Review: Solarforce L2m

The Solarforce L2m is a Chinese made P60 drop in host. Just the body itself can be had for around $20. Solarforce also has it’s own branded LED drop ins, the Cree R2 version, which can be had from $15 to $20. Overall I paid around $35 shipped for my light, plus another $4 for the stainless steel flat bezel ring. The light is a bit cheaper on ebay, but that’s because it’s being shipped from overseas while mine was shipped from a distributor in the US.

I had bought this light to use as a host for Malkoff’s P60 drop ins, specifically the M61 since it’s really hard to find a regular M60 now. Since the Malkoffs had yet to go into full production at the time, I decided to just grab the light with the Solarforce drop in. I had ordered the 5 mode but got the 3 mode instead. Oh well, doesn’t really matter to me that much. I didn’t want to have to deal with shipping the drop in back to them.

The Solarforce drop in I got is the R2 version made for 4.2-8.4V. That means it can be used with either 1 or 2 cells (123a or 18650). Using single cell requires the use of rechargeable 3.7Vs because a single primary 123a will not drive the emitter enough and output is significantly lower.

The reflector is a orange peel texture that can be unscrewed from the rest of the drop in. I suppose if you could find a smooth reflector of the same size you can screw that on instead. It seems like textured reflectors are the big thing right now and almost no one is making smooth reflectors anymore.

Solarforce lists the output of the light as 325 lumens but that’s doubtful. From what I see, on fresh cells high mode, the output is probably around 200 lumens. The modes go from 100%, 60%, and then 40% the max output. I haven’t done any runtime tests, but the light will be sure to run over an hour, although I have no idea what the regulation looks like. The medium and low modes use PWM, and it is really noticeable on low. The drop in is really worth it because it has memory in my opinion. If there was no memory, I probably wouldn’t have bothered with it and would have just bought the body and waiting for the M61.

Another note is that Malkoff drop ins will not fit directly into the head. Most P60 drop ins use a large spring to keep the reflector up against the lens. The Malkoffs don’t have this so it’ll have to be wrapped with several layers of aluminum foil to make good contact as well as allow for better head transfer. This of course is not an issue with actual Surefires.

The light came with a crenelated bezel that would be very effective for its intended purpose. the edges on the flat parts are quite sharp though; the first time I unscrewed the bezel it cut the top layer of my skin. I wouldn’t necessarily EDC the light with the crenelated bezel since it’ll shred up clothing easily. I keep the crenelated bezel on when I think I’m going to need it, or just for when I have the light on my desk or bedside dresser. When I do carry the light for EDC or as a pack light, I swap in the stainless steel flat bezel. It’s not the greatest made, but it does the job of holding in the glass lens.

The switch is a reverse clickie, of decent quality. It’s a robust switch and I don’t have any issues with it other than the fact that its protruding. I would prefer the boot to be recessed considering there’s no momentary like with a forward clickie. The exposed boot isn’t necessary at all in this configuration, and in my opinion not even necessary in a forward clickie switch.

Generally with aluminum lights I don’t care that much about the finish. My lights are meant to be used, so I don’t care if the anodizing comes off in places. It’s a HAII so no where near as durable as the HAIII on the Surefire lights or the Solarforce L2P.

The reason why I got the L2m over the regular L2 is for modularity purposes.

Instead of having a single tube for the body, it has a single cell body and comes with the ECR extension (which can be purchased for around $8). With these extension tubes, you can basically make the light take as many cells as the drop in can handle the voltage. I believe the single mode drop in can take up to 18V, so thats a lot of primary or rechargeable batteries. The original L2m design would only fit 123a cells, but post 2009 L2ms are tapped for 18650s with still some rattle room. With 123a cells, there is a lot of battery rattle, but the cells made constant contact so I haven’t had issues with light reliability even with the rattle.

For EDC purposes, it might be easiest to take off the ECR extension and just run the light with a single rechargeable 123a cell.

No issues with water as the o-rings are quite robust and fit snugly into the body as the parts are screwed together.

Overall it’s a nice light. Worth the $40 dollars I paid for. The nice thing about these Chinese lights is that there are lots of accessories that can be bought for cheap to change around the light. Also, like many other P60 drop in style lights, parts can be swapped between other P60 lights.

Back to YouTube!

So back in the day, I use to post videos to youtube. Mainly zippo tricking stuff since that’s what I was into at the time. I was just using a cheap Logitech webcam so video quality sucked. I had also posted up some videos from the old zippotricks.com site because there were some tricks that were yet to be uploaded onto the new lightertricks.com site.

So yesterday I was out with Leo and we stopped by Jack’s World in the city. It’s basically a place that sells stuff for cheap because they probably buy overstock items. I saw mini tripods for a few dollars and grabbed one. Leo said that he had problems with them tipping over with a camera on but I took the risk and bought one for $5 anyways. My camera sits on it fine and so far I think it was worth the money. With the tripod, I’m hoping to maybe get started with video reviews and stuff.

