I think ULTRAFIRE finally got it right.

Ordered a ULTRAFIRE WF602A1 single AA from FIFTHUNIT.COM on Oct 5th. Got it yesterday. Took it apart and noticed it was different from the one I got from QUALITY CHINA GOODS about a month ago. The switch is completely different. Looks like a different switch and lock ring that holds it in. Looked at the LED end and noticed alot more solder there than usual. So I decided to do a run time test to see if failed to come on when the battery dropped to 1.2 volts. Turned it on for 15 min on,15 min off till I had a total of 1 hour of burn time. Still worked great. Still very bright(Brighter than my Nuwai x-1 and My Huntlight FTA2). Got up this morning and ran it for 30 min and turned it off for 5min. It still came back on. Its probably dropped to about 60% brightness now. Left it off for an hour and turned it on for another 30 min. Its still came back on after a 5 min rest. probably about 50 % brightness now. So thats 2 hours of run time with no problems at all. No flickering,no dimming and still comes back on. Im going to order a couple of more and hope they are the same. Maybe ULTRAFIRE has finally got it right.

BATTERY WAS A DURACELL ULTRA.

Outstanding! That's what I've been waiting for. Brighter than the Nuwaii X-1 and still lights up at low voltage. Speaking of which, do you have a DMM to measure the battery voltage? Letting an Alkaline rest, however shortly, allows the voltage to come back up. Do you have a Ni-MH (rechargeable AA) that you could try? Great thanks again and best regards.

:goodjob::thanks:

Battrery was a DURACELL ULTRA. Dont have any rechargables. I just checked the battery on a multimeter.(A VERY OLD MULTIMETER) I think it was set for DC VOLTS. It read 0.02. I checked it against a new battery and read 0.05. Im guessing it means the battery is more than half drained?

Hmmm. Yes, if a new one measures 0.05 and the current one measures 0.02 then I would also interpret that to be less than half the voltage. I'm going to guess your MM has a needle and a couple of different colored lines with a felective stip as well, right?

I have one of these newer fifthunit Ultrafire 602A1 as well (looks the the same as the pics above), and it has no starting voltage restriction. Alkaline and NiMH batteries will start even after my ZTS battery meter reports zero for them. My DMM reports NIMH batteries starting as low 0.75V. Basically, I've run both types of batteries down until the light is about 2% of initial output, and unit will still re-start.

However, in my sample, the head did not make contact with the body and would not come on. I had to use either a copper or solder ring in the head for it make contact (alternatively, you could file down the head piece - see various threads here on the topic).

Beam is very white, and brightness is comparable to my best Civictor (which is up to 20% brighter than my other civictor, Fenix L1S, and Liteflux LF1 1AA)

As for runtimes, light is nicely regulated, but I only get 39mins to 50% on duracell alkaline, and 1hr 3min to 50% with duracell 2300mAh NiMH. But after that, it drops into a nice long moon-mode.

A very nice light for ~$20 shipped, but when you consider my ~$30 Fenix L1S or Civictor get about 2 hours to 50% on alkaline, and close to 3 hours on NiMH, it doesn't seem as great a deal. Plus one minor nit-pick - the 602A1 doesn't tail-stand, unlike the others I've mentioned.

This light has now run for 2 hours and 35 min. Its about 15-20% brightness. I turned it off for 5 min and it still came back on. I think the rest of the day Im going to do arun time test with ENERGIZER LITHIUM. Ill keep you posted.

looks like Jetbeam

The retaining ring and the switch modul looks very similar to the one in Jetbeam JET1...

mhubble, are you speaking of the light that FIFTHUNIT.COM calls "CHARM" or the one that they call "VIPPA"? I can't see the WF602A1 on either of these lights on their website, and they both take a single AA battery.

Its the one called "VIPPA". I dont think fifthunit uses the model numbers. I got the model number from quality china goods.

