Category: Review

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Xtar X4 4 Bay Battery Charger Review

Xtar has a new charger on the market the X4. I previously looked at the X2 but today I have a review of the X4, the 4 bay version. It’s capable of 4A and capable of charging Li-ion and Ni-MH batteries, with AC or 5V MicroUSB Power. Thanks to Xtar for sending this to me to test and review.

Full Image Gallery: https://imgur.com/a/E6G69Ki

YouTube version of this Review:

Packaging

The packaging is a white retail box with a gloss photo of the X4 on the front. The sides list a few key features such as the charging speed, Inputs, LCD display, the chemistries and sizes of batteries that are supported. The back gives more specifications and features of the charger. It contains a scratch off anti counterfeit sticker and is insured worldwide. The package contains the charger, AC power cable, and the manual.

Construction

The Xtar X4 charger is a 4 bay charger that can accommodate most common battery sizes. I had no trouble with all 18650’s, it will fit 4x 26650, and I didn’t have any issues with an unprotected 21700. Smaller batteries were ok too, 18350, AAA, etc. It will not charge a protected 21700 battery. The metal sliders are fairly smooth and have enough tension on them to hold a battery securely.

The body of the charger is a black ABS plastic that is heat and flame retardant, and is kind of in an X configuration, in outside appearance. There isn’t a fan in this charger meaning it’s silent, and I didn’t notice it get very warm during use. There is one button on the top, middle near the screen that when held turns the screen off, for night time charging if you wish.

I took some photos of the inside of the charger here. I am not a circuit engineer but to me it looks decent. Quality of the solder joints look good, A few components are not 100% squarely placed but not bad either. I don’t see any cold joints or things that I am alarmed about. If you see something you are concerned about, make sure to leave a comment. I suspect the second contact further down the slot is used in the detection of the battery as well.

Screen

The screen is a LCD with a dark black background and white text that’s tinted blue with a blue backlight. On each bay you get a 0-100% indicator showing what percentage the battery is at, on the top right corner you get the current voltage, below that you get the charge rate, below that in the center you get the mAh that’s been put into the cell since the start of charging, and lastly on the bottom left hand corner you get the cell chemistry that’s been detected. The screen is easy to read and I had no complaints about it. It does time out after a few minutes, you can press the button to wake it up.

Performance

Performance of the X4 is similar to the X2 but faster. The X4 will charge at up to 1A for all 4 slots or 2A on the outer slots if they are used solo. The charger has reverse polarity detection and didn’t charge batteries when they were placed in backwards. Battery chemistry was correctly identified, when you place a new cell in it takes a few seconds for it to go through detection and begin charging. Depending on the battery voltage the charger will apply the proper charge for most cells.

I tried a variety of cells, all the way from 21700’s, 26650, 18350, and of course 18650’s. I had no complaints about Lithium ion charging. It will not charge protected 21700s. I do have a little complain on NiMH charging of AAA cells though. It detected my Duracell AAA batteries here as the proper chemistry but charged them at 1A each. While not terrible, it’s faster than I like to charge them, and I can’t decrease the charge rate with this charger.

Terminating Voltage for a 18650 cell was 4.16V

Terminating Voltage for a AA NiHM was  1.42V

Terminating voltages as you can see from above were lower then what I would expect to see. I probably need a larger sample size of cells and chargers to see if this is a problem with just my example of the charger or an issue with my batteries.

The charger has 0V activation (Although this is generally not recommended for batteries with a Lithium chemistry). For  charging it has a 3 step process TC-CC-CV with soft start technology. This helps with overall battery longevity and long term health. I had no problems with excess heat during use of the charger.

 

USB PowerBank Function

The charger also has a powerbank function on slot 4. If no incoming power is put into the charger and you put a lithium battery into slot 4, the charger will go into powerbank mode. Plug a USB-A cable into the charger and then plug in your device to charge and it’s that simple. It’s not a feature I use often but it’s nice to have if needed.

 

Pro’s

  • All automatic, this make the charger very easy to use but doesn’t give enthusiasts any options on what speed to charge the batteries at. Default settings are generally conservative, which is safe.
  • AC Power via a fairly standard cable. The charger is compatible with 120/240v so it’s safe for international use. It can also be powered via MicroUSB.
  • Affordable, at US retailers it’s coming around $25-30 generally

 

Con’s

  • I would like to see the USB input be in USB-C over MicroUSB because it’s 2019.
  • Terminating voltages seemed to be a little low
  • A little high charge rate of 1A for AAA NiHM batteries.
  • A total of only 4A total charge rate is a little slow for a 4 bay charger.

