Crelant V01A: Review, Impression etc - for submission in the Reviews forum

njet212

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Jul 30, 2009
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324
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Crelant is kind of fairly new manufacture from China, their products is mildly priced ( it is relatively not cheap nor expensive ). Recently they just released flashlight designed for EDC / Key-Chain light, it's Crelant V01A. Available in various color and it's quite eye catching. Scroll down below for more information and detail about V01A.






SPESIFICATION

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MSRP: $17,99
More Detail click here


PACKAGING, CONTENT

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Comes in a tin box, packaging is really simple and easy to open ( i like this kind of packaging instead of blister which is relatively difficult to open ). Inside the packaging you got V01A, Pocket Clip, 2 O-rings and Manual. No split ring and battery included inside the packaging.


SIZE

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left to right: Eneloop AAA - Olight i3S - SWM R02A - Crelant V01A - Thrunite Ti2 - Inova XS

Crelant V01A size is quite standard size for single AAA flashlight, it is not the shortest nor the longest one among the similar light. But for Key-Chain set up i would prefer something shorter and slimmer.


BUILD QUALITY, FEATURES

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Anodized for V01A is using HA Type II instead of HA Type III. So the HA is fairly easy to come off, in fact i tried to remove the pocket clip and it was scratching the HA of V01A. There is knurling along the battery tube, knurling i would say providing enough traction.

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Flashlight comes with 2 piece design, it is head and battery tube. Thread is anodized and it is not squared cut but it's quite smooth to twist. There is no reverse polarity design, when installing the battery make sure to put it on correct polarity.

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There is fins along the flashlight head, this has three function it is to dissipate heats, as an anti roll and to provide some traction while twisting the head. I feel it is slippery and quite difficult twisting using 1 hand ( it's not comfortable but you can still do it ) but with 2 hands it is much more easier.

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On my sample LED is perfectly centered, it's use orange peel reflector. Around the glass the is a stainless bezel to protect from impact, the glass also coated. It's still use old XP-E instead of the latest XP-E2.

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There is a split ring hole at the tail of V01A if you want to carry it as a key chain flashlight. Clip is removeable but it is quite difficult to remove it, as i mentioned earlier it could scratch the and took of HA of V01A when you remove and even put it back on. Clip is provided enough grip when you clipped it on your clothes.

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Because of the design of flat tail, you can tail stand it quite easy and it have good balance at least compared with tail design on Thrunite Ti2 and Sunwayman R02A which is a bit tricky if you want to tail stand them.


BATTERY

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Crelant V01A has wide range voltage, ranged from 0.8 - 4.2 volt. So you can use AAA Alkaline, Nimh or 10440 at your choice. For 10440 i will recommend to use protected battery, because when i did test on 10440 it sucked my battery juice till almost empty ( measured the end voltage was 1,8 volt ) there is no low voltage circuit protection on V01A.


BEAM SHOT, USER INTERFACE, RUNTIME

User interface is quite simple and easy to use.

From off ( head loosened ) twist the had clockwise till it's on, twist the head counter clockwise to turn it off.

To change the mode twist the head ( loosened-tightened ) till you get your desired mode. It has only 2 modes High and Low, the flashlight always start on high mode and there is no memory function.



**** BEAMSHOT COMING SOON ****

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Crelant claim maximum output for 108 lumen is quite believeable, that exact relative lumen i measured on my home made sphere ( measured after 3 mins light was turn on ). I don't have quality 10440 since i think using this kind of battery on AAA light is just not for practical use, maybe with quality 10440 you will get different result compared with my blue Ultrafire 10440.

On low mode, Crelant stated 35 lumen on their website. My relative measurement it's shows 3 lumen ( on 10440 ) and 2 lumen ( on Nimh ). Looking at the data above, i'm guessing that Crelant might did typo on their specification.

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When using AAA Nimh as power source, compared with similar lights V01A producing dimmest output on max mode and shortest runtime ( if you compared how much is the output that V01A puts out ). Let's say Sunwayman R02A producing almost 3,5 times brighter as V01A and it has almost the same runtime. So you can see here, V01A has poor performance on Nimh. I think the idea behind AAA light is easily to find power source ( in this case AAA alkaline ) but the V01A seems optimized for 10440, which i think such a bad design and it is not practical light at all.

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Let's talk about crelant specification on V01A. The stated max 108 lumens ( using 10440 ) for max max 1 hour 2 mins ( using alkaline / nimh ). This kind of spec is tricky IMHO, for people who don't really know about flashlight they might be think 108 lumen for 1 hour 2 mins. This is what i don't like from crelant because there are not being honest on their product specification.


SUMMARY

V01A looks quite interesting on design and specification. But their perfomance and feel really under my expectation. Relatively difficult to operate the light with one hand, circuit does not optimize for Nimh / Alkaline which i think such bad design. I think there is several AAA light to choose if 10440 capability is needed, lets say Olight i3s or optimezed for alkaline / nimh such as SWM R02A, Thrunite Ti2, Inova XS.
 
Last edited:

netprince

Enlightened
Joined
Sep 7, 2008
Messages
547
Nice review. I wish the efficiency were better on this light.

How did you cool the light during the lion test on high? I have one and it gets hot really fast. Like 30 secs.
 

njet212

Enlightened
Joined
Jul 30, 2009
Messages
324
Location
Indonesia
Nice review. I wish the efficiency were better on this light.

How did you cool the light during the lion test on high? I have one and it gets hot really fast. Like 30 secs.

No i did not cool the light during lion test, it was gets hot pretty fast on max. I think with AAA size it is very common due to very thin body and small heat sink.
 
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