Quick Review- AT-785 Five LED ebay light

[**DONOTDELETE**]

This will be brief as I must go to work, but I want to get this out to you. My AT-785 ebay light arrived yesterday. See this thread. I sent it back today. Light came in a foam sleeve in an old modem box via First Class mail. It's as pretty as the picture. No identifying names or numbers on light. Beam was of course not as bright as my Inova X5 original but I was very pleased with it. Tighter than the Inova. Not bad at all imho.Wish I had the Opalec to compare. My Arc LS is in the shop...See comparison beam shot. The beam tint is not blue as in photo. Maybe a very slight hint of light brown on corona, and some blue tint in hotspot. After 2 hours the light output suddenly dropped to less than my Arc LE. After 3 to 4 hours the light remaining is basically useless, even for reading. Tested again with same results, both times using two brand new Rayovac maximum plus AA alkaline batteries. I did not test lithiums, and do not know if they can be used safely. Inside of body pic reveals apparent defect in assembly. Is that an o-ring squeezed in there? Tailcap also has about 1/32" play in it. When unscrewed (turned on) you can push down on it and cause the light to flicker. More than once I unscrewed tailcap and light did not turn on at all. Screwing it all the way closed and trying again usually worked. Other than that, light appears solidly built, nice and hefty, excellent finish. LED's (slightly smaller than the Inova's) seem mounted well in head, which cannot be twisted off by hand. Has a nearly identical spring loaded center pin in head like Inova. Batteries go in tail negative end first. It's a shame. This light could have been a contender. YMMV. Based upon my experience, I cannot recommend this light.

Jim

P.S. Other members please share your experiences with this light...

 

[The_LED_Museum]

That sure sucks. Looked like a nice flashlight too. I guess that 40 hour battery life was horse puckey.

I think your slideshow is broken. The frame and buttons load, but nothing else does. And I gave it several minutes.

 

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Yeah I would have settled for 4 or 5 hours. I think some others here bought one. Hope to hear from them too. I may have been the first to get one since I live just 30 miles from seller.
Slideshow works for me. Give it another try.

 

[The_LED_Museum]

I did... I think the pictures are (multi) megabyte size and require a broadband connection. After five minutes, the first one was only about halfway loaded, and the second one was at least fifteen minutes away.

 

[yclo]

Slideshow crashes for me..

 

[Steelwolf]

Thanks for the quick review, galavanter. Sorry you had to be the guinea pig for an unimpressive light. So almost as bright as an Inova X5, but probably more due to the tight beam? Pity about the 2 hour life. That really sucks. Would have considered this light a serious contender if they could extend the run time to something more reasonable. Is it possible that there is some defect with the one? Did you send it back for replacement or refund?

 

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Thanks Craig for making me realize I had not reduced images. I was rushing and I'm no webmaster.

I reduced them the only way I know how. They are still 2 and 3 hundred kb. Hope that helps. Give it one more shot. You too yclo.
Steelwolf it is close enough to the Inova in brightness to make it a competitor if the runtime were longer, considering the cheaper batteries used. I think I am quoting you now from the first thread. I hope mine did have a defect, but I got disgusted and asked for a refund. Haven't heard back from the seller on that yet. The experience did make me want an Opalec and it also made me appreciate my LS, not to mention the LE. The Inova, my first LED light, still shines as well.
Since you put me on the spot and asked me to review the light, I am going to do the same to camisdad. I think I saw that you had won an auction camisdad, how 'bout it? Was your experience any different than mine? You wanna try lithiums in yours?

Jim

 

[webley445]

I was browsing ebay this week and saw them. Thought about getting it, but decided not to since all the auctions on them always seemed to go up to $30. Ordered a SL 4aa LED from Brightguy instead.

 

[camisdad]

Hi Galavanter and all- haven't received mine yet - I bought a few separate cyba lights that are being shipped together - I'll review them all when I get them - hopefully middle of next week.

 

[Rebus]

Well I got my AT-785 the other day & decided
to give it a more real world test (because of
Galavanter's poor results) I left it on & off
for half hour intervals. It lasted more than 12
hours. Actually it was two 6 hour session over
two evenings. That's 6 1/4 hours total burn
time. Light was pretty constant, at the end it was about the output of my Infinity. At the
very end, one of the leds quit completely
and the others really dropped in brightness
and started to flicker. I used fresh
2008 Energizers.

This is such a slick looking light and for .50 cents a load I think I'm going to keep it.
One thing I don't like is that it is pretty
heavy for 2AA Mag size light.

-Rebus

 

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Rebus,

I'm glad you had better results. Maybe mine was defective after all. Anything like this visible when you look inside? I should add that the seller promptly sent me a refund check for the purchase price.

Jim

 

[Rebus]

Jim, the O ring in mine is just slightly
out of center, looks like it is probably
sealing ok. Glad you got refunded without
problems. I sure am curious about the
story behind this no-name light. If they
would have increase the tube length and added
one more battery it would probably have
been a real winner.

Camisdad, have you tried yours out yet?

-Rebus

 

[camisdad]

Got mine but haven't had the time to do any comparisons yet - my wife is traveling for a few days and I am Mr Mom full time while she is gone... Should be able to put up a few mini-reviews by the end of next week. I got his 5 and 7 led headlights, plus the AT-785 and a 3 led flashlight with 3 AAAs in a loader as well. I was going to get his lantern too but I was discouraged from it by the posts following its on-line review here. My 785 does not have the assembly problems that galavanter had, but I don't think it has more light.

All 4 of the lights are significantly underdriven. The headlights' plastics cases are somewhat underwhelming. I don't want to give any final conclusion yet until I have done a few beam comparisons with tried and true lights and some run time testing. So far, I am on the doubtful side... I will use the Aurora as a comparison for the headlights, and the Attitude for the flashlights.

Sorry for taking so long

 

[Rebus]

Just to keep this on the radar...

Anyone else had experience with
this light?

-Rebus