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ArcticMyst Security by Avery

Review of an ebay Cree Q5 flashlight

Joined
Oct 18, 2013
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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.
5tJhEWMl.jpg


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:
aVtfC1yl.jpg


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:
MNjRx8Hl.jpg


Close up of the tail clicky switch:
RRFUpw5l.jpg


Tail clicky is a nice orange rubber. Very solid and satisfying click.

Close up of the LED and reflector:
WJ2ccvzl.jpg


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.

cbLrzBwl.jpg

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:
PJ7gKG9l.jpg


Mid Zoom @ 10 feet:
NSXjmDJl.jpg


Fully zoomed in @ 10 feet:
3ssBHr9l.jpg


And here it is lighting up my room by shining it onto my ceiling from a distance of 4 feet:
AzGrOFkl.jpg


*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
 





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its called sipik 68 clone...ive got 5 in the past from different sellers..the yield of fully functional items is 50% .....one has blown circuit board..one brocken switch...one bad (-) contact from board to housing...and there are different versions sold..so parts like the head or back or the moving zoom part have different diameters, some have tiny holes (like yours) in the back-rim some not ..but overal a nice edc
 

Tmack

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Check out Mtnelectronics. Grab a xml2 on 16mm board and a 3a qlite driver. You'll get some decent power out of the little guy. :) according to the data sheet 3a should give around 1000 led lumen with a xml2. Not sure what the out the front lumens would be, but far more than a couple hundred.

Nice stock too though.

I suped up and dedomed my convoy m1, with said parts and it really increased performance a ton.
 
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Tmack

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I'm not a fan of hid but it will be bright. I like led. In the last couple weeks I got a btu shockervn, Tk75vn, Mx25l3vn, d40avn, and I just ordered a k50vn. Lol $200 - 300 a piece for most of them. Very high quality modded lights. The k50vn throws 1450meters. The btu shockervn has around 4500lm. They are insane. Much more practical than a hid. They are fun for short bursts though. Soon led will surpass them. Right now the TK75vn is my favorite. Crazy throw tons of lumens, but this k50vn should be fun to throw a beam just short of a mile.
 
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Personally, I've always wanted a short arc HID, but waiting for someone to make one on the cheap ;-)

You can buy one of those plastic big-reflector lights from walmart or costco and drop in an HID kit, shim the bulb to focus it right, and bam, HID spotlight

The cool thing about those sipik 68 clones, is that even if you buy the .99c version and it doesn't work, you can still fix it easily enough, or convert it to a lser. Doesn't someone here do sipik and clone heatsinks?
 
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Tmack

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Haha I was looking at those the other day. That's all it is, a portable car headlight.
 
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Yep, but you'll want to pay attention to what bulb base they use. A lot of them put a 55W halogen capsule mounted on an H4 bulb base. You car folks know that H4 is generally referred to as a dual-filament bulb. So, you'll want to find the H4 kit that only has the HID capsule, no actuator or secondary bulb.

As for the 7W, I wouldn't be surprised if the light direct-drives the LED when you use a 14500. potentially dangerous if you don't use protected 14500, since you may end up pulling more amps than you should from the 14500.
 
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I like LED more than HID but its hard to find a high power LED flashlight because they need a lot of heatsinking.

That being said I do plan on buying a 100 Watt 10,000 lumen LED off ebay and making a portable spotlight.
 

Tmack

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I have a couple 10w I picked up for a buck. They are fun to tinker with. Made a little fan cooled work light.

The lights I have over 4000lm are heatsinked well. They can be run longer than I need. And the turbo setting is just for fun anyway :D

WATCH HOW HOT THAT HID GETS!
 
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I've got a nice heatsink from a dead graphics card ready for the 10 watt LED I ordered. Solid aluminum heatsink...I should drill and tap some holes into it so I can bolt the LED to it.

And I just realized I don't have any thermal paste. Crap.
 
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Nice review blarg, I have one of these very torches and the brightness surprised me, but they aren't without their problems (not a 100% solid connection, feels like it might fall apart)

still for the price, there's little to complain about
 

Tmack

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abe7usus.jpg


120mw 532 in there. Rebuild Pman Special. He loves these B68 hosts.
Krnaznboy threw a m140 in one. Now bata is selling it. The little rayvac Walmart lights battery tube screws right in to make it accept a 14500 cell.
 
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I like LED more than HID but its hard to find a high power LED flashlight because they need a lot of heatsinking.

That being said I do plan on buying a 100 Watt 10,000 lumen LED off ebay and making a portable spotlight.

This will be a portable floodlight unless you use a massive reflector. More or less, the ratio of optic/reflector size to emitter size is what determines the divergence. Given the same reflector, the smaller the LED, the lower the divergence angle of the beam will be. Same with lasers. Given the same lens, the smaller the emitting area of the laser diode, the lower divergence is more achievable.

Still, do not discount how useful a powerful, portable floodlight is!
 
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I should order 2 100 Watt LED's and use one to replace the weak little halogen lamp on my snowblower. It has the added bonus of making my neighbors wonder wtf is with my snowblower, and actually producing usable light (which the halogen doesn't)
 

Tmack

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Go hid with that one, You'll just melt the snow before you hit it ;)
 
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