What am I paying for?

I have been looking at P7 based flashlights for a powerful but compact LED flashlight solution. (carrying an extra battery or two seems to me to be a more versatile solution than having a much longer/fatter torch) I find a wolf-eyes sniper for around $200 and very similarly specced Aurora (for example) for around $40 - same battery, same aluminium type of casing, same LED - probably similar output (find it hard to beleive it gets the full 900 lumen). what am I paying for extra with the Wolf eyes - better finish on the casing, nicer reflector, - but what really in terms of function? Can anyone persuade me its worthwhile to pay the extra??
btw I have read some of the reviews on DX, and I am prepared to pay the extra if I can be persuaded its really worth it. (I would love to go and try them out but that is not going to happen)

The extra money goes to feed and support the quality control elves that deliver working products.

I would rather have them on my side than not!
:welcome:

I mean it may still be questionable as to whether or not is worth it, but in all likelihood the WE is a better light. The build will in all likelihood be better and higher quality lights often do get more out of their leds in terms of lumens and battery life. Although whether or not that is really worth an extra 160 bucks is definitely questionable.....I feel like I've heard bad things about auroras though, if you want to go with dx that is fine but i would try and find a different brand I think

Wolf Eyes build quality and customer service are both worth all the extra clams. Plus the light will be shipped on time and it's much easier to get a hold of a dealer in the US than from over sea's.

Some one else posted in one of the recent threads that every P7 that was bought off of DX had failed, either it didn't work at first turn on or they died within just a couple of weeks of use and needed to be rebuilt/repaired. so figure it out from there. Some were easily fixed but they all needed some type of work from the customer.

Chances are that if you buy the single 18650 battery format P7 light, that it will have problems and not run for very long and not be anywhere near the brightness claimed. Do a better search of the threads where guys had bought one of those things and either had to put in a new driver or gave up on it.

Good luck.

When the SSC-P7 lights first came out all the manufacturers worked hard to make sure they worked. I only read of 1 DOA light in the first 2 months.

The quality seem to go downhill on some models lately.
A 1*18650 light in all 3 DX reviews the customer had to fix problems before the light would work.
A 2*18650 light 2 CPF members reported the light died soon after arrival. Apparently the circuit cannot handle the load.

It is buyer beware time. Read the reviews at DX and here for LACK OF RELIABILITY reports before buying.

-----

The SSC-P7 uses up 10+ watts of energy. The smaller brighter lights can get too hot to hold on max (even my big 3C P7 M@g gets hot all the way to the tailcap though I have no problem holding it). Runtime is under 1 hour on max (1*18650). That is why I recommend getting a 5 mode. Run in medium normally. Go to max only when you need to. The circuitry seem to limit the amperage so they are not the brightest.

-----

In general 1st generation DX P7 torches play safe and run at 2.2A (instead of 2.8A). They worked fine. The timing of the UI of the multimodes is a PITA.
A lot of the 'fixes' is bypassing the dropping resistors and upgrading the wire to run at the full 2.8A for maximum brightness. The fix is not a problem with the torch but an upgrade by the brightness freaks.

With people asking what the pill is made of the 2nd generation torches use copper heatsinks (practically all the custom P7 m@gmods use copper heatsinks). Unfortunately some manufacturers do not know what they are doing. They put the LED on a board or star with glop, then attach the board or star to the heatsink with more glop instead of thermal epoxying the LED directly to the heatsink. This defeats the purpose of using a copper heatsink so look at the pictures carefully and if you see a board between the LED and the heatsink stay away.

With the thrower freaks refusing to buy the floody P7 lights the 3rd generation have big heads/reflectors. The heads went from ~37 mm to ~55 mm. (see picture below)

As 1*18650 cannot power the P7 for long at full brightness the 4th generation uses 2*18650. Unfortunately the circuits do not seem to be able to carry the load.

With everybody and his brother assembling P7 torches the number of problem units are increasing. A lot of manufacturers do not have R&D departments and just copy what they see others doing.

Quality control has been dropping steadily at the DX manufacturers.
I used to recommend the MTE 1AA sku1995 and Ultrafire C3. Due to recent reported problems I can no longer recommend them.
My 1st P7 torch which I am reasonably happy with (after I figured out the UI) is made by the same manufacturer as the problem 1*18650 torch linked to in paragraph 2. I do not know whether the problem is in one model or has spread to all torches by that manufacturer.

P7 3C M@g left stock 52 mm reflector, MTE SSC P7 5-Mode right 37 mm head.
This should give some idea of how the different size reflectors affect beam shape.

the whole quality control issue sounds quite worrying. One would hope with the Wolf eyes costing 4x the price one is paying for a well sorted machine that performs as expected. I read the recent sniper review on cpf and it sounded pretty favourable - but its still a lot of money to put down on a technology that perhaps is not yet mature.

If your going to pay the extra for a P7 light, then get a good one
Why risk the disappointment of getting a light that is DOA.
Just remember, what you pay for is what you get

One extra consideration for you. In the case of the WE P7 Sniper, I am sure that you can buy other components from the WE range and build up different configurations......get the D26 head with either incan or LED drop-ins, purchase the 168 extender (and a wire ring) and end up with a 9V light with an LF EO-9 lamp up front and a LED tailcap on the other end. Could end up with a nice WE Lego kit for all occasions.