 

Conclusion

The Xtar X4 is a nice updated charger from Xtar at a pretty affordable price. I have been a fan of Xtar chargers because they are a good value and provide a quality, safe charging experience. I was a fan of the X2 and am also a fan of the X4.

 

A total of 4A charge rate between all 4 bays is a little slow when charging 4x 18650 or larger batteries. Most larger modern batteries can easily take 2A charging speed. That said it’s an upgrade over Xtar’s previous 4 bay model the VC4 that I still end up using a fair amount. It would just be nice to see the X4 do a total of 8A but this might make it a little less easy to use with then having options to select. Maybe that’s for a future product, to offer enthusiasts more options and higher charge rates. Time will tell if this holds true or not. Until then the X4 does a nice job at a pretty affordable price.

More Information on the Xtar X4 Charger  can be found at: http://www.xtar.cc/cdq/AC_Power_Series/2018/1116/292.html

Pick up an Xtar X4 at Illumn or Amazon.

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Brinyte WT-01 Prototype Review (SST-40, Qi Wireless Charging)

Wireless charging is popular on many mobile devices these days, but most of the rechargeable flashlights have either a cable you need to plug in or a magnetic charger. Brinyte has come up with a flashlight that uses inductive charging to charge up the light. Today I have a prototype version of the Brinyte WT01. Thanks to them for sending it to me to take a look at.

 

Full Image Gallery: https://imgur.com/a/Yhdc5Co

YouTube Version of this Review:

Packaging

With my light being a prototype the packaging was not anything near final form. It was a sturdy brown cardboard box. Accessories included the light itself, unbranded generic 3000mAh protected button top 18650 battery, Generic international 2A AC USB adapter with US adapter plug, Charging cradle and microUSB cable.

Construction & Design

The light is made from aluminum, and will be offered in a sand and black anodizing. My prototype was in the Sand color and unfortunately it’s paint and not anodizing. The result is it’s not a very durable finish. I have been assured that in the production version this will be a hard anodizing.

As far as design it’s a larger light. It’s capable of using a 18650 battery with the included spacer or a 26650. Starting at the tail cap, it’s a bit large, and simple. It tail stands nicely. The tail cap is glued in place. On the body tube there is a slight ring to do a cigar grip on. Moving on to the body tube, there are rings milled in and then 4 flats milled in. On my example these flats don’t always line up with the switch which is a little disappointing.

Inside this is a double wall design, threads on the body tube are fine and square cut cut, I would prefer something a bit more course to make it a little easier to thread on and minimize the risk of cross threading. One thing that does happen is when you take off the head and put it back on the light does come on in low mode. There are springs on both the head and tail of the light.

The head of the light itself is pretty smooth, with minimal heat syncing. The switch is electronic and covered by a green silicone cover. It has green and red LED’s under used when charging. The front bezel is smooth, and able to be unscrewed. The glass lens is anti reflective coated. Underneath is a deep smooth reflector and the LED is nicely centered.

Size and Weight

I measured overall length at 156mm, width at its widest point was 45mm, and at it’s thinnest point 33mm. Weight with the included battery is 313g

While this light is capable of running at 26650 battery and double wall construction it just feels a bit long and a bit thick. The tailcap adds to the length.

LED/Runtime

SST-40 LED with deep smooth reflector that’s a fairly neutral white. The SST-40 is a pretty good LED in my opinion. It doesn’t seem to suffer noticeable rainbow but it does seem to turn a bit more green a lower power inputs. The beam is more of a thrower. It has a small hot center, with a small area around that center of corona before it fades into the spill.

Runtimes

I did my runtime testing with the included 3000mAh generic button top protected battery the light came with. Total runtime was just at 100 minutes of usable light. It did do a pretty good job of being able to sustain it’s brightest mode for almost 20 minutes.

UI

UI on this light is non traditional but not complicated. It has 4 output modes of constant light and starts at high, then decreases to medium, then low, each time the button is pressed then off. Press the power button again and you get turbo, then it steps down through all the lower modes. The mode spacing is pretty even to the eye.

