Solarforce R2 Drop-In (pix)

[lewong]

I bought one of the eBay Solarforce drop-ins. It is advertised as 290 lumens (seems unlikely), maximum. The five modes are: strobe, 3 levels of brightness and S.O.S. It was $27.99 USD plus $3.00 shipping. It showed up today in the mail and I was shocked, because delivery from China, where the vendor is located, took only 10 days (I'm in California).

The sandwich unscrewed easily from the reflector. I have the spring through the lamp hole in the reflector just to hold the sandwich for the photograph:

For a comparison test, I used fully charged Ultrafire RCR123 batteries and Ultrafire 502B flashlights with switches replaced with Judco SPST 519PB-ND I bought from Digi-Key. The other P60 size drop-in was a generic Cree P4 module.

In the first beamshot, the Cree P4 and it put out much less light compared to the Solarforce R2 drop-in.

The second beam shot uses the first two modules, but is underexposed 1.5 stops to maximize the visual difference in the two beams:

So did I find a brighter light? I have the feeling I did. It's definitely brighter than my Ultrafire C2 Q5.

Will I be able to use a Minolta Light Meter to measure EV if I point the hottest part of the beam at the dome?

 

[Vikas Sontakke]

Can you measure the battery current in each case?

Thanks,
- Vikas

 

[lewong]

Vikas, I don't have :sigh: an ammeter right now but I will measure and let you know when I get it.

 

[Sir Lightalot]

All the R2s don't have a phosphor coating if I'm not mistaken. Maybe really early batches did but it looks like that's not an R2...:duh2:

 

[bspofford]

Got mine today with Solarforce light (reverse clicky, AR glass & assault bezel) for $34 shipped. Nice slightly warm tint and large hotspot.

 

[lewong]

I've never measured current before.

I unscrewed the switch and held the negative meter probe to the negative terminal on the battery. I touched the positive meter probe to the bare metal threads on the case.

For the Solarforce Cree R2, I measured .232 amps.

For the generic Cree P4 drop-in, I measured .345 amps.

Does that make sense?

I don't know how accurate this is, but I put the lens of each light directly on the half "ping pong" diffuser on a Minolta Autometer IIIF set at ISO 32. For the Solarforce I got an EV of 14.9, for the generic P4 drop-in, I got and EV of 13.9.