Any luck with the cheap Ebay Cree lights?

[trooplewis]

If you go on eBay and do a search for "Cree flashlights" you get a whole bunch of hits.
Many of them advertise that they have 500 lumens, etc etc and pricing is between 20 and 30 bucks. Plus at that price range many include a couple of rechargeable batteries and a charger.

I know that they are not going to rival a Surefire, but has anyone had any luck with these cheap Chinese lights? (they all ship from Hong Kong).

Part of me says cheap crap, part of me says they may come out of the same factory that makes some of the name brands we see a lot here.

So what is the reality of how these things shine, and how they hold up?

I guess I should expand this thread to include lights like the YEZL brand. Looks like they are just Chinese repackaged versions of some of the more popular flashlights.

 

[smacame]

I bought one of these on ebay a few weeks back (link at the bottom), and it's been great. Obviously it's not 300 lumens or 5 watts, but it is a reasonably good flashlight. It actually draws very nearly 1 watt. I've been using it with 2AAs and it should run for about four hours.


[eBay link deleted - DM51]

 

[agedbriar]

I started with Fenixes. My TK11 (R2) is still the most used (regular night walk with the labrador).

Later, I turned to budget lights, which allowed me to have a dedicated thrower, a dedicated flooder, a small SS one for EDC, a magnetic tail one for the car, one for my hobby shop, a zooming one as an everybody's backup in the living room. Also, a couple of 2xAA for my ladies and a second thrower for my son.

Every budget light I bought turned out with a high price/performance ratio, except one. That's the SSC-P7 flooder (incidentally, the most expensive of my budgets), which, at 2500 mA from a 18650, still looks weak. No one feels or looks "cheap", although not quite the same as the five times more expensive Fenixes. No issues with either.

 

[brted]

eBay is kind of the wild west of budget lights. There are some good lights and dealers, but also a lot of fakes, even fake budget lights. You've already noticed the specs are way off. I really like budget lights, but use extreme caution on eBay. Most of my budget lights come from DX, KD, or Manafont where you are dealing with a known entity. The problem is if you get a light that is a dud or not as advertised, they can require you mail it back to them at your expense in order to get your money back, and shipping will be more than the light. I recently bought some 18650 Trustfire batteries that turned out to be fake and horrible (I got my money back, but others weren't as lucky). However, I also bought a real Solarforce from ITC shop, the same seller as solarforce-sales.com.

Definitely check out the latest negative comments on a seller to get an idea of how bad it can get. 98% positive means 2% awful. If you can, try to find the same light at one of the online places I mention. Often they are the same price or less than what you see on eBay.

 

[smacame]

The light that I found on Ebay (Saik SA-15) I also found on DX, but it has a slightly different body. It was actually more accurately advertised on DX than Ebay.

 

[trooplewis]

I think DX scares me more than eBay, when I read about guys who have had orders or portions of their orders that they have not received for several months.
Seems like ebay stuff always arrives within a week to 10 days.

 

[slipe]

I bought 4 flood to throw Q5 AA lights from Ebay last year for $9 each. They came a lot faster than DX and all worked fine. I bought them for gifts but kept one for myself. It is a nice light with 14500s, but works fine with alkalines for my non-enlightened friends.

 

[trooplewis]

I got my eBay Ultrafire 501B with the XM-L emitter last Friday. I was surprised that it only took 9 or 10 days to get here from Hong Kong. No issues, the light, batteries and charger all seem to work just fine.

 

[Brian10962001]

I think a lot of places like DX and KD are drop shippers. Meaning they advertise what they can get, then when you order they go get it and send it to you. Ebay will eat people like that alive, it's more important that the seller get your item to you quickly. I've had good luck with ITC and his Solarforce sales web site, I had a dud tailcap on a L2 (which is my least favorite of the solarforce line) and it made the drop in look like crap, he replaced both free of charge! I also had a shipment for my grey L2m get lost but he replaced that for me (first time I haven't got something from China but it was right after the new years so that = chaos). One of the first eBay lights I ever saw was a SAiK 3 mode (high low strobe) It's a nice light that my friend purchased. It came with 18650's, a "forbids to invert" cradle charger, and a AAA adapter. I purchased a 2 mode SAiK SA 8 with a bike mount that everyone said was a knock off, but it was phenomenally bright for what it was. I gave that one as a gift to a friend. Finally I purchased 4 MXDL 3 watt AAA lights from eBay, best buy I've ever made as far as budget lights go, and I bought a "police 3 watt" single AA, WORST budget buy I've ever made. It's not worth the 3 bucks I spent on it. It has virtually no output and the tail cap went bad on me after I glued it in place 🙁 at least it was only $3.

 

[Brian10962001]