Brinyte lists outputs as:

Turbo 1100 Lumens

High 430 Lumens

Medium 70 Lumens

Low 10 Lumens

Strobe and SOS 1100 Lumens

Long press for 2 seconds to reach the 2 blinking modes of Strobe and SOS. To go back to constant on mode you have to go through both blinking modes and the light will resume to where you left off. There were no No shortcuts to go to turbo or to shut off

Light does come on in low if you disconnect the head and reconnect it with a battery inside.

Recharging

This light uses wireless inductive charging in it’s cradle. The cradle is pretty basic, no instruction or lights on it, just a microUSB port. It appears to be using Qi charging, because my Anker Qi chargers recognize the light and it goes through a sequence where it starts to charge but then stops. My guess this is because the inductive coils are not oriented correctly. My guess would be these run around the tail cap and are not on the flat where they would be for a phone typically. The cradle draws 0.2A (about 1W) on standby regardless of if it’s charging or not which is kind of high.

When charging the flashlight has a Red LED inside the button that comes on and it goes green when fully charged. I observed a 1.2A charging rate during charging, so a flat battery took 3 hours and 30 minutes to fully charge. The charging curve was pretty flat, not the usual taper. At the end I measured cell voltage at 4.17V. I will insert a photo of what I found overall capacity of the cell was at when I put it through a capacity test.

One other feature I noticed when recharging this light was that when you pull it off the charger it automatically comes on in low mode, or if the power is stopped to the charger. I could see this being useful for use if your house were to lose mains power and it would help you locate the light.

Pro

  • SST-40 LED, Fairly neutral white, solid beam performance
  • I like that colors are being offered from the beginning. Hopefully the anodizing will be more durable.
  • Nice to see someone try inductive charging on a flashlight.

 

Con

  • It’s a chunky light, and personally I don’t find it very attractive.
  • Recharging cradle draws 0.20a (About 1W) on standby regardless of if it’s charging or not. Kind of high.
  • UI is just different I would like to long press to turn off, and double click to go to turbo, maybe triple click to go to strobe.

 

Conclusion

I like the idea of wireless charging that doesn’t have exposed contacts but not if the cost is a larger light. Design wise I feel like the light is just a bit too generic and large for me. I don’t love that the tail cap is glued in place, but understand why they are doing it. I would like to see them go back to the drawing board and try to reduce the overall size of the light and add some more interesting design features.

 

With the emergency power type of feature I think I will set this light on my kitchen counter in it’s charging cradle so that if the power goes off it will automatically come on and can easily be found. I would like to see at the minimum a UI tweak to allow you to shut off the light without cycling all the way through the other modes.

 

It’s fun taking a look at a prototype light, let’s see if Brinyte makes any changes to the production version before I can say definitely if I give it a recommendation or not.

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Quadhands Deluxe Helping Hands System Review

I have been doing some flashlight repair recently and was tired of getting burned hand holding or propping up very small wires, on very small drivers and springs. I was looking at “Helping Hands” solutions on Amazon and just didn’t want to pay some of the higher prices for the quality flexible systems from the industry vendors like Panavise and I didn’t want something light and flimsy. I reached out to Quadhands to see if they would be interested in sending me one to take a look at and they agreed. Thanks to Mark at Quadhands for the support, I think he might be interested in the flashlight hobby now after talking too.

Full Image Gallery: https://imgur.com/a/az3yl4W

YouTube Version of this Review:

Packaging

Packaging is plain but functional on my Quadhands Deluxe. It’s a sturdy cardboard box and all of the individual pieces were wrapped up in bubble wrap to prevent any scratching or rubbing during transport. No assembly or manual was required.

Construction

The heart of this work holding is the 5lbs, 5mm thick steel plate that’s powder coated bright yellow. On the Deluxe kid like I have it’s 8.5” x 11” base, this is really a great size for smaller flashlight project and most larger electronics type projects as well. It gives you plenty of space to work around, and allows you to space out the 5 arms to get things positioned just right. On the bottom you have 4 fairly large rubber feet that keep it in place, on a variety of surfaces. The powder coating is a great choice here over paint because it’s more durable and can better tolerate heat if your soldering iron makes contact or a blob of solder falls onto it.

The deluxe kit came with 5 of the all metal magnetic arms. You get two 8” arms measured tip to tip, one 12” arm, and two 16” arms. The arms are black in color and are made of flexible metal painted a matt black. They are capable of bending in all directions, up, down and all 360 degrees. Each have an alligator style stainless steel clip to hold your wires, components and circuit boards. In addition to that each has a small knurled wheel made from a black nylon behind the clip that allows you to loosen the clip, to rotate it to the exact angle you need and then tighten it down. For me this was a 2 handed operation to get it just right. There is a little bit of spring back on more extreme bends, this can be a little annoying if you are holding a wire to a small pad to solder but I found moving the arm further away to make less of an extreme bend fixes this most of the time.