So yea, the first video I post up in over a year is a Rubik’s Cube solve. One of my best times with a third layer solve as its well below my average time.

Here it is:

Using my digital camera is definitely a lot better than using the old webcam as video quality has improved a lot. I could even film in a higher aspect ratio but my memory card isn’t that large so I’ll need to get another one with larger capacity. I also want a Flip HD, but right now it’s not on the top of the list since cash is short now.

Review: VersaTi ET10 (high first)

Today I got my VersaTi ET10. I got it as a sort of graduation present to myself since I should be graduating college this month. It’s $59.99 at GoingGear. Actually, GoingGear is the only distributer I can find now. It wasn’t a popular light because it had lots of issues, but it also happens to have features I wanted which is why I ended up getting it.

In terms of production AAA titanium lights on the market now, the ET10 is actually one of the more expensive ones. A titanium Preon I can be had for $55. The iTP titanium AAA can be had for around $45. Both have better fit and finish as well, better polish jobs for sure.

First the bad things about the ET10. The biggest problem that a lot of people had with them was the way that the light switches mode. It uses a plastic disc with brass connectors to change the mode. With several of the lights from the first batch, that plastic disc would come loose and then rotate around. If the brass pins don’t contact the right areas, then you’ll lose one of the two modes.

The fit and finish isn’t all that great on it either. There are a lot of machining marks left over on the light. It’s pretty evident on the tail cap.

The head on my also seems to lean towards one side. I think that the threads were just cut a bit lopsided. When the head is screwed all the way down, you can see that the gap is larger on one side. You can also feel the edge of the head on one side while it is flush on the other side. There is no side to side movement when the head is screwed all the way down though. There is side to side play when the head is loosened though.

There is also a chip on the edge of the body near the threads. Also the emitter (Cree Q5) isn’t that centered, but I don’t care much about that.

The threads themselves are really small and super tight. Take it as a neutral I suppose. I would prefer more robust threads though since it seems like it would be easy to cross-thread with them.

I also wanted the low first version and had ordered that but then Marshall from GoingGear contacted me saying that they only had the high first version. Sucks, since low first would make much more sense in a small light like this but whatever.

There are 2 big reasons why I got this light even with all the bad reviews and the high price. First is the fact that the light is off when the head is tight down. Almost all twisty lights have the light off when the head is loose and the light on when the head is tight down. The other reason is the AMAZING regulation. Even on alkaline AAA, its practically completely flat.

You can see runtime graphs by CPF’s selfbuilt here: http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=251177

Looks to be a little under 30 mins flat on high and 44 hrs flat on low.

The output is basically all flood. It’s definitely something I have to get use to. It doesn’t seem all that bright on high; the Fenix E01 seems brighter even though its technically “less lumens”, but that’s because the E01 has almost everything concentrated to a hot spot. I’m not sure which I like better. I’ll have to use the ET10 outdoors first to see how well it works. It does have a super dim low mode which I love.

The light is also titanium. Coolness factor right there.

Another thing I love about it, although it is a small detail, is how thick the split ring hole is:

Granted I’ve never had a thin split ring hole break on me, but I just don’t trust it when the metal is so thin (like on the ARC AAAs).

It also comes with a bunch of extra o-rings and even a carabiner type clip. I love it when manufacturers package extra o-rings with their lights. It’s something small and cheap for them, but it can be a pain to find the right size replacement as the end user.

In conclusion, you can do better for cheaper, but if you really want the UI and the regulation, its currently one of a kind in the production world. I probably would have paid the difference and gotten a Mako if Endeavor was still making them. I’m not too concern about the lopsided head, so long as it remains water resistant. I’ll see as time goes by I suppose.

EDIT (5-6-10):

Well that was short lived. The lopsided head was indeed a problem. I tried dunking it in a bottle of water and water slowly made its way through the threads and into the battery compartment. It’s going back to GoingGear tomorrow. Excellent customer service from Marshall though. He said I’ll get a refund but maybe I’ll just have him ship something of equal value to me. No wonder no other vendor wants to distribute the lights…

Senior Design Reimbursement

It’s always awesome to get money. Last Friday I submitted the paperwork for reimbursement for my senior design project. I spent ~$140 dollars at Digi-Key. Unfortunately we all only get a budget of $115 so I’ve already started to pay out of my own pocket (with another $40 soon for the poster we have to make). Well, I got the message telling me to pick up my funds allocation form on Thursday. Yesterday before going to the electronics lab to work on my project, I went to Bursars to pick up my money. After handing in the form, signing a stamp, and showing them my ID, the woman at Bursars gave me my $115 in cash. There am I thinking AWESOME! MONEY! Add the money to the pitiful $4 I have clipped and start walking out towards the Engineering quad. Then it hit me; why the hell do I feel so great about getting money from the school? It was my money after all, I’m just getting some of it back. This must be why the government does tax refund. Give everyone some money back, let them feel good, and since its free money people will readily spend it. In the end it was your money to begin with… Psychological fail!