Not sure that this belongs here, but I'm not sure if anywhere else is better suited - feel free to move it wherever. It might fit better in the Blog section.
Anyway, it isn't windy or raining tonight and the hound - actually a Giant Schnauzer and hence a terrier wanted out and who am I to disoblige her?. So, as you do, I grabbed my tripod and what was sitting around on the desk. I'll review the ones that Jay hasn't already done eventually
The participants are, from left to right:
Uniquefire AA-S1 14500
Akoray K-106 14500
Ultrafire C3 14500
Ultrafire C3 Q5 Stainless steel 14500
Aurora SH0030 14500
Tank007 E07 NiMH
Ultrafire RL-118 RCR123
Aurora SH0031 AAA Alkaline
Tustfire XPE F23 10440
Akoray K103 10440
As you can see this is a bit unfair on the Tank007 as it is capable of running a 14500 but the grey protected Trustfires I have are too short and the one blue protected one i have was already in some light somewhere.
The Aurora SH0031 says max voltage 1.5V so I've not even tried a 10440 in it.
Since it is cold out and the dog wanted back in, I only used the brightest mode on the multimode lights. Like an idiot I forgot to turn off the kitchen lights behind me and you can see the influence of that in the control shot. The camera settings are the same as the ones in the Aurora SH0030 review (4 seconds wide open lens, set to ISO 200) The apple tree is still about 15m away and I still haven't accurately measured my integrating backyard. When I find the measuring tape....
Control shot
Uniquefire AA-S1. This one pumps out a surprising amount of light on a 14500. I think I like it better than the K-106 but it is the most recent light to arrive here. Will probably be reviewed next.
Akoray K-106 - Fizz says hello while doing something undignified. Her pedigree is way longer than mine - I don't know who all but one of my great grandparents were. That one was on the maternal and grandmaternal side. He died in the 1920'a after going looking for a gas leak with a candle and, unfortunately, finding it. Thereby demolishing quite a few tenements. Fizzy's ancestry can be traced back to Germany in the late 19th century. Her official pedigree name is far too tedious to type. She just had a haircut today so is looking very, very good.
Ultrafire C3. Still among my favourites though they aren't all that well made and often need fiddling with. Lots and lots of light in a small package. Sometime I must compare the five of them under controlled conditions. This may be tricky though as it can be a challenge to get all 5 working at the same time. Reminds me of the famous photographer I met in the late '70s (I worked in a camera shop then) who owned eight of the wonderful Pentax 6x7 - one of the nicest things Pentax ever made. "Why do you own so many of them?", "So that I can be sure that one of them will be working when i need it to." And this cost 3x as much as the highest end 35mm SLR at the time. The only 35mm device i can think of that cost more was the very odd Alpa SLR which was hand built in Switzerland. Those things made Leicas seem, and feel, cheap. But I digress - a bad habit of mine. The C3 is like an old Ducati motorcycle- it requires a lot of user input just to keep it functioning.
By this point Fizz had had enough and was wondering what that strange person was doing out there.
Ultrafire C3 Q5 Stainless steel. These are very, very nice - just not all that practical unless your hands are made of asbestos. Not fancying carcinogenic hands, mine are made of the same flesh as everyone else's. This is very nicely made and really bears no resemblance to Ultrafire C3s other than the name. I love mine but it has this nasty habit of burning your hands after five minutes. I still like it a lot but i'm strnage that way...
Aurora SH0030. I've already reviewed this one. Nice but doesn't break any boundaries. A competent and cheap five mode that is better made than the C3 it is clearly derived from.
Tank007 E07. It isn't really fair on this one as it's running on an Eneloop when all the other AA lights are running on 14500s. Still a very nice little light.Note that all three of the AAA lights here are longer than it. See Jay's review here
.I wholeheartedly agree with his rating. In fact go and order one right now. Here's the link. http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.24125
Ultrafire RL-118. I love this light and even I wonder why. Review here.