The arms have made an improvement over previous generations with exposed magnets. Now they are using a thin slick piece of slick plastic on the bottom to allow  the arms to slide around with no visible scratching while still holding strong. These are very strong rare earth N57 magnets. One of the arms can easily pick up the entire 5lb steel plate, and more.

How it works in practice

I used this most recently to replace some wires on a flashlight driver that had come off due to an impact it suffered. I found the shorter arms for me worked better to hold the circuit board. I held the small board with 2 short arms and then used a third to hold the wire and then held the iron and solder in my two hands. I have done this job before without the Quadhands helping hands system and the result often times was slightly burnt fingers.

I can think of a few improvements that they could implement as addons or different kits. Different size alligator clips could come in handy, even better if they were swapped on and off, I could also see maybe a multi head design to allow you to hold a clip and an electronics or multimeter probe. Maybe offer a heavier duty arm that was threaded with a ¼ 20 thread the popular size for camera tripods and flashlights would open up some cool ideas too for testing or filming with a gopro during testing etc.

Conclusion

The Quadhands workholding helping hands system is a really great option to hold your small PCB’s while soldering or doing other fine work. For a flashlight enthusiast and electronics builders this is a really nice option. I love that it’s made in the USA, and has makers that are easy to get a hold of. It really does work well for small soldering work, and foresee this meeting my needs for a long time. I think this is something that would fall into that buy it for life category and it’s all at an affordable price.

 

Quadhands Website https://www.quadhands.com/

Quadhands Deluxe on Amazon https://amzn.to/2JAaZQJ

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Aukey USB-C Charger Review (18W PD)

Intro

USB-C products are in full swing so far in 2019. Today I have the Aukey USB-C PD charger  capable of 18W from this very small cube. Thanks to Aukey for sending it to me to take a closer look at.

Full Image Gallery: https://imgur.com/a/5g0ZhkU

YouTube version of this Review:

Specs

  • Ports: USB-C x1
  • USB-C Output: 5V @ 3A, 9V @ 2A, 12V @ 1.5A
  • Power Input: 100V–240V, 50/60Hz
  • Size:  1.42 x 1.42 x 1.26 inches
  • Weight: 1.5 oz

Packaging

Packaging was very minimal on this charger. It’s a cardboard box with the name and a picture printed on it and it’s literally just protection for the charger, as it’s very small. Inside there isn’t any documentation or anything like that, it’s a charger you don’t need one. One thing worth mentioning is there isn’t a cable included with this charger at all.

 

Construction

The charger is made from hard gloss plastic. My example here is in black but there is a white model as well. Front edges are 90 degrees but the sides are rounded over. One nice thing to see here are the folding prongs. Not all chargers in this small category feature that. It makes travel easier.

Power

Use Chargerlabs Z-Meter software to show screenshot of power stability and it was pretty good. It varied a little bit at the top end but all within about 0.010 volts. I was able to pull a little over on amperage for short times, but the charger was happiest sticking in the ranges it was designed for. I charged my Aukey powerbank which supports PD and with the killowatt measure 20W easily. My USB-C testing equipment here I am getting figured out, a lot of the manuals and interface are all in Chinese yet so it’s hard to operate. In all this worked out pretty well for charging PD devices under 20W.

Conclusion

While the Aukey USB-C PD 18W charger for me performed well, it’s not the latest and greatest technology on the market or the highest output for it’s size. I would have like to see Aukey use Gallium Nitride technology to increase the power and efficiency on this while reducing the size. Don’t get me wrong this is plenty small and 18W out of this small size is pretty good, especially for the price. This would be a good charger to get if your were looking to replace the stock charger that came with your smartphone or tablet but not expecting a large upgrade, or wanting a more budget friendly pick. You will probably need a higher wattage charger to charge your laptop but if it can trickle charge (Some apple products can) then this will do that too, just expect it to take overnight. In my opinion it would make a good second charger, or office/desk charger to use with most devices.

I have reservations about recommending it for a travel charger because it does only have 1 port, and most people have more than one device when traveling, but it does have folding prongs which some other chargers of this size don’t. So what you gain with folding prongs you lose with overall power.

