This is my first review so if it's up to snuff feel free to move it to the review section and if not it is just some info for others to see.
Streamlight Sidewinder Compact
This is the new Sidewinder Compact from Streamlight.
It is the new CR123 version of the original Sidewinder that ran off of 2 AA batteries. I do not have the original but have scene it and the Compact is just that, more compact at I would say half of the size. The main LED is rated at a max of 45 lumens which is more than twice the original Sidewinder's output. Although there is also a new updated Sidewinder HP which is rated at 50 lumens and runs off of 2 AA batteries.
Information from the package.
Firstly the light comes in a blister pack along with the instructions. the provided battery is in the battery tube but has a piece of paper insulating the negative end so don't forget to remove it.
The light has 4 seperate LED's.
High Performence C4 LED 45 lumens/5.25hr---------Low/70 plus hours
IR/IFF High/14hrs Low 100 plus hours
Red LED High/14hrs Low 100 plus hours
Blue LED High/10hrs High 100plus hours
There are 5 modes for each led. From low to medium to medium high to high. From off you double tap for a blinking. So the strobe is hidden
. So 4 LED's 5 modes=20 Functions in one light.
It has a 185degree articulating head. It is waterproof, has a spring steel clip and fits MOLLE gear.
Weighs 2.4oz. Operational from -40F to 150F
The Good
The light is small as the name suggests. It is shorter than my E1B. I love having a choice of colors for tasks or a main led. Multiple brightness levels from all the led's. The main LED has a decent amount of throw I could light things up easily across my 60 foot wide yard as well as provide very nice spill in front of me for walking. The red and blue LED's are more powerfull than I thought they would be which is nice.
Batteries; Of course it takes primaries and the documentation warns against using anything but the batteries that they specify but boy that didn't stop me no siry Bob. I first threw in a LiFePo4 AW blue label 3.2V and it fit and worked all modes perfectly. Now emboldened I decided to try a AW black lable 16340 3.7V LiIon. Wow it turned on no flickering or anything. I tried all LED's and in all modes and everything worked perfect. Now don't take this as a recomendation to use RCR's in here because it is not. In fact to keep me sane I will most likely only use primaries. So use at your own risk YMMV.
The switch is easy to operate and I was able to maniuplate it with one hand. It hasn't taken me long at all and I have memorized by feel what color I am in, good job there Streamlight. I also have purchased the helmet mount and it is on my Kevlar helmet now. I played with it attatched to the helmet and was able to operate it pretty well on there. I will be putting it throught it's paces at SWAT training next week and I'm sure my head will be slammed into more than one door frame and we will see how well the light as well as the mount hold up.
The Bad
Well some of the good things end up being bad things sometimes. The fact that it's lite comes from that it is plastic. Being plastic it does not have very good thermal properties and therefore why they are not pumping up the output above 45 in my opinion. given the right heatsinking it could be driven much harder. That brings me to another issue.
It may be well known in this community but I have not scene any mention of it. The "New High Performance C4 LED" that is advertised for this and many of the new Streamlights apears to me to be a Cree XR-E emmitter. Mine has the silver ring around it and would guess that it is a Q4 or Q5 the tint is WC or WD. Heres a negative being a positive. Being that I think it is a Cree I would love to swap it for a nice 5A or 5B tint. It does appear although I am not brave enough to try that you can acces the LED's easily with only 4 screw between you and perfection.
Another bad thing to me but not terrible is the standard Cree rings from a SMO reflector. The beam pattern is very ringy with artifacts in the hotspot as well. I believe that this could be easily remidied with a MOP or LOP reflector or at least it could help. Also the lens covering everything is plastic. They say that it is scratch resistan but I'm pretty hard on stuff and I don't think they made it me proof.
One last thing in the bad section. I thought I would like having the IR light. Well that was before I hot to play with it and my 3rd gen goggles. The IR on this unit is less the 5mw and is meant as a IFF. I was hoping to have it usefull as a IR illuminator but it is woefully underpowered for that task and I have no need for identifying friends or foes so I would be better served by maybe a gree or a UV led.
The Ugly
This thing is ugly but in a Quasimodo sort of way. It is a franken light for sure. It apears that they took the cheap route which isn't terrible especially in these money saving days and they used the head off of the original Sidewinder and just slapped on a different powerpack. Not a big deal just thought I would mention that.
