Opinion on Chinese LT015 AA 8-LED?

sb56637

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LumenHound

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You twist the tailcap to turn the light on or off. The battery goes in backwards. It's an OK light for not a lot of money.
 

phosphor

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I've got one from here : http://www.lighthound.com/sales/multi-led_flashlights.htm. Buy from John and you get a free bright, nifty little key chain light.....although Dae has free shipping, I think.
I treat my little Xnova like an unwanted stepchild because its so dirt cheap.....it gets more abuse than any light I own.....and still its my everyday carry light in the house. Fulfills every function I need or ask, night after night. PERHAPS it's one of the best inexpensive single AA's available. Do a "search" here on the forums for the Xnova to read what others have said about it.
Yes..the light turns on and off by twisting the tail cap....however I screw the tail cap to the "on" position, and leave it that way and use the bezel as a "twistie" to turn the light off and on. By turning the bezel a 3/4 turn past the "off" position one can just push on the head for momentary "on". Works for me.
Of course we're talking about a $6.00 light here.......you get what you pay for....still I think these are remarkable little lights for the money. I could make this light work for me under many different circumstances. Actually...I do !

-regards
 
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Nyctophiliac

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Welcome to CPF!!

Not a bad light at all. I let my Kids use them all the time, very robust and quite bright for 1 AA. The twelve led ones are also very good. Cheap enough to buy lots and stick 'em in people's birthday or xmas cards etc...

Not quite good enough for EDC for a Flashaholic but nice 'toys'.


Be lucky...
 

sb56637

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Ah hah! They're called Xnovas. That makes it easier to find info. Thank you all for the welcome and for your replies! I'm amazed I actually found any info on this, I assumed it was just an obscure foreign eBay item that nobody else in the world had ever heard of! ;-)

I'm glad to hear you all think the quality is acceptable. I wasn't expecting a German engineering military-grade instrument here, but I was hoping it would be durable. And for $4/ea, I won't complain too much.

This link: https://www.candlepowerforums.com/posts/1263835&postcount=7 is helpful, regarding O-rings that fit around the tailcap. I bought it for carrying on my keychain and in my pocket, but I had visions after making my purchase of carrying it suspended from the tailcap with the cap loose and coming off and the battery falling out. Either that, or accidentally turning it on in my pocket as friction spins the switch. Any experiences here?

And what about the claimed battery life from my eBay seller? They're claiming 30+ hours, another seller I e-mailed told me >24hrs. This is a far cry from the 2+ hours in the review here: http://www.flashlightreviews.com/reviews/sz_8led_1aa.htm But even 2 hrs is nothing to complain about, especially since it uses just an AA.

Thanks for your help!
 

nerdgineer

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sb56637 said:
...And what about the claimed battery life from my eBay seller? They're claiming 30+ hours, another seller I e-mailed told me >24hrs. This is a far cry from the 2+ hours in the review here: http://www.flashlightreviews.com/reviews/sz_8led_1aa.htm But even 2 hrs is nothing to complain about, especially since it uses just an AA...
There are at least 2 versions of this light around: a brighter one and a less bright one. The brighter one was tested at around 2 hours in the FLR you note above. I have several of the less bright ones :)mecry:). However, their run time was better. My testing showed a run time curve similar to that of the 12 LED 1AA light reviewed here with a longer tail: it went about 5.5 hours to 50% and was still running at 25% 10 hours later. Still very useful. Boring it out was a pain but did improve the beam pattern.
 

Illum

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sucks...

Bought 1 8LED UV and 1 8LED white...

Switch is twist on twist off, but tempermental, since the body also twists off the head, theres two weak contact points.

inside the head is essentially brown epoxy in a hard paper shell with sometype of regulating model...but the UV one from ebay was dim at startup...no regulation [odd], and the white one only lights if I turn it bezel up.

Id say save your money....

the aluminum was lighter than usual, tailcap easily dented and paint scratches off when scraped with a pen's body [I try to EDC it]

You really get what you pay for on Ebay...
 

carbine15

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your talking about two totaly different lights. he's asking about the one that takes one AA battery not the ones that take three AAA batteries. The heads to not screw off.. they are held on by compression. they are very difficult to remove.
 

nerdgineer

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carbine15 said:
your talking about two totaly different lights. he's asking about the one that takes one AA battery not the ones that take three AAA batteries. The heads to not screw off.. they are held on by compression. they are very difficult to remove.
Uh..I'm not sure which one Illum is talking about but the head of my Xnova does screw off. The light engine and LEDs are held IN the head by compression (and difficult to remove - you have to freeze and pop like 3 times) but the whole head does come off.

