Jaxman E2 measurements (Nichia 219B, bargain high CRI 18650)

maukka

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Edit 28.2.2016: The head can be removed from the battery tube. I just forgot to remove that sentence out of the review. 18350 battery tube can be used as I state at the end of the test.

Disclaimer: Jaxman E2 was supplied for review by HKEquipment.net at half price.

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93 CRI 18650 flashlight for 25 bucks? Yes, please. The Jaxman E2 is not a lumen monster, but it has the highest CRI I've measured from a flashlight to date. 5400 Kelvins of pure white gloriousness.

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Manufacturer specifications

* Battery type: 18650
* LED: Nichia 219B, Neutral or Warm white
* Color temperature: 5700/4000 K
* Body material: Aluminum
* Reflector: Orange peel texture
* Lens: Glass
* Waterproof: Yes, IPX-6
* Impact resistance: 2 m
* Switch type: Tail reverse clicky
* Battery protection: Battery polarity, low voltage warning
* Temperature regulation: Yes
* Pocket clip: No
* Tail stand: Yes
* Tripod threads: No
* USB rechargeable: No

* Length: 118 mm
* Width: 24,3 mm
* Weight: 75 g
* Price: $24.95 (http://www.hkequipment.net/product-p/je2.htm)

* Output levels: 3
* Mode memory: No
* Button lock: Not necessary, mechanical switch
* Direct access from off: Always starts on Low

Special modes:
* Strobe (7,5 Hz)
* SOS

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Included in the box
* Jaxman E2 flashlight
* Lanyard
* Chinese specs/instructions

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The body is the usual Chinese 18650 affair familiar to most flashlight enthusiast. Similar construction can be found from the BLF A6/Astrolux S1 and Convoy S2. On the Jaxman the head is stuck to the battery cylinder and cannot be removed, at least without force. edit never mind, it was just really tight and came off

The anodized aluminum body has a bluish grey tone to it. The finish and machining is good, save for one dent on the tailcap on my sample. The head has some shallow grooves for better heat dissipation, at least in theory. I would have liked a pocket clip too, but a 3rd party one can be found easily for a dollar.

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Since the Jaxman and Convoy S2+ have compatible threads in both the head and the tail, the Jaxman's Nichia head is easy to fit to a Convoy shorty tube or just use the nice metallic tailcap switch of a colored S2+.

The UI is simple. Full press on the rubber tail clicky turns the light on and off, half press cycles through modes (Low, Medium, High, Strobe, SOS). There's no mode memory, and the light always starts at low. Moonlight mode is missing, and the low mode is quite bright at 14 lumens. Medium and high spacing is good though.

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The Nichia 219B emitter was perfectly centered on my sample.

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Spring in the head and tail, so button and flat tops are compatible. There's no low voltage cutoff, but the flashlight will blink when the battery voltage is low. Resting voltage after depleting the Eagtac 3500 mAh battery was 3,10 V.

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Jaxman E2, Convoy S2+, Eagletac D25LC2, BLF X6, DQG Tiny 18650 4.

Measurements
Please note: lumen measurements are only rough estimates
My diy 30 cm integrating styrofoam sphere has been calibrated using a Fenix E05 on high with manufacturer's claim of 85 lumens. Verified with an Olight S10 that has been measured with a Labsphere FS2 integrating sphere by valostore.fi. Results may be more inaccurate with especially throwy or floody lights.

For spectral information and CRI calculations I have an X-rite i1Pro spectrophotometer with HCFR for the plot and ArgyllCMS spotread.exe for the data. For runtime tests I use spotread.exe with a custom script and a i1Display Pro because it doesn't require calibration every 30 minutes like the i1Pro.

Explanation of abbreviations
CCT = correlated color temperature, higher temperature means cooler (bluish)
CRI (Ra) = color rendering index consisting of 8 different colors (R1-R8), max value 100
CRI (R9) = color rendering index with deep red, usually difficult for led based light sources, max value 100
TLCI = television lighting consistency index, max value 100
CQS (Qa) = Proposed replacement for CRI, RMS average of 15 color samples
CRI2012 (Ra,2012) = Another proposed replacement for CRI, consists of 17 color samples
MCRI = Color rendering index based on the memory of colors or 9 familiar objects
x,y = coordinates on a CIE 1931 chart

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Spectral distribution (High)
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Color rendering (High)
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Read more about color rendering indices here:
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb...CRI-vs-alternatives-with-measurement-examples

Jaxman E2 beats the second highest CRI light I have measured with a good margin. Especially the output on the 470 nm region is significantly flatter.

