The Astrolux MF01 the newest light from Astrolux and Banggood. Thanks to Bangood for sending this to me to show my subscribers and Reddit. The MF01 is a numbers light. It has 4x 18650 batteries, 18 Nichia 219 LED’s in neutral white, 12,000 Lumens at peak, all in a light slightly larger than a pop can.
Image Album: https://imgur.com/a/vTp72
Youtube Video:
Physical Appearance
This light has a satin black finish with mild hash grips on about 50% of it’s body. https://i.imgur.com/ovhRVGX.jpg It provides some added grip but I would recommend using the included lanyard. I like that they choose OD green for the lanyard color as it goes well with the glow under the button and who doesn’t like OD green. The bezel is a polished stainless steel I believe. https://i.imgur.com/Xi2U6lu.jpg It’s screwed on very tight but should be removable with a strap wrench. This light is IPX-7 rated for moisture.
The head of the light is larger than the body 72mm vs 49.5mm.
Length comes in at a measured 128mm at its longest points.
Weight with batteries is a hefty 726.6 grams.
This light does tailstand well and is stable when doing so. https://i.imgur.com/4Gj4VVY.jpg This light does come into 3 distinct pieces, the head, the battery tube, and tail cap. https://i.imgur.com/vz2yHDn.jpg The battery carrier itself is two tick pieces of brass with circuit boards on each end. https://i.imgur.com/lHYWpOd.jpgThere are 4 metal tubes that are rubber lined that are the structure. https://i.imgur.com/dv3737F.jpg Each is screwed in. More on battery configuration and what works later.
Threads a triangularly cut and close together. https://i.imgur.com/P7N92qX.jpg They were well greased from the factory. You can mechanically lock out the light by unscrewing the rear cap to break the electrical connection. Build quality is on par with other lights in this price range and I can’t find any glaring flaws.
I really like that this light has a tripod adapter both in ? and ¼ dimensions. https://i.imgur.com/AgX7JTV.jpg I think this is a must on one of these coke can style lights. They tend to be so floody and work well but if you are using it to light a large area the tripod mount makes it easy to mount and hold in the position you need. https://i.imgur.com/eJZLXqS.jpg The adapter to convert between sizes is nice too. It mounts pretty flat. https://i.imgur.com/mEiVKgo.jpg
Performance
Heat is a bit of an issue on this light. It’s no surprise that when in turbo and making nearly 12,000 lumens with the Nichia LED option that this light gets quite hot. When the light gets to 60C (140F) degrees it will reduce the output to around 2500 lumens to maintain temperature and prevent damage. During my standard 1 minute turbo test the light got to 109F. https://i.imgur.com/Anx18E6.jpg I didn’t get it to the 60C it states step down occurs at.
The Nichia 219 LED’s produce a whiter neutral white output and only sacrifice a small amount of output in doing so. The human eye can’t tell the difference between the 12000 lumens that this light produces with the XPG3 LED and the 11526 lumens it produces with the 219C LED’s. What a little strange is On low and turbo the XPG3 LED’s produce more lumens but on Medium, Medium1 and high the 219C LED’s produce more lumens. Throw distance is the same.
Nichia 219C
Low – 70 Lumens – 214 hours
Medium – 700 Lumens – 14 hours https://i.imgur.com/P5pAjLw.jpg
Medium1 – 1100 Lumens – 4.7 Hours https://i.imgur.com/rWD3qnF.jpg
High – 6800 Lumens – 4 Hours https://i.imgur.com/5GKFMic.jpg
Turbo – 11,526 Lumens – 3.5 Hours https://i.imgur.com/pRtyWs5.jpg
A little comparison between the Emisar D4 (Nichia), Astrolux MF01 (Nichia), Nitecore TM06s https://i.imgur.com/2l81G3Z.jpg
Batteries play a big part in the performance of this light. Astrolux recommends Samsung 30Q batteries. For my tests I used KeepPower batteries based on LG HG2 and are button tops. These are similar specced batteries but sag a little. This light is designed for use with button top cells cells in a 2S2P configuration. The 2s means two cells in series doubling voltage, and 2p means two cells in parallel adding capacity. Doing this gives you the best of both worlds but means you have to put the cells in the carrier correctly or there could be devastating results. You can run flat top cells in this light if you pry the white plastic rings off of an empty carrier. https://i.imgur.com/dv3737F.jpg They are held in place with a small amount of adhesive. While I don’t recommend this it’s possible.
UI
The UI of this light is pretty simple and well explained in the manual with a diagram. From Off clicking the button once enters normal mode in low. Clicking again increases each mode spacing (5 in total) all the way to turbo. If you double click you have a shortcut to turbo. Triple click when off or on gets you to the special modes which include Tactical strobe, SOS, and location beacon. When the light is on just long press to shut it off. This light does have memory modes. When the light is off you can Long Press the button to go into lockout and the breathing LED will stop. Long press again to deactivate it.
Low Voltage protection is shown with the glowing LED under the main button. Astrolux calls it a breathing light as it fades in and out slowly. Green is above 6.8V, Red is 6.1V, red flashing is below 6.1V and at 5.8V the light turns off.
Table Top + Rest of Outdoor https://youtu.be/X5YeLTnUrWU?t=7m42s
Airport Security
I brought the Astrolux MF01 with me on a recent business trip and I can comment that the TSA will take an interest in this light if it’s in your carry on luggage. I watched the guy running the Xray machine stop, inspect my bag, turn his head to the side and frown and immediately pull my bag out for manual inspection. The nice TSA agent grabbed my bag and knew immediately I had a flashlight and we actually started talking about it as she was pretty interested. She was really impressed that it was capable of 12,000 lumens and mentioned it was a lot more then her MagLite. Once things were inspected and a sample was put into the mass spectrometer, I was cleared for my flight. On the way home I took the light out of the bag and put in in a bin like it was a laptop and it passed through without issue.
Packaging and extras
The package is a nice heavy white box with a line drawing of the light. Nowhere on it mentions the brand or the model. Inside the light is held in place with white foam. https://i.imgur.com/UAN9SEE.jpg It’s easiest to take the first layer of foam out to get to the light. The light comes with 2 extra orings, a tripod mount adapter, and a lanyard. The directions are pretty good explaining the modes, parameters, and low voltage protection.
Pro’s
* Great output with a more neutral white color and HIGH CRI.
* Lanyard + tripod options
* Fits in the hand pretty well
Con’s
* No Direct access to low modes.
* Mode spacing could be improved.
* My batteries are a little looser then I would like but this hasn’t cause issues. Be careful about cells that are too long as they can deform a spring.
* No included belt pouch
Summary
What surprised me about this light it’s more than just a flood like many in this format. This actually throws a decent amount given how short the optics are. The optics in front of each of the LED’s really make a difference in the beam pattern. Given the cost of this light I think it’s a good value. Many high output lights are pretty expensive and this is one of the lowest cost per lumens out there right now. In the lower modes the runtimes are impressive. I would like to see a mode lower than 70, and something between 1100 and 6800. I could see someone using this for light hiking or out in very rural areas. If you are looking for a really high output light thats in between a flood and a throw, check this one out.
Astrolux MF01 is available from Bangood at: https://goo.gl/Lvx5oT
Use the coupon code: e04bc8 to get the MF01 for $85.95 updated price
Samsung 30Q Batteries https://goo.gl/7cr1QT