Wanted: 2 x AA semi-thrower

I recently returned my own Fenix MC11 because it wasn't really what I was looking for in build quality, and the mode switch gave me blisters (literally).
While I still love the cr123 and single AA lights, I'm in the market for a light with a bit longer runtime on medium, power equal to a regular cr123 light on max, but preferably with double the runtime, and a bit longer so it'll sit nicely in the hand to aim. Here's what I'm looking for...

Must have:
- 2 x AA battery type (4 x could work, but preferably 2)
- LED preferably XP-G S2. I'm looking at lightpainting, so a bit throwy is a bonus. XM-L is an option, but only with a decent sized reflector.
- Absolutely no PWM flickering, it might show up in photo's as dotted lines.
- Solid build, don't die on me when I drop it once.

Should have:
- Moonlight mode or lowest mode maximum 2 lumens.
- 100+ hours battery life on the low mode
- IPX-8 or better rating
- A bit of throw. I like to do light painting with it, so a beam with as little spill as possible would be nice. However, I will probably grid the light anyway, so any spill the light has will be eliminated.

Would be nice:
- Instantly accessible strobe from off. This would serve as a bit of personal protection only. SOS or what not I don't need.
- Ideal modes (+ runtime): 250lm turbo (2.5h), 100lm high (5h), 40 lumen medium (10+h), 15 lumen (20+h), 1 lumen (200+h)
- Magnetic control ring is ideal (doesn't have to be a variable setting, just to switch modes).
- Mode memory (in case no physical setting for the power like a magnetic ring).
- Being able to set the power level before turning it on, or being
- Lego-ing extra tubes, so I could use it as 1xAA or 2xAA, like getting an XM-L 1xAA version + XP-G 2xAA and being able to switch these around.


Lights I've been considering:
4Sevens Quark AA2. Especially with the clearance sale. Unfortunately, this store would charge me ~$35 for shipping to the Netherlands which is a bit steep. They have nice lego-ing abilities, but I'm not sure about their build quality.

Sunwayman M20a. Looks like a fantastic light. I love the ability to set the mode BEFORE turning the light on. Instant strobe is also nice, and inmo, the only way it's useful. Battery life looks ok, much more efficient than the V-version though.
Just one thing, I'm likely to also buy a V11R and/or M11R. Is the M20A's head lego-able with those?
The M20A seems quite dated by now, so I'm also tempted to wait and see if they update it to a M11 series equivalent (M21A or M22A maybe).

EagleTac D25A2 mini or clicky:
Lack a very low mode it seems, but still nice lights. I like the clicky interface, but the twisty could work for me if it has mode memory.

Fenix LD20 or 22: could work for me, not too sure about the "higher up" fenix models.

Personally I think you'd be happy with any of the lights you are considering....all of em are outstanding. My pick would be the Quark - either the Pro UI (cycle through all output options) or the Tactical UI (program 2 output options.)

Thanks, I thought I made a nice pre-selection ^^

Suppose the sunwayman M20a and the Quark were the same price (because they are if I order them), would you still get the Quark?
I'm more tempted towards the SWM, not in the least because I read in the V11R or M11R threads that they also have lego options, but I'm not 100% certain on the last. If they did, that'd be awesome since I'm also planning to get a V11R some day...

TweakMDS said:

Thanks, I thought I made a nice pre-selection ^^

Suppose the sunwayman M20a and the Quark were the same price (because they are if I order them), would you still get the Quark?
I'm more tempted towards the SWM, not in the least because I read in the V11R or M11R threads that they also have lego options, but I'm not 100% certain on the last. If they did, that'd be awesome since I'm also planning to get a V11R some day...

Click to expand...

That's a tough choice because both are outstanding lights. Again, I really think you'd be happy with either, so go with what you prefer. The UI's are different, so take that into consideration. There is one reason that I'd go with the quark, and that's the moonlight mode. A sub-lumen (less than 1 lumen) mode is a must for me now. Ever since I started buying quarks & zebralights I have decided that I prefer lights with a really low low. But that is for my uses, and I need/use the moonlight mode every morning to navigate my house without waking my wife up. It's amazing how bright 0.3 lumens is when your eyes are completely adjusted to the dark, and runtimes on this setting are ridiculous. We also use moonlight mode as a night light for the kids when we go camping. But, again both lights are great.

Thanks again. I really need ZL to make a 2xAA light...

I'll take a look to see if I can find any quarks in the Netherlands, or at reasonable shipping, otherwise SWM it is

If you have AAs, moonlight mode and long runtimes on your priority list, the field thins out drastically..... to Quarks, Zebralights and now EagleTac, IMHO. The infinitely variable lights are pretty bad for low lumen runtime, but the SWM M series seems good, although with 4 lumen minimums, like many other brands (not using a buck driver?). The new EagleTac AA clickies do have a sub-lumen level so that's still a consideration. SWM, ZL, Fenix should be higher build quality than 4/7s and ET, but interestingly, the warranties are best on the latter two.

