Reply With QuoteCheers Rick, just ordered a couple.
99p or best offer. They'll take less than the £1 too!
Following on from the key ring torch thread, these are what I use walking the dog and general "throwaway" torches in the car, in the toolbox etc.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/192058935426
They take 3-4 weeks to come in the post, but for £1 posted they are stupid value. Powered by a single AA, pocket clip and zoom function and being LED they have a great spread of light.
This morning around 6:30 in an unlit alleyway
You can make George out there!
And with the torch:-
The torch is so small and the performance is so good, and it's so well made, the mind boggles how it can be manufactured for £1 never mind sold at £1 for a PROFIT!
Cheers Rick, just ordered a couple.
99p or best offer. They'll take less than the £1 too!
Cheers, just tried to order 10 but was only allowed to order 2 at a time with a few days in between each order. But 2 ordered all the same. 👍
Cheers..
Jase
I just want to know why you and George are hanging around alleyways in the dark
Just ordered a couple of these. Thanks 👍
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Dogging initOriginally Posted by sprite1275
I just want to know why you and George are hanging around alleyways in the dark
Out of stock now.... :-(
Not quite as cheap but nearly.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2819277751...%3AMEBIDX%3AIT
I've got this one and it's excellent.
Eddie
Whole chunks of my life come under the heading "it seemed like a good idea at the time".
I've got some of those too! The 99p ones are just as good/bright
I have bought the popwinds product which are much more expensive £4.50 for three mode functions and these for single mode from amazon (free delivery) for £2.30 :
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/...?ie=UTF8&psc=1
B
I've bought 4 of the 5000 Lumen (I'll take that with a pinch of salt...) versions of the original one posted.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1919138151...%3AMEBIDX%3AIT
A dizzying £1.99 each, but I'm worth it
M
Last edited by snowman; 16th January 2017 at 18:09.
I bet George is pleased too
Description:-I've bought 4 of the 5000 Lumen (I'll take that with a pinch of salt...) versions of the original one posted.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1919138151...%3AMEBIDX%3AIT
A dizzying £1.99 each, but I'm worth it
M
Sky Wolf Eye Cree Q5 5000lm 5-Mode Waterproof Lotus Head LED Flashlight Suit Black is a cost-effective trade-off. Powered by AA/14500 battery, it is stable for long-term working.
^cant say fairer than that!
Wow back in stock but wants 59p for delivery, robbing gits!
That's what i thought, i was going to order some of these, but an overnight price increase of nearly 60% is an absolute pee take, blatant profiteering, disgusting.
Ordered 2
Brighty
I wonder how much the poor sods who make these things get paid ?
I hope we're not going to see these on SC for £2 each......
🤔
I'm expecting to see an addition to the marketing blurb in the Ebay advert saying "will light a dog's arse from twenty paces in an unlit alleyway"!
I've been looking for a torch for some time, problem is that £2 - £200 for the same spec leaves me with no idea of where 'value' sits. Following this thread I'm going to have a punt at a few sub £3 offerings from e-bay - I plan to blow a tenner at see what arrives!
AHHH, dark ally's, torch, camera, the old 'end of a sausage roll shot' suits you sir......
These are all basically the same thing. Google "Sipik SK68" for more info about them. They're good for the money but quality isn't great. The difference between these and the higher end stuff is the quality of the build (waterproof, drop-proofing, heat-dissipation, general look & feel) and the optics. It's more about the "quality" of the light (colour, consistency and the shape of the beam) than the lumens/lux values. The law of diminishing returns kicks in very quickly though, same as with watches.
Different variants will come with different LEDs, but none of these can produce anything like 5,000 lumens. Realistically, they are all in the same ballpark of maybe around 200 lumens on an NiMH battery (possibly close to 1000 if you use lithium ion but that's not recommended unless you know what you're doing). Lumens counts don't tell you much about perceived brightness though, with the zoom these can look extremely bright.
The trouble with the cheap Chinese torches (Sipik, Ultrafire, etc.) is variable quality. Believe it or not about 50% of the Sipiks on eBay are actually "fakes". But what constitutes a fake when it comes to Chinese brands is a bit fuzzy. The closest analogy is to Ukranian franken-Vostoks - you never know if it's going to have solder in random places or if it was assembled with a hammer. I have about 5 such cheapies and a couple of those had defects, but they are so cheap it's not a huge risk. I don't use any of them on a daily basis, but the ridiculous zoom capability is fun (you can project an image of the LED onto a tree on the other side of a park easily).
Also, never trust a cheap Chinese lithium ion battery. There are lots of cheap 1000+ lumen torches that come with one. They are almost never safe. Think Samsung Note 7 unsafe, but far more likely to explode because torches use a lot more amps than phones. A lithium ion fire is one of the least fun things there is.
