"eBay" lights

There are literally hundreds of "no name" flashlights listed on eBay, most from Hong Kong. Are any of them worth buying? Any with good throw?

Thanks for your input.

I love CPF (and I think I'm addicted to these forums; I read through them almost every day).

-- Laura

Helo Laura I too would like to know...I do know that alot of people buy and like some no name lightrs from fifthunit.com...For the price on some of these lights I too am very interested...But like with anythign else you get what you pay for, my assumption would be that the output might be good but the contruction will not be as good as osme of our favorite brands and water resistance might not be as good? But this is onyl my assumtion...Hiopefully everyone else will chime in with some personal experience and let us know if they are worth the money...

I'm hoping there are some hidden gems that might be worth adding to the collection. I've been eyeing the P1 clone made by Ultrafire.

cutlerylover said:

Helo Laura I too would like to know...I do know that alot of people buy and like some no name lightrs from fifthunit.com...For the price on some of these lights I too am very interested...But like with anythign else you get what you pay for, my assumption would be that the output might be good but the contruction will not be as good as osme of our favorite brands and water resistance might not be as good? But this is onyl my assumtion...Hiopefully everyone else will chime in with some personal experience and let us know if they are worth the money...

Click to expand...

The ultrafire and smartfire lights are pretty nice for the money. Good reliable sources for these lights are fifthunit.com and qualitychinagoods.com and IIRC some CPF members had good experiences with ebayvendor hkequipment.

I bought the GLIMT, VINET, and ELLY from fifthunit.com.

1- GLIMT- bright, good throw, runs a little hot with 2 RCR123 3.6v batteries which is recommended for brightness.
2- VINET- This little flashlight is great with good throw, bright, and only 4 inches long. Runs best on RCR123 3.6v batteries. The beam is not perfect, but it is a great little flashlight for the money.
3- ELLY- For the money and running on 1 AA battery it does pretty good on output...25-30 lumens, 2 hour runtime, beam slightly yellowish in the center with good focus. decent throw.

Very reliable seller and great customer service.

Thanks guys for the good word on some clones...is it hit and miss with these? I mean can you get a nice light from the same company but then another one might be crappy? Or are each style consistantly good or bad?

I bought a light on Ebay once, before joining here, the auction was $3 and came with a free knife.
The light turned out to be known as a "Silver Ghost", cheapie multi LED that works great, and runs forever..
That was my only random auction light story.

I remember the days when there were just a few pages of LED lights on eBay and one could easily scroll through them all...Now? HA! It's like a neverending adventure game!

There's still some good things to be had, but a lot of trash litters their hallways as well! I typically see what else the seller has for sale, their rep, etc...

Sorry, no real help from my post - just remembering "the old days"!

Well its good that there are many more lights avaliable but it sucks because you have to filter through all the crap, same deal with knives on ebay...And I remember when ebay was kind of new and you could find some GREAT bargains...but now...there are so many people looking to buy everythign that you just don't see the same kinds of prices for stuff...and don't even get me started on snipers...damn ebay...lol

I sort out all the non-US auctions, it's just easier this way with paypal issues (no paypal protection in Thailand) and also keeping the greenbuck fish wrapper in the country.

Sometimes you get a good deal on brand name lights. Usually, there is a set price "buy it now" or they start with a high reserve.

They don't have a really good selection of NiMH cells or chargers it's totally hit and miss.

A lot of the Chinese lights are also sold through

Lighthound in the USA (he sells thru eBay too)
http://lighthound.com/

Fifthunit in Hong Kong
http://contents.fifthunit.com/html/products.5th/category.2.html

qualitychinagoods in China (also known as Dae's site on CPF)
http://www.qualitychinagoods.com/flashlights-c-76.html

advancedmart in the USA
http://store.advancedmart.com/fllipr.html

There is a better chance finding a review/discussion of the lights from these companies than one on eBay.

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Lights with lots of throw seem to be the 7W Golston using expensive CR123A batteries
http://www.qualitychinagoods.com/luxeon-lights-c-76_87_91.html

Or Fifthunit's blimp using 3AAA batteries
http://contents.fifthunit.com/html/products.5th/sku.851.html

EDIT -just saw your comment on the Ultrafire P1 clone on your 2nd post.

Ultrafire P1 clone at Lighthound. Ships from the USA.
http://lighthound.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=2352

Ultrafire P1 clone at Fifthunit. Ships from Hong Kong.
http://contents.fifthunit.com/html/products.5th/sku.901.html

Ultrafire P1 clone at Dae's. Ships from China
http://www.qualitychinagoods.com/ultrafirereg-1xlir123a-wf602d-regulated-p-482.html

Yeah now is not the time to find bargains as people are holiday shopping so there are more people than usual on ebay.

Anyhow, as for the fifthunit lights.......a lot of them look great but some of them have REALLY bad runtimes......... I have my eye on the blimp...seems too good to be true.

One other point - this may be irrelevant on this forum, but I was shopping for some memory for a digicam and heard that a lot of memory on ebay was fake, meaning brand names.

I wouldnm't be surprised if the same thing exists with brand name lights, or at least LEDs. Nichia isn't Nichia or whatever.

Also many fraudulent cells.

Buy from those with high feedback, and ask past buyers if they are happy, etc. You can get a lot of good deals on ebay but you swim in shark-infested waters.

10% are ok, like Smartfire, ultrafire, LEDlenser ect, the rest are just not worth buying.
I would stay away from those Chinese ripoff dealers that are more than glad to take your money and will charge a furtune to ship there rubbish to you.

+1 on Lighthound and FifthUnit -- buy from a quality vendor and you can get a good price and good service, and HE worries about weeding out the crappy lights!

What excellent information! Thank you for taking the time to post this.

LEDninja said:

A lot of the Chinese lights are also sold through

Lighthound in the USA (he sells thru eBay too)
http://lighthound.com/

Fifthunit in Hong Kong
http://contents.fifthunit.com/html/products.5th/category.2.html

qualitychinagoods in China (also known as Dae's site on CPF)
http://www.qualitychinagoods.com/flashlights-c-76.html

advancedmart in the USA
http://store.advancedmart.com/fllipr.html

There is a better chance finding a review/discussion of the lights from these companies than one on eBay.

-----

Lights with lots of throw seem to be the 7W Golston using expensive CR123A batteries
http://www.qualitychinagoods.com/luxeon-lights-c-76_87_91.html

Or Fifthunit's blimp using 3AAA batteries
http://contents.fifthunit.com/html/products.5th/sku.851.html

EDIT -just saw your comment on the Ultrafire P1 clone on your 2nd post.

Ultrafire P1 clone at Lighthound. Ships from the USA.
http://lighthound.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=2352

Ultrafire P1 clone at Fifthunit. Ships from Hong Kong.
http://contents.fifthunit.com/html/products.5th/sku.901.html

Ultrafire P1 clone at Dae's. Ships from China
http://www.qualitychinagoods.com/ultrafirereg-1xlir123a-wf602d-regulated-p-482.html

Click to expand...

I bought a few of the Chinese lights on eBay. The most recent was the 128 LED light (yup, that's the number of LEDs.)

It has no throw to speak of, but I use it as a light table by placing a piece of white paper over the bed of LEDs. Good for photographing small objects, jewelry, etc.

Of course "eBay lights" can be anything, too. I've seen titanium Exolions, Surefires, and nice ARC LS there.

I bought 10 SF M1s in one lot from a seller on eBay.

Regards,

Mark