Pictures and Thoughts
These first two pictures are some comparison shots.
From left to right; E2DL w/E1B TC, Sidewinder Comp, E1B, Pendtagon light
Heres one by itself.
And with it apart.
This is a picture of the Compact on my Kevlar helmet.
A closer shot on the helmet and you can also see the LED. I think it is a Cree what do you think?
Here is a outdoors shot of the main LED on high. I have my back against one side of my fence and am facing the other side that is 60 feet away. I am kneeling and the light and camera are about 3 feet off of the ground. I adjusted the settings so that it looked almost exactly as I saw it.
Ok the next round of photos are going to be indoor beamshots. They were all taken about 6 feet from the door pictured. I adjusted the manual settings to show how it appeared to me for the most part. The first 4 photos are the main LED Low, Mid 1, Mid 2 and high. As I said this is how it looked to me at time of photos as close as I could get.
The next 4 images are of the E1B compared to the Compact. The Compact is always on the left and the E1B is always on the right. These first two the E1B is in it's low setting 5 lumens and the Compact is in low in the first and high in the second. Again this is an accurateish representation of what I saw.
The next two images are with the E1B right on high 80 lumen and the Compact on low then high on the left.
The next two are of the Compact blue LED on high and low I skipped the middle modes as I am running out of steam on this upload process.
And last but not least the red LED's on high and low. No pictures of the IR of course.
The Wrap Up!
Well some final thoughts here. All in all this is a good light 7/10 not a home run but a good line drive. It fills a gap in my lights that I needed to be filled. I will be using this light daily on and off duty due to it's size and versatility. I may see if someone is able to mod it with a nice mop relfector a 5A tint LED, replace the IR with a green LED and the blue with a UV one. Those few improvements for my personal taste would make this a more funtional item but not by a large amount. I would recomend this to law, fire and military or anyone who wanted a good multipurpose task light that was easy to operate and feels solid with multiple mounting options. I also would like a lower low and a higher high but I wouldn't mind winning the lottery either and yes I would like some cheese with my whine
.
I'm sure I missed something but this is my first try. If you all have any suggestions or requests let me know. I welcome constructive critisizm but be gentle I'm fragile hehe. Well it's late and I'm :tired: so time to say goodbye.
Streamlight Sidewinder Compact
This is the new Sidewinder Compact from Streamlight.
It is the new CR123 version of the original Sidewinder that ran off of 2 AA batteries. I do not have the original but have scene it and the Compact is just that, more compact at I would say half of the size. The main LED is rated at a max of 45 lumens which is more than twice the original Sidewinder's output. Although there is also a new updated Sidewinder HP which is rated at 50 lumens and runs off of 2 AA batteries.
Information from the package.
Firstly the light comes in a blister pack along with the instructions. the provided battery is in the battery tube but has a piece of paper insulating the negative end so don't forget to remove it.
The light has 4 seperate LED's.
High Performence C4 LED 45 lumens/5.25hr---------Low/70 plus hours
IR/IFF High/14hrs Low 100 plus hours
Red LED High/14hrs Low 100 plus hours
Blue LED High/10hrs High 100plus hours
There are 5 modes for each led. From low to medium to medium high to high. From off you double tap for a blinking. So the strobe is hidden
. So 4 LED's 5 modes=20 Functions in one light.It has a 185degree articulating head. It is waterproof, has a spring steel clip and fits MOLLE gear.
Weighs 2.4oz. Operational from -40F to 150F
The Good
The light is small as the name suggests. It is shorter than my E1B. I love having a choice of colors for tasks or a main led. Multiple brightness levels from all the led's. The main LED has a decent amount of throw I could light things up easily across my 60 foot wide yard as well as provide very nice spill in front of me for walking. The red and blue LED's are more powerfull than I thought they would be which is nice.
Batteries; Of course it takes primaries and the documentation warns against using anything but the batteries that they specify but boy that didn't stop me no siry Bob. I first threw in a LiFePo4 AW blue label 3.2V and it fit and worked all modes perfectly. Now emboldened I decided to try a AW black lable 16340 3.7V LiIon. Wow it turned on no flickering or anything. I tried all LED's and in all modes and everything worked perfect. Now don't take this as a recomendation to use RCR's in here because it is not. In fact to keep me sane I will most likely only use primaries. So use at your own risk YMMV.