If you want good value (cheap to mid-priced) and also quality, you can't go far wrong with Fenix. If you want the top end (but not silly money), look into Zebralight. It's hard to fully explain what makes a Zebralight worth around £80, but once you've used one for a while, the beam from most torches will just look unbearably poor. Also ZLs use state of the art electronics to maintain a consistent brightness as the battery runs down. They have a lot of nice features, but as with high-end watches it can be hard to describe what the difference is without directly experiencing it. Brands like Surefire (not to be confused with *fire Chinese brands) get ridiculously expensive for what they are, but are military/police grade, for use in situations where if your torch doesn't work someone might end up dead. They tend to be very simple, but really solidly made, so very little can go wrong.
Interesting reading robt....how do you compare Led Lenser for quality ? I've got a couple of their handhelds and headtorches and found them very good. Also had about a dozen of the alu £1 Amazon cheapies described above and they've been fine for occasional emergency use...glovebox, giving to the kids to play with and trying to find the beer fridge in the garage after a few too many....if I lose one I'm usually more annoyed about losing the rechargeable AA battery inside rather than the torch itself !
That's very helpful, thank you. A couple of years ago I, foolishly, bought some bicycle lights on the recommendation of a moderator on a cycling forum. They had the highest spec Cree LEDs available at the time but the first one ceased to work within about a week and the second one developed an intermittent fault within a month. I can see that this sort of thing isn't terribly important if the highlight of the evening is lighting up a dog's @rsehole (although I have an intellectual objection to throwing what are relatively small amounts of money almost directly into landfill) but on a bicyle it's actually quite important that stuff just works. I've had a small Fenix E1 on the end of the dog's lead for some time now (I prefer to find his poo on the earth rather than subjecting it to a light show on the way out - perhaps I'm missing a trick) and it's taken quite a beating but worked flawlessly. I bought another Fenix last week which will go on the bike once the ice and snow melts but it's currently being used to enable me and the dog to play with a tennis ball in the park in the dark.
Re "A lithium ion fire is one of the least fun things there is"...help is on the way: Researchers develop fire extinguishing lithium-ion battery.
The Sipiks are basically an el-cheapo Led Lenser. The Lensers have much better optics and are OK quality, but for the same money you can get a much better Fenix and they just don't compare to any of the higher end stuff. That said, they are the best you can get with the zoomy lens, if you like that sort of thing (but I prefer the Sipiks for fun factor, because you can't actually focus a Lenser as perfectly, to use as a projector of the LED's die shape).
After the initial novelty wears off, most people prefer the fixed reflector setup though, because it gives a more consistent beam (less "donut holes" or discolouration near the middle or edges of the beam). I certainly wouldn't say they are bad, but I've got a Lenser P6 and if you compare that to say, a Sunwayman V20A, which is about the same size, the quality difference is night and day. I think they cost me about the same too. I use the Sunwayman a lot, never use the Lenser. Also the Lensers tend to have a single output level, which makes them less useful than something with multiple modes (or like the V20A, continuously variable output by turning a magnetic ring).
Another common setup is the TIR, which is found in a lot of the smaller Fenix models. The cheaper ones aren't great but are usually still marginally better than a zoom lens. The better ones (like in the E05) are nearly as good as a reflector.
I know what you mean about having a bunch of cheapies for emergencies. I tend to go with Fenix E05's, usually buy a few if I see them on sale (happens occasionally on Gearbest or Banggood). I mainly prefer those because they are tiny, have a nice beam and practical modes. You can literally stuff a handful of them in a pocket, which is handy. Still nowhere near as cheap as the Sipiks though.
Another good mid price range are ThruNite although made in China they are excellent quality and good vfm admittedly not in the £1 price range !
I bought one of their popcan throw/ flood hybrids a few weeks ago which throws out 3,600 lumens and is like holding the sun on turbo mode it has a natural LED so doesn't wash out colours great for dog walking and boat fishing on the Broads.
I also have a couple of LED Lensers which are ok but not as robust and nowhere near as good bang for your bucks.
I'm struggling with this; why would you need a pocketful of torches? Surely you just want one that works?
Probably for the same reason you need a wrist full of watches ? When common sense says you only need one that works!
Regarding bike lights...a mate of mine bought a 'Torchy' cree torch off ebay with helmet mount...very happy with it, good rechargeables, 12 mth warranty and meant to be excellent customer service, good VFM and properly tested rather than a lot of the lesser Chinese cheapies
I'm not disputing the ownership of many torches, it's just that, unless I'm going to a GTG, I don't carry multiple watches around with me most of the time which is what was being suggested was a particularly useful feature.
