'discoball' 2000lm 18650 torch on amazon...

lumensearch

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I'll strip it and see what its hiding.

care to place bets on it not being a CREE unit ?
 

more_vampires

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Edit: ITS A TRAP!!!

2200 LM CREE XM-L T6 LED
Lol, no. At least the price doesn't look outrageous. Edit: Yes, it does.

15.55 pounds to usd = $24.04

Here it is a few dollars cheaper: http://www.dx.com/p/singfire-sf-705...t-black-3-x-aaa-1-x-18650-198933#.ViZtLStQ6JA
$21.99. Bet I could find it cheaper if I looked longer than the 2 minutes I did. This was the first identical I came across.

Edit: $14.99 and falling.

Edit 2: With stainless bezel, clip, and tailcap, slightly fewer fins on the head, $9.84 and falling. :)

Edit 3: $9.69 and falling. Budget light normality is restored. :santa:
http://www.dx.com/p/fandyfire-e007-xm-l-t6-led-900lm-5-mode-white-light-zooming-flashlight-black-1-x-18650-3-x-aaa-409168
:shakehead
 
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more_vampires

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ITS A TRAP!!!

Lol, at only rougly 2.5x the price, this isn't quite a contender for "The Most Overpriced Budget Lights" thread. :) In that thread, we post $3 lights priced at $50 (16.5x the price) and such.

Don't do it, OP!
2hr051v.jpg

IT'S A TRAP!!!
 
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lumensearch

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Re: ITS A TRAP!!!

Classic.

Thankfully I'm not paying for this one, as someone else lost my old one ( which in any case was a non starter)

I'll be in the market for a sub £30 torch shortly though, any suggestions? Ideally 18650. Mixed use.
 

more_vampires

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Re: ITS A TRAP!!!

Budget category? Lots. My best suggestion is an 18650x1 Solar Force P60 host, this way you just upgrade the P60 module and can get a better one.

Carefully inspect your Solar Force for metal whiskers before beginning service. Someone on CPF mentioned this, took mine apart. Metal whisker. Could cause a short, maybe.

It takes no special skill to swap P60 modules, you just unscrew the head.
 

KeepingItLight

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Re: ITS A TRAP!!!

Funny thing, when I zoom in on the photos of the "Discoball" flashlight, I can see "Ultrafire" on the side.

If the pictures can be believed, it's price may be fairer than foregoing posts suggest. That's because the pictures show the Discoball in a kit that includes flashlight, holster, battery, charger (with USB cable and car-lighter adapter), and a carrying case for all of it. The product details, however, on the same web page at Amazon, list only the flashlight.

In case you do get a charger and battery, you should be aware that they may be the kind that most CPF members avoid. Any 18650 battery brand with xxxx-Fire in the name is hit and miss. Many have proven to be fakes. Chargers carrying the xxxx-Fire brand can be equally problematic. See the charger reviews by CPF member HKJ. In my opinion, you are better off getting a charger from Xtar, Nitecore or Opus.

If I received an xxxx-Fire battery and charger, I would not use them.
 
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lumensearch

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Re: ITS A TRAP!!!

Funny thing, when I zoom in on the photos of the "Discoball" flashlight, I can see "Ultrafire" on the side.

If the pictures can be believed, it's price may be fairer than foregoing posts suggest. That's because the pictures show the Discoball in a kit that includes flashlight, holster, battery, charger (with USB cable and car-lighter adapter), and a carrying case for all of it. The product details, however, on the same web page at Amazon, list only the flashlight.

In case you do get a charger and battery, you should be aware that they may be the kind that most CPF members avoid. Any 18650 battery brand with xxxx-Fire in the name is hit and miss. Many have proven to be fakes. Chargers carrying the xxxx-Fire brand can be equally problematic. See the charger reviews by CPF member HKJ. In my opinion, you are better off getting a charger from Xtar, Nitecore or Opus.

If I received an xxxx-Fire battery and charger, I would not use them.


Yeah i guessed the battery would be junk - my old 18650's are junk now - Whats the 'go-to' option for 18650 flashlight use ? I keep reading that keeppower 18650's are pretty good. I can get 2 x 18650 IMR 2250mAh 10/20A Li-Mn Unprotected Button Top ' £7.99, or 2 x 3400mAh NCR18650B version for around £18. I THINK both use panasonic cells.......But i can get the panasonic branded 3400mAh version for £13. Surely go for the branded version right ?


Opinions ?

 
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KeepingItLight

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Re: ITS A TRAP!!!

