Newbie question: Nuwai Qiii vs. Longbow Micra
- Thread starter Zissou
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chrisse242
Enlightened
I have both. Had the micra with clicky a little longer than half a year now, the Q3 arrived today. Both are nice lights in stock condition, but both can be made better.
But let's start with the outer side first. Nice finish on both with the longbow being a bit tougher. Both offer a variety of comfortable grips. The nuwai is in my opinion a little better in this regard, the more agressive surface makes it harder to slip through wet hands hands.
The nuwai comes with a deep reflector, the longbow with an optic which is (IMHO) inferior. But that's easy to change the IMS so17xa mod is a must for me.
The longbow cna stand on end, the nuwai can't. But again, that's easy to change. An o-ring of the right size between tailcap and switch rubber takes care of that.
Now for the main thing - light.
I've compared both of them to my arc4, and both are dimmer in stock condition. That's ok for the longbow, it's advertised as 1Watt. Judging from the 3Watt number on the nuwai this should easily outshine the 1Watt arc4. It doesn't, even after I've changed the sx1k for a tvoj. So the electronics inside the Q3 are certainly not top notch. Well, it doesn't cost nearly as much so there has to be a difference. There has been a lot of talk about the nuwai electronics and running it with li-ion rechargeables will help output-wise, but because of the almost non-existant heatsinking I doubt that's a good idea if you don't want your lux to die early. (Who cares, luxeons are cheap and changing them is easy...)
The longbow works with 4.2V li-ions as well, and mine even dimmed rapidly at exactly 2.5V so one could use unprotected cells in it without risking the death of the cell too early. This dimming at 2.5V also means it won't really use all the juice in a primary cell which caused some complaints here on cpf.
That's about all that comes to my mind right now but I'm sure others will chime in shortly.
Chrisse
But let's start with the outer side first. Nice finish on both with the longbow being a bit tougher. Both offer a variety of comfortable grips. The nuwai is in my opinion a little better in this regard, the more agressive surface makes it harder to slip through wet hands hands.
The nuwai comes with a deep reflector, the longbow with an optic which is (IMHO) inferior. But that's easy to change the IMS so17xa mod is a must for me.
The longbow cna stand on end, the nuwai can't. But again, that's easy to change. An o-ring of the right size between tailcap and switch rubber takes care of that.
Now for the main thing - light.
I've compared both of them to my arc4, and both are dimmer in stock condition. That's ok for the longbow, it's advertised as 1Watt. Judging from the 3Watt number on the nuwai this should easily outshine the 1Watt arc4. It doesn't, even after I've changed the sx1k for a tvoj. So the electronics inside the Q3 are certainly not top notch. Well, it doesn't cost nearly as much so there has to be a difference. There has been a lot of talk about the nuwai electronics and running it with li-ion rechargeables will help output-wise, but because of the almost non-existant heatsinking I doubt that's a good idea if you don't want your lux to die early. (Who cares, luxeons are cheap and changing them is easy...)
The longbow works with 4.2V li-ions as well, and mine even dimmed rapidly at exactly 2.5V so one could use unprotected cells in it without risking the death of the cell too early. This dimming at 2.5V also means it won't really use all the juice in a primary cell which caused some complaints here on cpf.
That's about all that comes to my mind right now but I'm sure others will chime in shortly.
Chrisse