Aurora SH0031. If this one is 114 lumens I'll eat Fizzy's meals tomorrow. Competent enough AAA and great for giving away as it runs only on AAA with a max voltage of 1.5. This one is either going to be given away or burned to death with 10440s. \the comparison here is really pretty unfair on it.Aimed short of the tree because I was a bit dazzled by the brighter stuff and could barely see the hotspot.
Trustfire XPE F23. Nice. Very nice. Very, very nice. See the review here
And last, but not least, is the Akoray K103. I'm sure that Jay has reviewed it but i can't see it just now. Maybe that's guilt on the data recovery I have to have finished in 8 hours from now and haven't even started. But I digress. Again...
Reviews to follow on quite a few of these lights in due course. At some point I must re-photograph that tree with all of the earlier reviews using the same settings. But now back to what I should have been doing all evening. Or at least think up some excuses as to why I was listening to mid 70's punk rock (The stuff that got me through university in the late 70's) and doing beamshots instead of data recovery. Or forget about all of it and taker Fizz out for a bedtime walk. Sounds like a plan to me.
Runtimes:
Uniquefire AA-S1
14500
NiMH
Akoray K-106
14500
NiMH
Ultrafire C3
14500
NiMH
Ultrafire C3 Q5 Stainless steel
14500
NiMH
Medium
Low
The computer crashed sometime during the night. At 6hr output was barely down from the initial value. At 12hr it had turned off. Not about to repeat it but you will get ages of not much light on an NiMH. It is pulling 150mA off an Eneloop on low so should be good for 9-10 hours. The output on low is about 60% more than my Fenix E01.
Aurora SH0030
14500
NiMH
Tank007 E07
14500
NiMH
Ultrafire RL-118
RCR123
Aurora SH0031
AAA
Tustfire XPE F23
10440
AAA
Akoray K103
10440
AAA
Don
- 2009.11.26
- 03:41:48
- (*.143.128.181)
Hi Stan.
I get 2.165A on a 1.35V Eneloop. and
1.29A on a 4.06V 14500
On another 14500 at 4.05V I get 1.16A
On another at 3.975V I see 1.165A
yet another at 3.905V 1.231A. All of these are grey protected Trustfires which are about 1mm shorter than an Eneloop.
My only blue protected 14500 (This is too long for some lights)3.965V 1.178A
Have charged a couple of the grey trustfires to see if current scales with voltage (Implying direct drive)
4.136V 1.145A
4.166V 1.249A
Just in case I've dragged out my very battered Fluke meter to see if the readings are comparable. The other is the cheapest datalogging unit that Maplin have.
On the blue Trustfire cell I see 3.94V and 1.15A so that's OK.
The spec says 700mA to the LED so these Osram LEDs must have a pretty large forward voltage or a really inefficient driver. Or both. Assuming the cells voltage doesn't sag too much under load ( a probably unwarranted assumption) then 4.166*1.249=5.2watts are leaving the battery.
That is a lot for such a small and light device.
Assuming all of it gets to the LED (Yet another unwarrantable assumption) and that it really is seeing 700mA that gives us a voltage of (Power = Voltage* current so voltage = power/current) 5.2/0.7 = 7.44V
That seems unreasonably high to me.
I'd certainly suspect spec inflation in these cells but it isn't as bad as the Ultrafire RL-118 with an Osram LED that is pulling 2.5A from an RCR123. That is a cell killer. My cheapo hobby charger doesn't seem to give reliable enough numbers for me to trust it in capacity rating. Will chuck one of the 14500s into it and let it fully charge then discharge it. However the numbers will likely need taking with a lorryload of salt.