Yeah i guessed the battery would be junk - my old 18650's are junk now - Whats the 'go-to' option for 18650 flashlight use ? I keep reading that keeppower 18650's are pretty good. I can get 2 x 18650 IMR 2250mAh 10/20A Li-Mn Unprotected Button Top ' £7.99, or 2 x 3400mAh NCR18650B version for around £18. I THINK both use panasonic cells.......But i can get the panasonic branded 3400mAh version for £13. Surely go for the branded version right ?


Opinions ?


The most important thing about buying batteries is to find a dealer whom you trust. Buying from random sellers on Amazon, ebay, or even at a few of the popular online vendors in China can be a problem. Sometimes you get the real thing from those sources. Sometimes you don't.

I do not have any good sources for you in the EU. I am sure there are others here who can help.

Regarding the specific batteries you mentioned, the 18650 IMR 2250mAh 10/20A Li-Mn Unprotected Button Top is probably not the right battery for this flashlight. That battery can supply a high continuous current, higher, in fact, than this flashlight requires. In order to get that high current, you are sacrificing capacity.

The other thing is that it is an unprotected battery. There is nothing wrong with buying budget flashlights, including the ones branded xxxx-Fire. My advice, however, is to use only protected batteries in such lights. That way, if your cheap flashlight fails with a short circuit, you will still have the protection provided by your batteries. My own practice is to reserve unprotected batteries for those high-current flashlights that won't run on anything else. Everything else gets protected batteries.

Note the distinction: I don't mind xxxx-Fire flashlights, but I won't use xxxx-Fire batteries or chargers.

The protected battery you mentioned is a popular one. A slightly better one that is now selling for about the same price is a protected version of the Sanyo-Panasonic NCR18650GA 3500mAh. Either one would work great in your new Discoball.

Be careful about buying Panasonic branded batteries. Those are all unprotected. Panasonic does not sell protected batteries directly to consumers. You want to buy something like the KeepPower battery you mentioned, which has a Panasonic battery inside. KeepPower takes unprotected batteries from makers such as Panasonic, and adds the protection circuits.


 
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lumensearch

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Re: ITS A TRAP!!!

Thanks.

Hopefully someone will point me towards a decent UK seller.
 

more_vampires

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Re: ITS A TRAP!!!

Funny thing, when I zoom in on the photos of the "Discoball" flashlight, I can see "Ultrafire" on the side.

If the pictures can be believed, it's price may be fairer than foregoing posts suggest. That's because the pictures show the Discoball in a kit that includes flashlight, holster, battery, charger (with USB cable and car-lighter adapter), and a carrying case for all of it. The product details, however, on the same web page at Amazon, list only the flashlight.

In case you do get a charger and battery, you should be aware that they may be the kind that most CPF members avoid. Any 18650 battery brand with xxxx-Fire in the name is hit and miss. Many have proven to be fakes. Chargers carrying the xxxx-Fire brand can be equally problematic. See the charger reviews by CPF member HKJ. In my opinion, you are better off getting a charger from Xtar, Nitecore or Opus.

If I received an xxxx-Fire battery and charger, I would not use them.

$14.20 for two counterfeit batteries and a dangerous charger is not a good deal in my mind. :)

Seconding Opus as a good charger brand, got one and love it... it replaced/obsoleted 2 Nitecore chargers.
 

bykfixer

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Re: ITS A TRAP!!!

Is it just me or is the name of thread going from one to another?

The 70's were a lot of fun, but I'm wondering if it's a flashback or is it really happening....

 

KeepingItLight

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Re: ITS A TRAP!!!

Hopefully someone will point me towards a decent UK seller.

What about NKON in the Netherlands? Since I have never dealt with NKON, I cannot vouch for it, but it frequently gets good mention on CPF.

If there is a flashlight forum based in the UK or EU that you like, I would check there, too.
 

more_vampires

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Re: ITS A TRAP!!!

Is it just me or is the name of thread going from one to another?

The 70's were a lot of fun, but I'm wondering if it's a flashback or is it really happening....
Guess even the thread name knows it's a trap. :)

While we can get use from a flashlight with "Ultrafire" silk screened on it, I'd never trust batteries or charger that say "Ultrafire." It's even worse when the batteries and charger are no-name whatsoever and come with an Ultrafire light. It makes me nervous, I actually enjoy paying $9 for one Panasonic battery. I view it as extremely cheap house fire insurance.

:)
 

lumensearch

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Re: ITS A TRAP!!!

I stripped this light down today.

Contains a un-branded LED, with no obvious branding to the controller.

Nothing i didnt expect really.
 
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