Techjunkie
Enlightened
This is about the nameless (C8 clone) 1x18650 SSC P7 flashlight, DX sku 12271, called simply "SSC P7 900-Lumen LED Flashlight (18650)".
I received one from the new batch last night an am disappointed to report that this is the most poorly concieved piece of junk that I've yet to receive from DX. $44 wasted.
The first thing I noticed was that on a fully charged 18650, the output was dimmer than my 1xCR123 CREE keychain light. A test at the tail cap revealed that at 4.2Vin, the driver was only pulling 600mA from the battery. Even if this is the most efficient driver in the world, that means that at 3.6Vout, the driver is regulating current to the emitter to 700mA, not 2000mA or 2800mA. At this current, the output of this torch appears to be about 90 lumens, not 900.
Heatsinking is basically non-existent. This isn't obvious at first, especially at the anemic current provided by the driver. When you remove the bezel and reflector and look at the pill inside the head, everything actually looks quite impressive. The pill is aluminum and screws right into the base of the head, and the emitter is completely surrounded by what looks at first like thermal adhesive. In fact the emitter sits 1/8" above the pill, separated from it by a paper donut and more of the silicone sealant. Think tub/tile calk, that's what's being used here. I didn't discover this at first (why would I tear the emitter from the head unless there were a problem?) until after I bypassed the driver to run direct drive on a somewhat discharged, protected 18650, from which the emitter drew 1000mA of current (which also means that it's probably not really C bin, or it would have drawn closer to 2800mA). The emitter looked great for about 30 seconds before turning ANGRY BLUE from the heat and began to dim. The emitter LEDs actually glowed for a few seconds after I turned it off. I've ordered some Arctic Alumia Adhesive to address this problem. I would have used Arctic Silver, but the slug on the bottom of the P7 has an electrical path to the LED+ and the silver stuff might short circuit the + lead to the flashlight ground. I considered making + ground, but didn't trust myself to remember to load the battery backwards every time if I did that.
This isn't heatsink compound:
The donut in the hotspot problem reported by other owners still exists, but that's the least of this flashlight's problems, and can be fixed by adding space between the reflector and the emitter by replacing the thick gasket at the glass with something thinner. (I used the smaller diameter gasket from the head threads by tucking it under the bezel, above the glass, stretching it as I tucked. I had to almost comletely tighten the bezel before tucking for this to work. I then replaced the head gasket by stretching a smaller 19mm gasket that I had a whole bag of over the head threads.)
I've submitted a review and a photo of the pill unassembled, but I doubt they will be published.
I received one from the new batch last night an am disappointed to report that this is the most poorly concieved piece of junk that I've yet to receive from DX. $44 wasted.
The first thing I noticed was that on a fully charged 18650, the output was dimmer than my 1xCR123 CREE keychain light. A test at the tail cap revealed that at 4.2Vin, the driver was only pulling 600mA from the battery. Even if this is the most efficient driver in the world, that means that at 3.6Vout, the driver is regulating current to the emitter to 700mA, not 2000mA or 2800mA. At this current, the output of this torch appears to be about 90 lumens, not 900.
Heatsinking is basically non-existent. This isn't obvious at first, especially at the anemic current provided by the driver. When you remove the bezel and reflector and look at the pill inside the head, everything actually looks quite impressive. The pill is aluminum and screws right into the base of the head, and the emitter is completely surrounded by what looks at first like thermal adhesive. In fact the emitter sits 1/8" above the pill, separated from it by a paper donut and more of the silicone sealant. Think tub/tile calk, that's what's being used here. I didn't discover this at first (why would I tear the emitter from the head unless there were a problem?) until after I bypassed the driver to run direct drive on a somewhat discharged, protected 18650, from which the emitter drew 1000mA of current (which also means that it's probably not really C bin, or it would have drawn closer to 2800mA). The emitter looked great for about 30 seconds before turning ANGRY BLUE from the heat and began to dim. The emitter LEDs actually glowed for a few seconds after I turned it off. I've ordered some Arctic Alumia Adhesive to address this problem. I would have used Arctic Silver, but the slug on the bottom of the P7 has an electrical path to the LED+ and the silver stuff might short circuit the + lead to the flashlight ground. I considered making + ground, but didn't trust myself to remember to load the battery backwards every time if I did that.
This isn't heatsink compound:
The donut in the hotspot problem reported by other owners still exists, but that's the least of this flashlight's problems, and can be fixed by adding space between the reflector and the emitter by replacing the thick gasket at the glass with something thinner. (I used the smaller diameter gasket from the head threads by tucking it under the bezel, above the glass, stretching it as I tucked. I had to almost comletely tighten the bezel before tucking for this to work. I then replaced the head gasket by stretching a smaller 19mm gasket that I had a whole bag of over the head threads.)
I've submitted a review and a photo of the pill unassembled, but I doubt they will be published.
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