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So a while back I ordered a little Cree Q5 flashlight off ebay. I got it in the mail today and thought I would do a small review on it.
Listed Specs:
7 Watts
300 Lumens
Anodized Aluminum Body
Cree Q5 LED
Takes one AA or one 14500 battery (1.5 or 3.6 volts)
Waterproof
Adjustable focus
Cost: 6.10$ Canadian, free shipping
Heres a picture of it. Pretty decent anodized finish, only a few small blemishes around the heatsink. You can see it also has a belt clip.
Feels pretty solid. Decent amount of weight for its size when its got a battery in it.
Here is it next to a AA battery for scale:
As you can see, its a tiny little thing. Perfect for pockets! Its a little awkward to operate if you've got large hands, but not so much as to be difficult to operate.
Close up of the lens with the LED visable:
Close up of the tail clicky switch:
Tail clicky is a nice orange rubber. Very solid and satisfying click.
Close up of the LED and reflector:
On close inspection the reflector has a few small dents in it. Not very visible on camera. They don't seem to negatively impact the output of the light though, so its not a major concern.
Ran it through my multimeter, as you can see it draws around 1.5 amps. Heres where the claim of "7 watts" gets completely disproved, since it takes 1 battery, and I was using a fresh NiMh @ 1.2 volts, then 1.2 volts X 1.5 Amps only yeilds a wattage of 1.8. (Unless I messed up somewhere?). Even if it were using a 3.6 volt lithium battery @ 1.5 amps it would still only be 5.4 Watts.
Heres the flashlight fully zoomed out @ 10 feet:
Mid Zoom @ 10 feet:
Fully zoomed in @ 10 feet:
And here it is lighting up my room by shining it onto my ceiling from a distance of 4 feet:
*All pictures were taken with settings that result in eye-accurate brightness
As you can see, this tiny light puts out a decent amount of light. However this isn't 300 lumens, because LED's average about 80 lumens per watt, so at most this light is putting out 160 lumens. Even the best case scenario of 100 lumens per watt would only result in 200 lumens, at least on an NiMh battery. If it draws 1.5 amps @ 3.6 volts then its entirely possible that it could produce 300 lumens (or possibly more).
So all in all, its a decent little light. Nothing fancy or overly impressive, but for 6$ its excellent value, and it would be affordable enough to get a few with low self discharge batteries and put them around the house for emergencies.
Heres the ebay link:
Mini 7W 300LM Cree Q5 LED Flashlight Torch Adjustable Focus Zoom Light AA 14500 | eBay
Listed Specs:
7 Watts
300 Lumens
Anodized Aluminum Body
Cree Q5 LED
Takes one AA or one 14500 battery (1.5 or 3.6 volts)
Waterproof
Adjustable focus
Cost: 6.10$ Canadian, free shipping
Heres a picture of it. Pretty decent anodized finish, only a few small blemishes around the heatsink. You can see it also has a belt clip.
Feels pretty solid. Decent amount of weight for its size when its got a battery in it.
Here is it next to a AA battery for scale:
As you can see, its a tiny little thing. Perfect for pockets! Its a little awkward to operate if you've got large hands, but not so much as to be difficult to operate.
Close up of the lens with the LED visable:
Close up of the tail clicky switch:
Tail clicky is a nice orange rubber. Very solid and satisfying click.
Close up of the LED and reflector:
On close inspection the reflector has a few small dents in it. Not very visible on camera. They don't seem to negatively impact the output of the light though, so its not a major concern.
Ran it through my multimeter, as you can see it draws around 1.5 amps. Heres where the claim of "7 watts" gets completely disproved, since it takes 1 battery, and I was using a fresh NiMh @ 1.2 volts, then 1.2 volts X 1.5 Amps only yeilds a wattage of 1.8. (Unless I messed up somewhere?). Even if it were using a 3.6 volt lithium battery @ 1.5 amps it would still only be 5.4 Watts.
Heres the flashlight fully zoomed out @ 10 feet:
Mid Zoom @ 10 feet:
Fully zoomed in @ 10 feet:
And here it is lighting up my room by shining it onto my ceiling from a distance of 4 feet:
*All pictures were taken with settings that result in eye-accurate brightness
As you can see, this tiny light puts out a decent amount of light. However this isn't 300 lumens, because LED's average about 80 lumens per watt, so at most this light is putting out 160 lumens. Even the best case scenario of 100 lumens per watt would only result in 200 lumens, at least on an NiMh battery. If it draws 1.5 amps @ 3.6 volts then its entirely possible that it could produce 300 lumens (or possibly more).
So all in all, its a decent little light. Nothing fancy or overly impressive, but for 6$ its excellent value, and it would be affordable enough to get a few with low self discharge batteries and put them around the house for emergencies.
Heres the ebay link:
Mini 7W 300LM Cree Q5 LED Flashlight Torch Adjustable Focus Zoom Light AA 14500 | eBay