My guess is that it'll be fine on 14500s but it will get rather hot - most of that energy from the battery ends up as heat and there isn't a lot of mass to dissipate it. Now running it pointing at the ceiling and will check it periodiaclly for heat. After nine minutes sitting on the desk, it is hot to the touch but perfectly bearable.After 13 mins, the lzst 4 hand-held it was cooling due to heat sinking from my hand. Interestingly, quite a lot of heat is going out the front - I held my thumb over the lens for a couple of minutes and my thumb was becoming uncomfortably hot. The other problem is the rather short runtime on lithium cells - at 1.25A assuming the spec is honest, that's 900/1250 hours or about 40 minutes. Will do some runtimes when my solar cells arrive from DX. Hopefully they'll arrive in one piece. Still at 2.1A from an Eneloop you are still looking at under an hour.
Don
- 2009.11.26
- 04:26:52
- (*.143.128.181)
Stan
- 2009.11.26
- 08:31:31
- (*.78.86.43)
Don,
Thank you for a most comprehensive answer, I certainly didn’t expect such a wealth of detail.
My measurement of 1.78A at 4.19V for the Trustfire protected 14500 seems rather high in comparison, therefore, I will be looking for another meter to verify the accuracy of my old Alphatek 450.
I don’t own Eneloops but have a good quantity of GP Recyko AA; I’ll be checking the current draw on these shortly.
One thing is obvious, at least to me; the AA- S1 is a bit of a bargain at US$10. The Osram LED appears to be a capable product that works effectively with the supplied reflector.
Not a bad little torch, imo.
Cheers Don, and thank you.
Don
- 2009.11.26
- 10:27:52
- (*.143.128.181)
I agree - I think it's getting 6 stars. I think this one may be going to a friend but it will certainly be getting replaced.
Fizz enjoyed the attention - she used to be a show dog. She's now an old lady though she was having an attack of lapdog on my visitor tonight. 7.5 stone (47kg) is a bit heavy for a lapdog though...
Stan
- 2009.11.26
- 11:57:49
- (*.78.86.43)
My AA- S1 will replace my wife’s Romisen RC- G2, it’s that good in my opinion. I will order another to mess about with though, naturally.
I’m glad Fizz enjoys human contact, I would be very sad not to have an animal friend (or two) in my life. My father owned several Labradors whilst I grew up but I had no animal contact for many years after I left home and eventually I got married.
My wife is a dog lover as am I, but we agreed that with both of us going to work we should perhaps get a cat rather than a dog, due to a cats ability to amuse itself or go to sleep for many hours.
The result was that we have been owned by cats for about 26 years, since the first one took us over.
I won’t elaborate because this is not the place to do so.
All of the cats that have taken over my life have also been very fond of torches, that is surely evidence of their remarkable intelligence.
Don
- 2009.12.04
- 04:33:18
- (*.143.128.181)
2009/12/03 (here) 2009/12/04 (At the webserver)
Adding runtimes, first on NiMH then on 14500. But some of these will take rather a long time...
Added Tank007 E07 and Ultrafire C3 Q5 Stainless Steel High runtimes, both on NiMH. It is raining yet again so no beamshots tonight.
C3SS on medium runtime in progress. But Windows did what it does best and fell over. Batteries charging again. Pity the run was nearly over. The Ultrafire C3 Q5 SS runs more than two hours on medium. Restart run shortly before I go to bed.
Battery chargers earning their keep.
Fizzy is the first dog I've had who would chase a laser pointer spot. Cats do, dogs usually don't.
Thank you for those beam shots Don, nice work.
Having recently received the Uniquefire AA- S1 your picture describes my thoughts on this torch perfectly. A good beam tending more to flood than throw, with virtually no ring artefacts visible (even on a white wall).
The AA- S1 is a good choice for tacking down an errant moggie or doggie in a large back yard; I do hope Fizz wasn’t too disturbed by being thrust into the limelight.;-)
I’d be interested to see your observation of the current draw the AA- S1 puts on a 14500. My meter suggested it was way beyond 2c at 1.78A for the protected Trustfire, but, maybe meter has seen better days and the Trustfires may really be 900mAh and not circa 700mAh as I suspect them to be?
I have an open mind though and would be interested in your comments on this torch using 14500s.
Thanks and all the best,
Stan.