Disregarding price, I still tend to go with the Quarks for the broader battery/voltage range, lego-ability, warranty/customer service, and among the lights we're talking about here, also the mode spacing (ET 0.5>22?, SWM 4>70?). I like lights that more closely follow 4x lumen increments which is perceived as 2x brightness increments to the eye.

+1 on Outdoorsman on moonlight, that is my highest priority after batteries.

I agree that moonlight should be a priority.
When I'm doing long exposure photography, a flashlight on moonlight wouldn't ruin my exposure. Equally important to moonlight (to me anyway) is the ability to turn the light on at the right setting, which counts especially for moonlight. The SWM still wins with the UI, but 4 lumens is a bit on the high side for this... I feel like I have to sacrifice my optimal UI choice for either moonlight (M20a) or good runtimes (v20a). Tough choices.

I looked at the Jetbeam PA20 as well, which has the right output range, but the interface isn't as good.
Maybe I should hold off on anything until SWM releases a successor to the m20a, and stick with the single AA/CR123's for now, possibly a V11R with AA extender and hope any successor will still allow lego-ing

Small update: while reading through all the reviews again, the Sunwayman M20A actually turns out to have a low-low-low mode which is more moonlight than anything else. They state that their low is 4 lumens with a runtime of 200 hours (would already be nice), but in selfbuilt's review (as well as in a few other places), the low mode is measured as 0.3 lumens (see: selfbuilt's Sunwayman M20A review).
Borrowed from that topic:


That leaves the M20A as by far the best option, even though the medium could have been a lot lower. At least it's medium mode has - by far - the longest runtime in it's class, so I suspect it's also a bit lower than advertised.
I have a few other EDC-sized lights that have a lower mode anyway.

So unless anything new pops up in the next few weeks, I'll be planning to order both the M20A and the M11R soon ^^

Hmmmm, if it works for you, then go for it. But....

I'd personally be pretty upset if I ordered a light that said 200 hrs at 4 lumens and then found out it was closer to a moonlight level. If it is a moonlight level, then 200 hrs on 2xAA is pretty bad. And that's an awful big gaping hole between moonlight and 70 lumen. And SWM's website says 24 hrs at 70 lumens, why did Selfbuilt only get 10? And on SB's 2xAA Medium Alkaline chart, the Quark AA2 Mini, also an R5 got around the same run time at nearly the output/lumen level...... however 4Sevens says its medium is 9hrs at 36 lumens?

Lots of inconsistencies from SWM, if you ask me.

Take a look at the Nirecore EA2!! Selfbuilt's review of the series is up and its numbers beats just about everything you are looking at. The lux reading I think was at like 6500 or something close to that. Good luck!

I saw the Nitecore EA2, but from Nitecore's earlier products, they seem to have massive problems bringing a stable and consistent product out. Not so sure I'd gamble on something else they might stop supporting within a few months like the D11.2.

Still, it looks like a very nice light: not too expensive, definitely has the specs I need and packs a nice throw. The UI seems a bit fizzy, but it has a very nice output range. My D25C Ti could take care of moonlighting anyway.
And it's quite a bit cheaper, unfortunately it doesn't seem available in the Netherlands yet.

Sorry to bump this, but I just came across the 4Sevens / Foursevens Quark AA2 Turbo that seems very nice, decent throw too. I'm not a huge fan of twisting/untwisting to switch modes, but if I understand it correctly, you can "program" this in such a way that you can have any of the modes on both tightened and untightened. If I'd have moonlight, low and high/turbo on the tightened position, that'd be great, especially if it always turns on on low.

Goinggear has both the 4sevens and the foursevens model, but surprisingly enough the former is more expensive. Can anyone clarify on any possible differences between this? The info on the foursevens (QB2A) is rather limited, but I figured they were the same. Foursevens lists a higher output though.

TweakMDS said:

I'm not a huge fan of twisting/untwisting to switch modes, but if I understand it correctly, you can "program" this in such a way that you can have any of the modes on both tightened and untightened. If I'd have moonlight, low and high/turbo on the tightened position, that'd be great, especially if it always turns on on low.

Click to expand...

The Quark Tactical UI allows you to program 1 output for the tightened position and 1 output for the loosened position. To access other outputs, you have to re-program.

TweakMDS said:

Goinggear has both the 4sevens and the foursevens model, but surprisingly enough the former is more expensive. Can anyone clarify on any possible differences between this? The info on the foursevens (QB2A) is rather limited, but I figured they were the same. Foursevens lists a higher output though.

Click to expand...