That said this is a good charger and I think it’s worth considering especially if there happens to be a sale on it at the time. It should work well for phones, Nintendo Switch, iPad, and most powerbanks.

Aukey 18W USB-C Charger pick it up on Amazon https://amzn.to/2F76OGB 

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AUKEY 10000mAh USB-C PD Power Bank Review (18W USB-C Quick Charge 3.0)

Today I have a new powerbank to look at by Aukey, if you have been frustrated with the lack of ports or options in what your current powerbank has, this one fixes that by supporting nearly everything you would want in one small 10,000mAh powerbank. It supports USB-C PD for upto 18W charge, Qualcomm Quickcharge 3.0, and good old MicroUSB if you want too. Thanks to Aukey for sending this to me to take a look at.

Image Gallery: https://imgur.com/a/DTHgZCV

Youtube:

Specs

Model: PB-Y13

Capacity: 10,000mAh (37Wh)

Micro-USB in: 5V 2A

USB-C In: (18W PD), 5V 1.5A, 5V 2A

USB-C Out: (18W PD), 5V 3A,  9V 2A, 12V 1.5A

USB Out 1: (Quick Charge 3.0) 5V-6V 3A, 6V-9V 2A, 9V-12V 1.5A

USB Out 2: 5V 2.4A

 

Packaging

Packaging is simple on this powerbank, and not too big. It’s a simple brown cardboard box with the name and an outline drawing of the powerbank along with a few of the things it supports. On the inside the powerbank came in the semi transparent plastic bag, and you got a USB-A to C cable included as well for recharging or charging your supported device.

Construction

Predictably the powerbank is made of black plastic. The top and bottom cover are a lightly textured mat plastic. The ring around the edges are a glossy black plastic. Both seem to scratch fairly easily. Length came in at 146mm, width at 74mm, and width at 14mm. I weighed it at 193.9 grams. The powerbank is rigid and didn’t crack or creek. On the top edge you have a button to turn the powerbank on, and check battery power level from it’s 4 white LED’s. On the top you have the Quick Charge 3.0 port with orange internals, the USB-C port in the middle, the standard USB-A port on the other edge, then around the corner you have the microUSB for charging if you wish.

Protocol support

As I mentioned in my opening, this Powerbank supports all the standards you hope for in a modern powerbank to charge a wide variety of devices as fast as your device allows. First and most important to me on a modern powerbank is the support for USB-C Power Delivery. In this case it’s good for 18W. That is a good amount of power to charge your phones, gaming systems, etc fast, but it would  take considerable time to charge your laptop assuming your laptop can trickle charge at 18W. This also works for recharging the powerbank itself if you have a compatible charger. It also supports Qualcomm Quickcharge 3.0 on a USB-A port for supported devices. You can recharge the powerbank via USB-C or via microUSB on it’s side at 2A speed.

For my runtime info I used my EB Tester, and put a load on the battery at 3A at 5V (15W load) and the powerbank did this at a steady state for 112 minutes, I then reduced load, to be 1A at 5V (5W) where it ran for another 20 minutes. Total measured capacity was 6086mAh or 30.57Wh, the stated total capacity was 10,000mAhh or 37Wh. So my measured efficiency was just about 83% which isn’t too bad with the losses due to voltage changes.

 

The charger is capable of charging multiple devices as well. I can pull at 2A load on the USB-A port while fast charging my Note 8 via USB-C. 18W however isn’t enough power for my Dell XPS 13 9350 to begin charging via USB-C.

 

Conclusion

For me this is my new medium capacity lightweight powerbank for traveling. I like the thin size, as it makes it easy to slip in a pocket with my Note 8 or other large screen phone. It also has the protocol support I am looking for with devices that don’t support USB-C PD and the flexibility to recharge via USB-C PD or MicroUSB for legacy support. These things along with a fair price add up to be a great little powerbank across a large spread of devices. Aukey has a pretty good reputation for customer service and product quality, if there is a problem they will take care of you, so I have an expectation this will be a reliable powerbank for many years to come.

 

Pickup the Aukey USB-C PD Power Bank at https://amzn.to/2XMrZX5

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Anker Soundcore Liberty Air Review

Smartphones the past few years from some manufactures have been dropping the support for the wired headphone jack making wireless headphones a necessity. I have looked a a few pairs from Anker and they all had wires connecting the two earbuds together and a little remote on the cable. Today I have the Anker Soundcore Liberty Air to take a look at. These are truly wireless, and have no wire. They are similar to the Apple Soundpods but at a fraction of the price.