You hold your GTGs in a disco?
Hope it doesn't catch on for the Manchester one.
Step away from the .gifAHHH, dark ally's, torch, camera, the old 'end of a sausage roll shot' suits you sir......
We could have a gtg for 7 of us in my Disco.
I'm in.
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TZ-UK app
I also have the torchy for a cheap, high power front light. The rechargeable 18650 battery is great. I spent quite a bit on the rear light though as cheap versions of rear lights always seem to pack up quickly.
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In case you need to hand them out to other people and in case any if them fail (for any reason, not just flat batteries). Not something that comes up often tbh, but I like over-planning for disaster scenarios :)
It also doesn't matter how good quality a torch is, any of them can fail, it's just less likely with the higher end ones. If you actually need one, always have a backup as well. There is a saying "two is one, one is none."
What battery brands do people use with these things? They take an AA sized battery "AA Battery/1* 14500 Battery" but it is 3.7V so presumably an ordinary AA will not work?. Any recommendations on normal batteries or rechargeable brands? I need to get a few in before the torches arrive and have not come across this battery size before.
Ordinary AA will work fine, a 14500 is the same size as two AA, I always buy ones that can take AA or AAA just for ease of being able to buy them anywhere and not have to rely on charging a specific battery up .
Thanks for the clarification. I normally insist on having two sets of lights fore and aft on the bike (normally 1 set of battery and 1 set of dynamo-driven lights) so I'm with you there.
On a related matter can you recommend a good, cheap and reputable source of 18650 batteries?
Brilliant, many thanks.
No worries , I meant to write it's the same size as a AA not two. This explains it.
http://lightsngear.com/what-you-need...thium-battery/
Cheers..
Jase
So presumably the torch runs of two AAs or a single 14500 with a spacer - to make the voltage approximately correct?
Just paid 54 quid for my tiny 900 lumen Olight S1R so don't spoil my joy... it's excellent, but not sure if 54 times more excellent
:)
Here is one with the lense removed and the cap removed
-amazes me how tiny the LED is!
The fit and finish is outrageous for the price!
Generally I get that sort of thing from flashaholics.co.uk because it's too risky buying that sort of thing on eBay or direct from China. Too many fakes about. Personally, I like Eagtac or AW because both are good quality (no explodey) and not too expensive, although for 18650 Eagtac seem to be much better vfm.Thanks for the clarification
On a related matter can you recommend a good, cheap and reputable source of 18650 batteries?
In some cases you can do that. I've done it. It may even produce a brighter output than 2 AAs.
Anyone thinking of experimenting with this stuff should go read up on it first, check the spec of the exact model torch and the exact batteries you have. Alkaline, NiMH, lithium, lithium ion, lipo, all have slightly different voltages and importantly, different internal resistances, especially under load. This means the actual voltage in practise may not be 1.2, 1.5, 1.7, 3.7, 4.2 etc. Some LED drivers will draw a *lot* of current from some cells, even if the torch and/or battery is not capable of handling it. This can blow the LED, lead to "venting", fire or explosion, none of which are good. Lithium ion cells are especially nasty because they will vent hydrogen fluoride gas. I read about someone receiving lung damage from that.
Further general safety notes: lithium ion cells are most dangerous when being charged. Unlike say a laptop or phone which has a charge management system, if you're charging cells directly, there is an increased risk of failure. Make sure you know what you're doing, use a good charger, and never leave it unattended. Multi-cell torches are significantly more dangerous than single-cell ones: you absolutely must not use the standard chinese lithium ion cells (which are "unprotected") in these, only ones that have built-in electronic protection. There is also more than one lithium ion chemistry. They don't all behave the same or work with the same chargers; they may be different voltages.
Over-charging or over-discharging are both dangerous. This is another risk of the unprotected cells that typically come with Chinese torches - if you run them down until the torch stops working, like you would a normal battery, you've probably already over-discharged the cell. Best case then, it wont't hold as much charge. Worst case, it blows up next time you try to recharge it. You cannot use lithium ion batteries safely unless you have a voltmeter and always check before charging.
There are loads of lithium ion safety guides online. If you're going to use them, search and read these.
On a related subject, in general and especially with higher end stuff like the Zebralight SC5, NiMH batteries will deliver a lot more power than alkaline, even though they have a lower nominal voltage. They also don't leak and are much safer than lithium-based cells. Eneloops are the best. I get them from 7dayshop, so far they have always been the Japanese ones (there are now some made in China ones that are significantly inferior - they always say "made in..." on the cell, so it's easy to tell).
Thank you.
Many thanks for all the advice. I will be giving lithium-ion a miss I think! :-)
Thanks for the heads up
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