4000mAh cells that come with it without removing them. It comes with an AC wall adapter as well as a DC car charger. Pop open a little rubber tab on the bottom of the battery pack and plug it in for charging. I will stick with my Xtar. As far as I know Ultrafire has never manufactured a 4000mAh cell so I know for sure there are fakes somewhere in this mix.
Before I go any deeper if any of you would like to see the website, Tactile T2000 Website.
It says it is crafted from high strength aluminum, as well as a fully waterproof housing. The center light and side lights do have aluminum pills, very small one's. The bottom and top ring on the center light and the top ring on the 2 side lights are aluminum, as far as I can tell all the rest is plastic. Pretty cheap plastic at that.
The modes seem to work perfectly, one click turns on the center light, a second click turns on the 2 side lights and turns off the center light, a third click turns on all 3 lights and a 4th click turns on strobe for all 3.
I am going to load some pictures now and let those of you with more experience judge the emitters validity. The Ultrafire batteries that cam with it are fully charged in my Xtar and they have me a little concerned. One needed 663mAh to top off and the other needed 656mAh, that's not my concern. MY concern I just noticed that the cell on the left shows full at 4.2V and the cell on the right shows full at 4.1 I have had this charger for almost 2 months now and never had that happen. I would welcome any possible reasons that could cause that.
I unplugged the charger and swapped the batteries left to right and right to left and plugged it back in. That battery ready the same 4.1 but is charging further, the other shows full.
This is the emitter from the center light, it has the design of a Cree. I will leave that to those far more experienced than I am. I am learning to spot the fakes and getting better all the time but I do still miss some of the small details.
This is one of the side emitters, it looks to me like a Q5 and as far as I can tell is a Cree. But again I still lack experience in many of the details. The smaller emitters have Cree at the top of the star and the center emitter does not but we all know that means nothing.
This is one of the smaller emitters optics disassembled it is plastic and why it is frosted in the center is beyond me. If anyone thinks it will help light output I can easily drill that center out, at least far enough to clear it up a little.
And this is the headlamp fully assembled.
The cell that did not fully charge even though the charger showed it full is now reading 4.2V and flashing full.
I will take it outside shortly and see how it looks in the dark. Quick question first please.
How do I check the current with a battery pack like this. I have an idea but I want to know for sure. The fact that both cells face the same direction in the battery pack thew me off a little. I have not taken it fully apart yet but I am thinking one cell is for the center emitter and the other is for the 2 small emitters so direction makes no difference.
One thing I can tell you for a fact is that the claim of 5000 lumens is nowhere close to true. On high with all 3 emitters maybe 600 lumens. I don't have a way to check. I do have a very accurate app on my mobile phone but I am pretty sure there is no way I can accurately read 3 emitters, and I know I would screw up the calculations.
I will try and post some pictures from outside, and compare it to maybe my sk98. All of my lights above about 200 lumens are throwers so that is the only one to even get close to what this is claimed to do.