 

Full Image Gallery: https://imgur.com/a/qitF7n0

YouTube Version of this Review:

Packaging

The packaging on this is a little larger than I expected but still the high quality that the Anker family of companies has been known for. Inside the magnetic flap it shows the headphones in a nice retail like display. Included accessories include the headphones themselves inside the charger case, a large tray of different ear tip sizes, a large manual and a micro usb charging cable to charge the case.

Construction

The earbuds are made from a hard glossy black plastic. They are solid and the molding is well done. On the outside they have a tiny LED in the top that serves as a indicator. When in the case it glows. This is also where one of the mic’s is. They are indicated L & R at the bottom of the stock.

The case is made from a soft touch plastic. On the outside there are 3 LED on the front that show the charge status of the case itself. The microUSB port on the bottom is used for recharging the case and doesn’t have any type of cover for the port. The lid hinges open 90 degrees

 

Fit  + Controls

Fit is really important for sound quality with these. Lucky they come with several different sizes of tip. For me I had to play around to get the right fit. I found them fairly comfortable to wear and didnt’ have major issues with them falling out or anything.

The headphones do have control on the right and left flat surfaces. Various taps and presses allow you to do everything from play/pause your audio, skip track, answer a call and even bring up your Google or Siri voice assistant. I will put in a diagram of this rather then explain it all. I found myself sometimes pausing my audio when adjusting the headphones in my ears which was a little unfortunate. I rarely use on headphone controls anyways.

Pairing

Pairing was really simple, I just removed the Air’s from their recharging case, and held them near my phone, with my phone in discovery mode, the phone found the headphones and joined instantly. This was the same on my ipad, as long as I had my phone pairing turned off.

After the initial pairing to use the headphones just take them out of the case and they will pair with your device automatically. I have found you need to take both out of the case not just one for this to work.

Sound Quality

How is the sound quality on these you might be asking. Fit is really important on an in ear headphone like this, so make sure you experiment around to get the best possible seal for your ear. During my testing I listened to a variety of sources of audio. Spoken word from audiobooks and podcasts were very good, honestly this is what I listen to most with headphones it seems these days so I don’t disturb others. For music I listened to the Alice in Wonderland podcast which is a mix of music, with a lot of electronic and EDM. You can tell the sound signature has the bottom end bass rolled off a little early, I assume to keep the headphones from bottoming out early, and to preserve power. These don’t have teeth rattling bass, but are not terrible either. I would put bass response at average or maybe slightly under performing for the price but not bad for something this small and wireless. I was happy with mid’s and highs, they were clear, not muted and a fairly neutral mix with the rest of the sound.

Lag

I did notice some lag in  these Liberty Air’s which was unexpected. I noticed it most when I had the headphones paired with my current generation iPad and listening to Youtube. The audio seemed to be at most maybe a 1/8 second behind the video. I would only notice it when someone was talking directly to the camera and you were looking at the screen. On my Note 8 I didn’t have a problem. Audio was in sync on youtube videos.

Battery Life & Recharging

One of the areas I was a little worried about was with these earbuds being so small I was worried about how the battery life would be. Anker rates the buds at 5 hours of playback time between recharges but in my experience I got over double that. During my 6 hours of use I was listening to mostly podcasts and YouTube content and was within about 2-3ft of my device. My volume levels were under 50% and I think that is partially why I got better then advertised battery life. If you are listening to more active content or fast music at higher volumes you may get closer to that 5 hours of playback.

I did like both on my iPad and my Samsung Note 8 I could see a little battery gauge showing the approximate level of charge the Liberty Air’s had left on them. This is the first wireless headphones that have shown this to me.

Recharging is simple, you just pop them into their case and the case charges them. The case is good for 20 hours of playback according to anker, so 4 complete charges. Recharging the case is simple with the microUSB connector on the bottom of the case. The case has 3 LED’s built in that are there to show battery capacity on the case and these shut off after the first few minutes of charging.

Conclusion

I have been a fan of the Anker wireless headphones in the past, that have the wire between earphones but not connected to your device. I find myself grabbing them more and more when I am being active, or not wanting a wire to deal with. The Soundcore Liberty Air takes wireless earbuds to a new level by pretty much eliminating all wires completely. The battery life impressed me on these, the sound quality is decent but not fantastic for music. Fit will be an individual personal thing. For me they felt good in my ears and stayed in place well, but I didn’t go running in them or anything like that extreme. If you were wanting something to try that are like apple earpods but much less expensive and work on both apple and android while having better battery life and good sound quality, I can recommend the Anker Soundcore LIberty Air’s.

