That is the reason why I try my very hardest only to have things shipped where it is handed off to Canadapost (CN, SJ, HK, USPS, etc.) when it gets here. Yes that means waiting longer, but both Fedex and UPS are by far the worst I have dealt with when it comes to these sorts of post delivery fees. Its not CBSA, it is FedEx that did all that…I have never had to pay duty or gst on anything that came on the Canada Post truck including items with their full values declared (moded btu).
Got a Solarforce K3vn from Vinhnguyen54. This thing is GORGEOUS. The tint is beautiful. The machining is great. Huge hotspot and great spill. The gladiator host is just the icing on the cake. Perfect weight for “self defense”
And an ebay find on a “for parts or non working” Life+gear LG454. I bought this light a while back and didnt feel it was worth the $100 costco was asking. Winning an ebay auction for $22 and trying to fix it myself was way more fun.
Thanks for the info. I've retracted the ballz sucking to CBSA and re-directed it FedEx.
It's $20 I did not budget to be giving to the gov't.
Got my Trustfire C8 from manxbuggy1 today .
It is every bit as bright as my XinTD V3 .
Thanks , Rick .
A Fresnel lens from victor_jiake at DHGate. “flat fresnel lens for stage light with size 130mm and focus 50mm 153508269” US$ 6.68 shipped.
To see what a very short focus Fresnel lens is like. This one will not replace aspherics. It does project a small spot image of the led at focus, and it intercepts most of the led’s output, but somehow, between the reflections, the diffraction from all those edges and whatever I can’t think of, the led image does not seem to contain the majority of the light.
Perhaps it would do better with wider segments. Perhaps also with the outer segments using total internal reflection (TIR) instead of simply refraction. Definitely, with anti-reflection coating. I don’t fully understand it yet.
Later: I must have put the led to the wrong side of it. Now it works much as I would expect an asphereic of that size and focal length to behave. It throws a small spot that does include most of the led’s output. There are rings, but no more than an aspheric. There is a lot of color from chromatic aberration, but that should be expected. It does appear that these could replace smooth aspherics, being more compact and having other potential advantages.
3 laptop packs.
Two new victims lights, for me to butcher play with J)
Ultrafire-F10
Small_Sun_ZY_T08
All I need now is for my new solder station to arrive :~
Cheers David
Not my photo but I’ve got this waiting for me at home today:
What is that!!!???
That would be a Saleae 8-channel logic analyzer. A wonderful prototyping and debugging tool for microcontrollers and reverse engineering all kinds of electronic gadgets!
Received the Armytek Wizard Pro Wide, and Sunwayman C21C from Illumination Supply yesterday.
The Armytek Wizard Pro Wide has been discussed a lot, so I won't go into it much, except to say it could use two changes;
-Lower low moonlight.
-Recessed and easier to press button. (The button is VERY hard to press.)
Other than that, it's a very solid light. UI takes a bit of getting used to, but it's not too bad once you figure it out. I have a feeling I will be doing a catch & release with this headlamp... it was my fallback position, and I had hoped Zebralight would have their headlamps out already.
The Sunwayman C21C is the more interesting of the two lights. It's deceptively small for a 18650 flashlights. Not quite the size of the Zebralight SC600, but close.
The Good;
-Build quality is excellent, and finish is HAIII.
-Machining is good, and I can find no flaws anywhere.
-The Threads are square cut.
-Very interesting design with a lot of potential.
-Red LED is surprisingly bright.
The Bad;
-This light has - no mode memory if you switch between the white and red LEDs.
(The light will always start on Turbo/High when you switch from one LED to the other.)
-Accidental activation is too easy... button is not recessed, and easy to press. It stands out from the body of the flashlight and will turn on if pressed against a flat surface.
-Will not fit the protected panasonic 3400mAh batteries, such as from FastTech, Wallbuys, etc,. Keeppower batteries fit fine. (Next longest battery I have.)
-No Headlamp attachment/strap. This light is for all intents both a flashlight, and a red headlamp.
-No true Low modes, with either LED. 14 lumens of red is surprisingly bright! From the main xml2 LED, on lowest mode, I was also able to read a book from the ceiling bounce. Way way too bright to be considered a true low.
What I would absolutely love to see is Sunwayman develop this design somewhat more. Recess the button, maybe add a second button to control the secondary LED. Add mode memory, and most of all, add a headlamp strap & attachment.
In my eyes, these relatively minor changes would result in it being a must have light as opposed to a curio light.
The postman delivered a HobbyKing Solder station this morning.
Had to wait until 8:30 pm to play with it, got every thing out and placed just nice for an evening torturing playing modding and, bummer it’s D.O.A. :_(
With the high postage, especially both ways, it’s not going back, cheaper to buy another one, still I have raised a ticket and will see what they say.
Cheers David
Today I have received 4 sk68 clones from banggood.com.
I have purchased 4 colors, and all of them are different.
green and blue ones can tail stand, dark green and black ones can not,
dark green and black ones are also can not stand 90 degree on head also, lens is not aligned with bezel.
Bought mine in Feb of this year. It too was DOA. I messed around with it, took a hot air gun to see if it was a loose connect but realised it was the temp switch (dial). See if you can get your money back and buy something else. Not worth the aggravation. 2 hrs of my life I can't get back.
Two Crap FandyFire 14500s with free bonus battery holder from Wallbuys battery sale. Note inside said when they shipped they knew HK post was a potential problem and so they switched it to CP.
Ordered 9/4, website reported shipped no tracking on 9/9 late afternoon. Outside of envelope has 2 stickers; first dated 9/10 looks like shipping within China, 2nd dated 9/11 by China Post. In the middle of the battery shipping mess, an untracked package in transit for ~14 days seems pretty decent.
EDIT: cells received at 4.10v and 3.92v (yes, I know these have been reviewed as junk cells)
I will still be $26 out for the postage as they only had express shipping available, strange that they now have ordinery mail ($10) as an option |(
Cheers David
An Eagletac TX25C2, and yes…it’s awesome!
Got another Acer Aspire battery pack today. Pulled the cells in ten minutes with a little less mess than the first. 
Got a link? Is it the same guy? Thanks!