For comparison:
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Beam and tint
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Beam has a hotspot angle of 15° and spill of 67°.

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Tint and color temperature shift is relatively small in different areas of the beam. Corona around the hotspot is a bit warmer and the outer spill is cooler.

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Tint in different output modes is very small.

PWM

PWM/pulsing is used on low and medium. Even though the output never drops to zero and the cycling frequency is rather high at 3900 hertz, it is still possible to see when looking directly at the light and moving either eyes or the light very rapidly. In use, only the quiet whine might be noticeable in total silence when listened closely.

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Low

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Medium

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High

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Strobe (7,5 Hz)

Runtime and temperature (High)

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The output is regulated and stays constant until the 1 hour 54 minute mark. After this there's a steady decline to 55 % until the low voltage warning blink starts at 2 h 9 min. There's no difference in output with different cells. So no use getting high current batteries for the E2.

Cooling affects the output, so there is some sort of regulation. The head gets to 65°C at 17 minutes and this is as hot as it gets. At this point the handle is at 59°C. Without cooling, the battery tube reaches 50°C at about 10 minutes. I consider this too hot to hold comfortably with bare hands. As the light cools, the output rises, but the difference is very small and not noticeable with the naked eye.

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Temperature at 5 minutes. Heat transfer is good, with only a 7 degree difference between the head and the handle.

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Temperature after the head has stabilized at 65°C at 17 minutes. Head/Handle DeltaT 7°C.

Good/Bad

+ Extremely high color fidelity
+ Compatible threads with the popular Convoy S2+ (18350 possible)
+ Cheap
+ Nice pure white tint
+ Does not overheat
+ Good output regulation
─ No moonlight mode
─ Special modes not hidden, always cycled
─ No mode memory or direct access
─ PWM/Pulsing is used on low and medium
─ Slight whine on medium
─ No pocket clip included
 
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maukka

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Here's a color rendering comparison graph of most of the lights I've measured.

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twistedraven

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Oh my goodness! I've never heard about any Nichia emitter that was around sunlight color temperature and had really high CRI to boot. I'll have to pick this one up just to try it out. That color temperature and CRI was what I was always after.
 

LessDark

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Dec 7, 2013
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Thank you for the review!
A light with the Nichia 4000K and no mode memory, that's exactly what I've been looking for.
It's just too bad the strobe modes are not hidden...
I still might have to try this thing since it's that cheap.
 

twistedraven

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Ordered mine from the same site. Hope I get one that's 93cri with 80 R9 as well-- but I wouldn't be able to tell even if I wanted to, hah.

Will be interesting comparing the 219B SW45 tint against the 219B V1 SW57 tint. Do you have any pics comparing the tint and color rendering of the Eagletac against the Jaxman, Maukka?
 

twistedraven

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Finally got my neutral white (5700k) Jaxman E2 in today, and I find its tint to be astounding.

I have a wealth of other high CRI flashlights to compare it to, and I don't think any are close to the E2's Nichia high color temperature 219B. The differences are especially apparent with wood tones.

My L3 Illumination's L11C with Nichia 219B at 4500k looks dirty and orange in comparison, and doesn't differentiate greens from browns as well as the Jaxman E2, and flesh tones look more copper-tanned than pinky-flesh as it would under the sun.

My Zebralight SC62D with Phillips Luxeon T at 5000k was previously my sunlight mimicker, but it comes off looking very green in comparison to the Jaxman E2. It still looks decently white next to the purer E2, though.

My Zebralight H600FD with XML2 sporting the easywhite technology at 5000k (closer to 4800k) also looks very yellow/green in comparison, not being able to differentiate browns from greens as well and other colors, as everything is veiled with a yellow tone.

