unknown001
Newly Enlightened
- Joined
- Dec 16, 2013
- Messages
- 30
SingFire SF-327
Reviewer's Overall Rating: ★★★★☆
Summary:
Reviewer's Overall Rating: ★★★★☆
Summary:
| Battery: | 1 x 26650 or 18650. |
| Switch: | Electronic Side Switch (Modes) and Tailcap Clicky (Power On/Off) |
| Modes: | 5+: High, Medium, Low, SoS and Hidden Strobe + Standby |
| LED Type: | 1 x XM-L (Cool White) |
| Lens: | Glass |
| Reflector: | Aluminum (Smooth) |
| Tailstands: | Yes |
| Price: | $26.99 Shipped |
Pros:
Annodization is extremely smooth and feels much higher quality than your typical budget light.
Despite the odd machining choices on the battery tube threads the tailcap and head thread on like butter with a minuscule amount of 'play'.
Exterior machining is superb. No sharp edges.
Simple to disassemble.
Flawless reflector
Tailcap clicky has a perfect firmness thanks to a simple piece of plastic (Something normally overlooked in budget lights).
Well spaced modes.
Cons:
Some odd machining choices with the battery tube (Will elaborate further down).
LED shelf is threaded and needs to be beefed up if one wanted to modify/increase the output.
The head doesn't quite thread onto the battery tube all the way over the 2nd O-ring.
Indicator LED in the side switch is always on (Red) when the flashlight is on.
Function/UI:
| High | Medium | Low |
| 3.1A | 1.3A | .27A |
After turning the light on the red indicator light in the side switch is always on.
(Drain in stand-by: 28mA)
The UI is fairly simple:
The tailcap clicky switch controls a physical on/off.
The side switch controls mode changing.
Upon clicking the tailcap clicky the light will be on in High.
A brief press of the side switch will switch to medium.
Another press will switch to low.
Another press will switch to SoS.
Another press will switch to Stand-By mode.
A press while in stand-by mode will enter into high mode.
A click of the tailcap during any mode will turn the flashlight off.
Pictures:
The light arrived in a bubble mailer with the typical thin box (this box happened to be a generic SingFire design instead of the plain white). Inside the light was wrapped in a layer of bubble wrap. Pretty standard for budget lights. It came with a cheap lanyard but not a 26650 to 18650 adapter tube.
Close up of the logo, the fine machining, and superb annodization. Above par for a flashlight in this price range.
Simple shot of the front of the head. Has the old generation XM-L.
Tailcap. I normally don't get caught up on a tailcap as normally they are pretty boring and forgettable, but this one caught my attention. It has a really deep, concave cap and is really attractive to look at and feel. Very smooth, well machined, and well finished. It's one of the small features often overlooked in the design of other lights. The exterior design of this tailcap is backed up by a solid build inside the tailcap that all adds up to a nearly perfect tailcap clicky.
Connection between head and body tube. Just barely doesn't thread all the way over the second O-ring. Everything in the head is snugged up.
The threads on the battery tube that go into the head are trapezoidal. You can see they used an O-ring slightly too large and it is slowly getting shredded, more on this later.
Moving onto the threads the tailcap goes onto. Single O-ring back here.. hmm. Square cut to perfection.. wait a second what is that?
...?? I'm honestly not certain what they did here. It looks to me like they initially had it perfectly set up for dual O-rings back here, but then went at it with a hand chisel?!(sarcasm)
Anyway, I don't know why they did it, but while it is a little unsightly in macro, amazingly it literally has 0 effect on the actual threading of the tailcap. It's one of the best threading tailcaps I've got in my collection. Very tiny amounts of 'play' while threading it on, I've tried to gently crossthread it and all attempts have been met with a perfect seating of the tailcap onto the threads.
This tube is THICK. Measured at 3.46mm with my calipers. The threads on the tube for the head measure 3.01mm and the threads on the tube for the tailcap are 1.80mm. To me, this means they didn't go deep enough on the head threads on the tube which is another reason why the large oring keeps slipping out of its slot and getting shredded.
Size Comparison:
SRK Clone, C8, SingFire SF-327, HD2010, Maglite 3D
Full BreakDown/Disassembly:
Thick GITD O-ring under the aluminum bezel. Aluminum reflector.
Closeup of the reflector. Very slight machining marks can be seen
Business side of the driver. Thin silicon wires.
The biggest disappointment in the entirety of the flashlight is the 'led shelf'. The aluminum underneath the star is about 1mm thick. A few threads. There is a small glimmer of hope for the thermal management capabilities of the light in the fact that is threads down very tight on a 4mm ledge. It's not much but it does okay. The bad part about the ledge is it becomes incredibly difficult to reassemble. The wires love to sit on that ledge when the shelf is tightened down. It became quite a hassle after several attempts to get it back together.
Beamshots:
White wall - 2 Ft.
50 yards to the center tree.
Despite being more of a tube style light the SF-327 commands a respectable amount of throw at the 50 yard distance. It has a very focused beam profile similar to that of an HD2010 or Convoy L4 with essentially only 2 parts. What I would consider a hotspot and the rest is spill, the corona is almost absent.
Conclusion:
For the price this is a very nice quality light with great exterior machining and even better annodization. The small parts taken into consideration with the tailcap add to the great overall ergonomics of the SF-327. It does suffer from what I would consider to be quite a bit less than ideal thermal management in the way of the tiny threaded led shelf. And, I'm still not sure why they tweaked the battery tube like they did, but..
It is still an overall nice flashlight even with its shortcomings. I rate this flashlight a 4 out of 5.
This flashlight was provided by Deal Extreme for review.
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