I forgot to mention that I did find the switch on mine to be balky. This was due to the switch body being a little long and was remedied by grinding off a little (like 1 mm) from the end of the tail switch body (not the main body) so it would screw in further. That gave a positive contact at the switch and made it really solid.

Just my 2 cents in case anyone was having intermittent contact problems with the switch on the Xnova.
 

sb56637

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Good info!

So how many turns of the tailcap to get from full "on" to "off" position? And from "off", how many turns are left before the cap comes off? Is the cap still firmly seated when it's in the "off" position, or does it rock back and forth?

Nerdengineer, I think you're right, now I'm really curious to see what my purchase turns out to be. There's a version that has a body that smoothly tapers all the way to the head. Then there's the one reviewed here: http://www.flashlightreviews.com/reviews/sz_8led_1aa.htm . Notice the silver ring just below the head. Then there's the ones I just bought, http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=ADME:B:EOIBSAA:US:11&Item=270011062239 notice that these don't have the silver ring. Who knows if the electronics are all identical inside, or if it's actually slightly different electronics to go with the different battery. The light above at sz_8led_1aa.htm with the silver ring seems to have a shorter battery life, but at this thread: https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/111320&highlight=Xnova" it appears that a similar version has a much better life. I'm hoping that mine are the versions with the ~8 hr battery life, since they don't have the silver ring.

I'll let you know in about two weeks, if all goes well. :)
 

nerdgineer

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I think both higher and lower power Xnova's come in the silver ringed bodies (and maybe the other bodies as well). In general, I think there are a lot more lower powered versions out there than higher powered versions so chances are good that's what you'll get.

Enjoy them when they come...
 

JohnK

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Heck, the newer (brighter) version is the best bang for the buck around.

I believe I've bought 40, most given away to children/grandchildren, and friends.

Everyone loves the light.

I have five sprinkled around the house/cars.

The output rivals some one watt Lux lights I've had.
 

sb56637

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Well, good! Whatever I end up with, it sounds like it should be a decent product all around. I did have some misgivings immediately after making the purchase, but really, I'm too tight to spend much more for a really nice flashlight. Glad to hear that I wasn't scammed!
 

LumenHound

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sb56637 said:
Good info!

So how many turns of the tailcap to get from full "on" to "off" position? And from "off", how many turns are left before the cap comes off? Is the cap still firmly seated when it's in the "off" position, or does it rock back and forth?
I have 3 of them. On mine you have to turn the cap 3 and a half revolutions from full ON to get to the point where it falls off the back of the battery tube. ON is fully tightened down. On mine It only takes about 10 degrees of tail cap rotation to go from ON to OFF. The tailcap seems fairly tight on mine but if you find yours a bit loose you could always wrap a few turns of plumbers teflon thread tape on the threads to firm the cap up to battery tube.
 

sb56637

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LumenHound said:
...you could always wrap a few turns of plumbers teflon thread tape on the threads to firm the cap up to battery tube.

Good idea! Might be cheaper than the O-rings that were recommended in a thread elsewhere on these forums. Well, not that the O-rings are exactly expensive either. I'm just an incorrigible tightwad! :grin2:

Cool, thanks for the info.
 

sb56637

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Still waiting..... :whistle:

Meanwhile, I've been researching the brightness vs. runtime factor. FYI, for anyone new who runs across this thread, it would appear that:

1. The oldest version of the Xnova has a domed end cap and no silver ring below the head. The battery is inserted with negative facing out. It runs at a lower power, but has longer battery life.

2. The new version appears to be this one: http://www.lighthound.com/sales/multi-led_flashlights.htm It has a flat end cap, maybe 2mm shorter than #1, a silver ring below the head, and the battery is installed with positive facing out. It appears that most versions are brighter, at the expense of battery life.

3. There is also a version that looks identical to #2, but is dimmer, with better battery life. According to https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/111320&highlight=xnova+hours the ones at http://www.qualitychinagoods.com/8-led-xnova-p-373.html are actually the dimmer ones with longer battery life.


It appears that mine, the LT015 have a domed end cap and no silver ring, so I am fairly sure they are the old version #1, dimmer with better battery life. I would have preferred to get #3, if I had known this ahead of time. Oh well, like I said before, they all look pretty nice, and they're cheap enough so you can try them all. If only they all had a definite model number, that could be used to correlate brightness/battery life to model.

I'll be back with a review when I can..... :)
 
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