Naturally, people looking for a more incandescent look with high color rendering can still loom in the 3-4.5k range-- the likes of which the 4500k 219B is still good at doing. Also, those who found the Luxeon T of the SC62D too cool in the spill will undoubtedly find the spill of the E2 neutral white to be even cooler and uninviting. The spill of the neutral white E2 is also my only potential gripe about its tint. I wish it was closer to the 5400k of the hotspot, which I find to be perfectly white. Needless to say, the Jaxman E2 is a must buy for those looking for the highest amount of color delineation and rendering ability from their light as if it were sunlight itself.

As far as build quality and feel, I find the light to be good enough. I wish the reverse clicky was a bit taller, but that's a nitpick. I also wish I could skip the strobe modes as well, but I'm glad it has the very inviting standard reverse clicky interface, where it always starts at low and subsequent half-presses up the output levels.

I can't tell that there's any PWM with the low and medium modes at all, so I find the PWM on this light all but a moot point-- in my experience anyways.
 
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tops2

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Nov 10, 2015
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I got my neutral white (5700k) Jaxman E2 yesterday and love the tint on this thing.

I don't have a lot of experiences with different tints so I'll just describe what I notice.

The light is plenty bright to me. The white is more "premium white" to me similar to my Fenix E12. There's no yellowness and blueness at all. The colors are spectacular to me. All the colors seems very vivid. I just like shining this light to look at different objects in my home. I really should take this light outside too.

My Zebralight SC5w seems to give everything a yellow tinge in comparison.
My Olight S1 seems to give everything a green tinge in comparison.

The main thing I don't like the cycling through the strobe/beacon modes as I seem to get headachy if I look at it. There doesn't seem to be a way to turn it off.
The only other nitpicky thing is I wish the lanyard came in grey (to match the body) or some other color. Mine looks like an ugly salmon/peach color. ;)

Otherwise, the Jaxman E2 is a cheap way for me to experience my first high CRI light and it doesn't disappoint. The 4000k version is also pretty cheap and I'm tempted by it..but I'm not sure if I'll like the warmer tint as I like this current white tint.
 

twistedraven

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Somewhere on the internet (I think it was budget light forum), I read a post from a Jaxman representative saying that if you order from their website or one of their official resellers, you can leave a note during the order process to tell them to give you a version that doesn't have the strobe modes. I might order a second one just to not have the strobe modes. The tint of the neutral white version is so great and the cost is so low that I think it might be worth it.
 

tops2

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Somewhere on the internet (I think it was budget light forum), I read a post from a Jaxman representative saying that if you order from their website or one of their official resellers, you can leave a note during the order process to tell them to give you a version that doesn't have the strobe modes. I might order a second one just to not have the strobe modes. The tint of the neutral white version is so great and the cost is so low that I think it might be worth it.

Omg! I gotta look it up after work. Too bad there's no way for us to turn it off after the fact..
 

markr6

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Thanks for the great info! What is the reset time? Since there's no memory, hopefully it doesn't suffer from a long reset time of 5+ seconds like my BLF A6.
 

twistedraven

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It's roughly 5-6 seconds.

Also, I'll go ahead and post this image again, since it does the Neutral White Jaxman E2 pretty good justice. The neutral white tint so far has been the king of skin-tone rendering to my eyes. I have not tried the warm version though.

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tops2

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Yeah, mine resets after about 5-6 seconds too.

Weird thing I noticed is I get pretty headachy after using this light for over a few minutes (and no, not on strobe mode). Not sure if it's the PWM or something else... Has anyone gotten headachy after using a flashlight?

I don't get this when I use my other lights..
 

twistedraven

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Which output mode are you using? Sometimes I tail stand it and bounce it off the ceiling and use it in low mode for a night light every now and then, and never had an issue with nausea or headaches.
 

tops2

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Mostly the medium mode. Well, I'll use it the next few days and see. Maybe I'm just getting sick or stressed from work. [emoji23]
 

tops2

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It could be the PWM. It bothers many people in various ways. I personally wont buy any light that uses any PWM for this reason.

I have only a small collection of lights, but I just tested my Thrunite TN12 2014, Olight S1, Fenix E12 and Zebralight SC5w for a few minutes each and I'm fine.
I'm guessing maybe its the way the PWM is on this light that affects me? As soon as I try again, my eyes just get fatigued quickly and I got headachy again..

Haha..oh well... Its only me though.. Otherwise I love the tint on the Jaxman!
 
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