The switch is easy to operate and I was able to maniuplate it with one hand. It hasn't taken me long at all and I have memorized by feel what color I am in, good job there Streamlight. I also have purchased the helmet mount and it is on my Kevlar helmet now. I played with it attatched to the helmet and was able to operate it pretty well on there. I will be putting it throught it's paces at SWAT training next week and I'm sure my head will be slammed into more than one door frame and we will see how well the light as well as the mount hold up.
The Bad
Well some of the good things end up being bad things sometimes. The fact that it's lite comes from that it is plastic. Being plastic it does not have very good thermal properties and therefore why they are not pumping up the output above 45 in my opinion. given the right heatsinking it could be driven much harder. That brings me to another issue.
It may be well known in this community but I have not scene any mention of it. The "New High Performance C4 LED" that is advertised for this and many of the new Streamlights apears to me to be a Cree XR-E emmitter. Mine has the silver ring around it and would guess that it is a Q4 or Q5 the tint is WC or WD. Heres a negative being a positive. Being that I think it is a Cree I would love to swap it for a nice 5A or 5B tint. It does appear although I am not brave enough to try that you can acces the LED's easily with only 4 screw between you and perfection.
Another bad thing to me but not terrible is the standard Cree rings from a SMO reflector. The beam pattern is very ringy with artifacts in the hotspot as well. I believe that this could be easily remidied with a MOP or LOP reflector or at least it could help. Also the lens covering everything is plastic. They say that it is scratch resistan but I'm pretty hard on stuff and I don't think they made it me proof.
One last thing in the bad section. I thought I would like having the IR light. Well that was before I hot to play with it and my 3rd gen goggles. The IR on this unit is less the 5mw and is meant as a IFF. I was hoping to have it usefull as a IR illuminator but it is woefully underpowered for that task and I have no need for identifying friends or foes so I would be better served by maybe a gree or a UV led.
The Ugly
This thing is ugly but in a Quasimodo sort of way. It is a franken light for sure. It apears that they took the cheap route which isn't terrible especially in these money saving days and they used the head off of the original Sidewinder and just slapped on a different powerpack. Not a big deal just thought I would mention that.
Pictures and Thoughts
These first two pictures are some comparison shots.
From left to right; E2DL w/E1B TC, Sidewinder Comp, E1B, Pendtagon light
Heres one by itself.
And with it apart.
This is a picture of the Compact on my Kevlar helmet.
A closer shot on the helmet and you can also see the LED. I think it is a Cree what do you think?
Here is a outdoors shot of the main LED on high. I have my back against one side of my fence and am facing the other side that is 60 feet away. I am kneeling and the light and camera are about 3 feet off of the ground. I adjusted the settings so that it looked almost exactly as I saw it.
Ok the next round of photos are going to be indoor beamshots. They were all taken about 6 feet from the door pictured. I adjusted the manual settings to show how it appeared to me for the most part. The first 4 photos are the main LED Low, Mid 1, Mid 2 and high. As I said this is how it looked to me at time of photos as close as I could get.
The next 4 images are of the E1B compared to the Compact. The Compact is always on the left and the E1B is always on the right. These first two the E1B is in it's low setting 5 lumens and the Compact is in low in the first and high in the second. Again this is an accurateish representation of what I saw.
The next two images are with the E1B right on high 80 lumen and the Compact on low then high on the left.
The next two are of the Compact blue LED on high and low I skipped the middle modes as I am running out of steam on this upload process.
And last but not least the red LED's on high and low. No pictures of the IR of course.
The Wrap Up!
Well some final thoughts here. All in all this is a good light 7/10 not a home run but a good line drive. It fills a gap in my lights that I needed to be filled. I will be using this light daily on and off duty due to it's size and versatility. I may see if someone is able to mod it with a nice mop relfector a 5A tint LED, replace the IR with a green LED and the blue with a UV one. Those few improvements for my personal taste would make this a more funtional item but not by a large amount. I would recomend this to law, fire and military or anyone who wanted a good multipurpose task light that was easy to operate and feels solid with multiple mounting options. I also would like a lower low and a higher high but I wouldn't mind winning the lottery either and yes I would like some cheese with my whine
. I'm sure I missed something but this is my first try. If you all have any suggestions or requests let me know. I welcome constructive critisizm but be gentle I'm fragile hehe. Well it's late and I'm :tired: so time to say goodbye.