This is it.
http://contents.fifthunit.com/html/products.5th/sku.927.html

I really hope they fixed the 1.2V starting issue, cos tat's the reason why I have not got one yet. I really like the GITD tailcap.

I hope so too. I just ordered 5 more(most are going to be XMAS presents).Well see when they get here.

mhubble said:

I hope so too. I just ordered 5 more(most are going to be XMAS presents).Well see when they get here.

Click to expand...

I wish they had the HA-III version. Dae's site got the HA-III version but Fifthunit is not carrying them.

Im in the middle of a run time test with this light using an ENERGIZER LITHIUM AA. After 2 hours of run time its still at about 65% brightness. Been running it 15 min on, 15 min off. The last one was 30 on,30 off. The first hour it gets pretty hot. But the battery wasnt hot. Its back on now for another 30 min run.

EDIT
The light lasted another 20 min and quickly dropped off to nothing. Battery is dead at 2 hours 20 min. The light stayed brighter longer on the lithium but the run time was about 15 min shorter.

And yes thats a GID tailcap.

looks like a gid tailcap.

See my previous posts

https://www.candlepowerforums.com/posts/1596564&postcount=25

abvidledUK, Thanks for the info. I had read a couple of your posts before and that was the reason I tried one from fifthunit. You really cant beat this light for the money.

Same here, 1:30+ runtime on-off on cheap "batteries.com" batteries. My favorite flashlight.

Still, Ultrafire has a while to go before they "get it right". Their old model 602A could tailstand. And runtime is still bad compared to the Civictor. Not that I regret choosing this light over the Civictor, since I bought another flashlight with the money I would have paid for more runtime.

Is it easy to get to the LED to do an emitter swap with this light?

Rather than start a new thread, I thought I'd post my run-times here for the exact same version of this light I received from fifthunit last week:\



Note that the 602A1 and Civictor V1 were nearly equivalent in initial output (measured as throw in this case). Also note that this V1 (which I got a few weeks ago from 4sevens) has about 15-20% more throw on alkalines that my older V1, or my Fenix L1S or Liteflux LF1 on high in 1AA mode. As you might expect, run times on my slightly dimmer V1 were even longer than shown above.

While the 602A1 seems like a good deal, time to 50% on the equally bright Civictor was 3X longer on alkalines and 2.5X longer on NiMH. I find that pretty significant, especially when you consider the V1 costs only about 40% more at present (i.e. 602A1 is $18.46 shipped from fifthunit, and the V1 is $25.65 shipped from fenix-store.com with 5% CPF rebate).

My 602A1 also had a contact problem with the head, requiring me to put a thin solder ring to help it make contact. Not a big deal for me, but could be a potential problem for a non-flashholic.

Don't get me wrong - I think the 602A1 is nice light overall, and should really shine on 14500 rechargeables (I'm waiting on my Lighthound order to test them out). With appropriate guilt-free lumens, I think this could be a real winner. But for the average joe, I think you're better off sticking with the Civictor.

EDIT: My runtimes are continuous run, using brand new regular Duracell alkalines.

EDIT #2: See my update graph with 14500 rechargeables down below - very impressive result for the 602A1!

Thanks for the runtime chart. My light seemed to last alot longer than what your chart says. With duracell ultra my light Had run for an hour before I saw a drop in brightness. With energizer lithium it was about 1 hour and 30 min.When you did your test was it a continuous run or on and off like I did mine?

Ive owned a fenix L1P, but not a civictor(I dont like twist heads). The L1P is a great light but I found my HUNTLIGHT FTA2 was brighter,whiter and lasted longer. But the Ultrafire is brighter than both of them but doesnt last as long.

For everyday people who dont know much about lights I think the Ultrafire is perfect.(I ordered 5 more yesterday that will be xmas presents.) For people who know about lights, My choice is the HUNTLIGHT FTA2. I will admit I didnt like the switch on the HUNTLIGHT. It is way too hard to push. But I fixed that by adding a .030 Plastic disk to the inside of the rubber cap.