Fighter Tiny Stainless Steel Cree - flawed jewel

wakibaki

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Jan 11, 2007
Messages
128
Location
Plymouth, UK
Came home from work to this today.

This is starting to be my kind of flashlight. Small, clinical, low number of manufacturing operations. It's about as powerful as a Cree Elly.

The main wall is 1.25mm. The fit of the provided alkaline is not tight, but is extremely close, as was it with another brand alkaline although a Nimh was looser.

The whole light feels dense and substantial. The polished finish is not mirror, but brushed and very fine with no distinct toolmarks. The thread is clean and accurate with very little play.

The beam is concentric (the LED and reflector are well centred) and although not free of artifacts, is no worse than a Fenix P1D-CE. The tint is less green/yellow than the Fenix and tends toward the blue/purple of the DX Elly. Quite acceptable and good brightness for an AAA with consistent colour across the beam and spill.

The user interface is a bit flaky, as per the website. The mode switching is unreliable, although this merely mildly inconvenient. With care you can get the mode you want reliably at switch-on, you leave it in the mode you want to start in. This does seem quite reliable. I rarely use anything but high on most of my torches.

There is no battery spring, therefore the battery rattles. I will see if I can fix this with a rubber donut at the top. A little dimple spring at the bottom would help here.

The light turns on when screwed tight. I would prefer the opposite way round, as I have dust (everywhere).

I'd also like a crenellated lens retainer and a neat keychain or lanyard attach that still allows tailstanding and a maybe doubles with stopping it rolling when you set it down.

The top bevel is nicely polished so for the large part the torch has a sensuous feel although this is slightly marred by the failure to similarly polish the bottom. I like stainless.

I'd also like 10440 cells permitted, although I can't seem to get any in the UK.

I don't quite understand why it costs more than the several CR123 lights on the site, given that it is simpler to manufacture than many.

3 extra o-rings.

Extremely rugged with one weakness, it's carried slightly open.

At any price, it's quite nice. $24.x (3 Sept 2007) it's very nice.

Wait 'till they fix the interface tho'.

w
 

balazer

Enlightened
Joined
Aug 22, 2005
Messages
486
Thanks for the info, wakibaki.

How exactly could you get the light to switch modes? Did you try an off-on-off-on sequence?
 

infection0

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Sep 14, 2006
Messages
169
Wakibaki, thanks for this great review. I think you've just convinced me to buy :twothumbs and cycling the light twice to switch mode won't bother me that much. The only thing is that missing spring...
 

iowatollah

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Jul 22, 2004
Messages
34
Location
Des Moines Iowa
After a few days my Fighter just quit working. Checked with different batterys (not li-ion) and cleaned threads but will not light. This will be my first return to DX. Too bad as I liked the little light.
 

wakibaki

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Jan 11, 2007
Messages
128
Location
Plymouth, UK
iowatollah

Sorry to hear 'bout your light.

I haven't been on for a few days, so to reply to the question about changing modes, the flashlight is easy to switch on and off repeatedly. In fact with the looseness of the battery, and the admittedly small play in the thread, it is easy to pulse it on and off in a bit of an uncontrolled manner. Sometimes I get the mode I want, sometimes I come back to where I started... I just try again. Not ideal, but I sometimes have a similar experience with my P1D-CE, although this has a good spring which tends to make the operation less haphazard.

I've been extra busy at work, so I haven't had a chance to improvise a spring.

w
 

Bunk3r

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Jun 14, 2007
Messages
112
Location
Hull, England
my one of these has started to get very intermittent. it eams the contact isnt very good, sometimes its fine and sometimes its hard to even make it stay on, other times its near as impossible to get the right mode as the poor contact means its constantly switching.

anybody else had this?

i would realy rather not replace it as stainless cree + AAA are just perfect for me.
 

coyote

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Dec 10, 2002
Messages
1,057
Location
eastern oregon
let's hope they fix these problems as it sounds like it would be a winner.
 
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Bunk3r

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Jun 14, 2007
Messages
112
Location
Hull, England
my one of these has started to get very intermittent.
I've fixed my light! the electronics were not screwed tight enough into the head. tightened it up (inside) and it its working great! I would recommend this little beauty.
 

balazer

Enlightened
Joined
Aug 22, 2005
Messages
486
This light has a couple of serious flaws. I wouldn't recommend it at all.

The electronics are squeezed in the head between the reflector and a locking screw. There's a PCB in the head beneath the locking screw facing the battery tube. A ring trace on the PCB makes contact with the inner flat surface of that screw, and a disc in the center of the PCB makes contact with the battery's positive terminal. The problem is that there are no springs on either of the contacts. So if you screw the head down (to turn the light on) too tightly, it pushes the PCB away from the screw, and it no longer makes contact with the screw. Tightening the screw helps, but eventually the reflector becomes squeezed and deformed under the heat and pressure, until the PCB no longer makes contact with the battery at all. (incidentally the thermal design of this light is very poor, so it gets quite hot inside if you leave it on for more than a couple of minutes)

Don't buy this light unless you love stainless steel and you feel like reworking the electrical contacts yourself.


I strongly recommend the UltraFire WF-602c w/ SSC P4, which is less expensive and suffers from no fatal flaws. My only complaint about the WF-602c is that it's not particularly efficient - putting a lot of light into the side-spill and using its battery very quickly.
 

The_LED_Museum

*Retired*
Joined
Aug 12, 2000
Messages
19,414
Location
Federal Way WA. USA
Mine became busted during evaluation; I looked up inside the bezel and saw a ring inside there that requires that one have a spanner wrench in order to make any adjustments.

It's a very nice looking flashlight and it feels good & sturdy in the hand, but it is unfortunately not very durable. :shakehead
 
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