AFAIK, the 4Sevens and the foursevens are the same except for the logo. The 4Sevens is often lower priced for clearance but at Going Gear you don't really have a choice. They show the 4Sevens as "Special Price: $48.95 Out of stock"

Thanks Yamabushi. They listed the 4sevens AA2 Turbo with XP-G S2 for around $77 and the foursevens for $69, which I found odd... Was planning to make an order with them anyway for a few other lights, so I guess I'll toss either of them in the basket as well. The way the modes work might not be ideal, but it seems practical and very good in runtimes.

The difference in that case is the "S2". I was looking at the 4Sevens XP-G R5 (out of stock) and the foursevens XP-G (the bin is not specified but is probably also an R5). The higher bin usually costs more but I'm not sure what the practical difference is between the R5 and S2 bins since 4Sevens describes both as cool white.

I figured the foursevens could be an R5 since it's not specified. They list 205 lumens vs 190 for the older model, but some of the description is off as well.
If I understand correctly I'm not allowed to post the links here though, so that makes things harder to explain :S

Eitherway, I'll send goinggear a quick message to verify everything in case I decide to order. Since it's a relatively expensive overseas trip, I was considering asking them to do a quick check and test of all lights. I'd pay extra for that to avoid shipping anything back at $25 a package anyway...

Yamabushi said:

The difference in that case is the "S2". I was looking at the 4Sevens XP-G R5 (out of stock) and the foursevens XP-G (the bin is not specified but is probably also an R5). The higher bin usually costs more but I'm not sure what the practical difference is between the R5 and S2 bins since 4Sevens describes both as cool white.

Click to expand...

The S2 LED is newer than the R5 LED. The evolution of recent LED's in order goes - Q5, R2, R4, R5, S2, XML. Each generation was larger & brighter than the last. Each generation was also more efficient than the last (except that the XML LED was not quite as efficient on the lower output levels than the previous generation.) Anyway, the S2 LED is about 7% brighter & runtimes are about 7% longer than the R5 LED. Also, since the S2 LED is slightly larger than the R5, the hotspot is slightly larger than the the same Quark with the R5 LED.

4Sevens and foursevens are the same company, and are still in the process of "re-branding" their line of lights. I have mostly seen the older "4sevens" lights on sale with the newly re-branded "foursevens" lights selling for more.

I have Quarks with the R2, R5, S2, and the XML LED's in them. My S2 Quark is awfully green in color which was a problem with most of the S2 LED's (but not all.) Hopefully the S2 LED's that are currently being used are better.

My favorite Quarks are the Quarks with the XML LED. The hot spot is very large (floody,) and these lights are a lot brighter than the older ones. Plus a couple of nagging bugs were fixed with the release of the XML Quarks. The most important bug that was fixed was "pre-flash". Pre-flash was experienced in all of the older quarks which was very annoying. If you started your quark in moonlight mode or low then the light would, for an instant, flash very brightly (max output) then go into moonlight mode or low. This pre-flash could be a bit blinding. The XML Quarks have an almost unnoticeable pre-flash (only noticeable when entering into moonlight mode, and the pre-flash is no more than one lumen.)

The other bug that was fixed only affects the Quarks with the regular UI which is now called the "Pro" UI and only affects those of us that run a single-cell Quark on a single rechargeable Li-ion (like a 14500, or a RCR123, or a 17670, or an 18650.) On Li-ion batteries the older quarks with the regular or "Pro" UI take much longer to reset. What I mean is that if you cycled your quark from moonlight then to low then to medium then turned the light off, it was suppose to only take 3 or 4 seconds for the light to reset itself back to moonlight. That way if from medium I turned the light off, waited for 4 seconds, and turned the light back on then it should come on in moonlight mode again. When using an alkaline or an eneloop battery it did reset in 4 seconds, however, when using a Li-ion battery it would take my quark 12-15 seconds to reset. This is minor, but did cause me some aggravation if I didn't want to wait the 15 seconds & didn't want to cycle through all of the output settings & blinky modes just to get back to moonlight. The newer Quarks with XML LED's do not exhibit this problem, and reset after about 4 seconds.

Hope this helps.

Thanks to everyone for all the help in getting me to make up my mind.

I ended up ordering the EagleTac P20A2 MkII. It's a good light (great even) at about half the price I'd have to spend on some of the alternatives, because I have a local EagleTac dealer, so no huge shipping fees. Eventually I might (maybe, very maybe) also get a D25A2 Clicky S2 from them, but right now, it's enough.

I decided to disregard the moonlight requirement as I currently have 2 EDC lights (D25A and C titanium clickies) and 2 more on the way (H51W and V11R) that have moonlight. This 2xAA light will probably never be alone, and always have some CR123 or AA companion that can do moonlight.

The EagleTac does seem to have the best possible output on 2xAA, as well as a decent enough UI. Throw is quite decent (better than any other light I own), and it's mostly cheap. Diffuser is also nice, and makes the light double as a floodlight.