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Haikelite Q30 Review (12,000 lumens?)

Today I have the Haikelite Q30 triple LED Quad battery soda can style flood light to take a look at. This light has some interesting things about it that I will talk about here today. Thanks for Banggood for sending this to me to take a look at.

Full Image Gallery: https://imgur.com/a/WuBQgVV

YouTube Version of this Review:

Packaging

The light comes in a pretty generic cardboard box that folds out from the top. It has a simple Haikelite sticker on the top and nothing else. Inside the light came in bubble wrap. You get a sheet of paper product descriptions and then on the other side you get the UI instructions. Accessories include 2 spare large red o’rings, a large green lanyard with a quick disconnect and a threaded loop insert as a place to attach the lanyard. One note about the lanyard is the part that actually attaches to the light is pretty thin material, I would recommend just using paracord instead the loop is large enough.

 

Construction

Th Q30 is made from aluminum and then hard anodized black. The tail cap is one piece with a flat bottom for excellent tail standing capabilities, it is removable which exposes the rear circuit board which has 2 springs and 2 brass disks that are surrounded by a rubber cap. The rubber donut is done for safety to prevent the use of flat top batteries, you can remove them if you with and the light will work with flat tops it’s just not recommended. The mid section has fairly shallow knurling that doesn’t provide a ton of grip. Threads on both ends are finely cut square threads. The body tube with end cap are their own unit. It mates to the head of the light by screwing on. Inside the head there is a single large diameter spring that makes contact with the body assembly creating one light.

 

The head steps up in diameter and features lots of mill work in the sides for appearance and cooling reasons. In the center there is a large brightly anodized blue button and ring. The button sits on a translucent silicone dome with small indicator LED’s under. The button is a little mushy and can be moved left or right. It reminds me of a joystick. At the front you have a polished stainless steel reflector in front of a piece of anti reflective coated glass. The reflector has a satin orange peel and is split into 3 section for each of the LED.

 

Size/Weight

I measured overall length at 134mm, maximum diameter at 66mm, and minimum diameter at 50mm.

Weight with 3 Samsung 30Q batteries is 670g.

 

Below are some images comparing it to the Sofirn Q8

 

LED/Runtime/Beamshots

The LED’s on this light are a bit of an unknown officially. On the product description they are only listed as a “7070” LED. On the inside of the tail cap of the light the circuit board says XHP 70, and they do look pretty similar to images of those that I see online. The LED has a large dome and you can see the 4 individual emitters under each. The beam is mostly a flood, with a slight hot center. You can also see 3 lines coming off of the beam as reflections of the beam dividers.  The light has the following mode spacings. 10 lumens, 500 lumens, 2500 lumens, 5000 lumens, and 12,000 lumens.

 

Runtime

For runtime this light ran on turbo for just about 2 minutes before stepping down significantly due to heat. The bulk of the total 150 minutes of runtime on the Samsung 30Q batteries I used was at about 25% relative output. While that seems like not very much, keep in mind this light is claimed to produce 12,000 lumens. This runtime ran for 135 minutes in a linear decline. At the end the light will kick up for the final 10 minutes and quickly ramp down before low voltage protection kicks in and the light shuts off. It would be nice to see a bit of flashing out of the main emitter to know you were at the end.

UI

The light has a hidden moon light mode that can be accessed by long pressing the button when in off. Normal modes once the light are on, can be accessed with a long press and the light will begin to cycle and you can stop in the one you want, and you have 4 normal brightness levels. Tubo is not a part of these normal modes, to access turbo double click from anywhere when on. Double click again when in turbo to access strobe. Both Turbo and strobe are able to be memorized but the instructions are not clear how this this is done.

 

The light has electronic lockout but with most of these lights I prefer mechanically locking out the light by just giving the body tube a slight turn to break connection. I find it to be easier and more reliable.

 

The switch does act as a battery indicator, however the manual states it’s a green LED but on mine it’s a blue LED under the switch. Above 50% power the LED is on constant under the switch. Between 50% and 9% it starts to blink every 2 seconds, and below 9% the light will step down to moonlight to conserve energy.

 

Pro

  • Seems to be made well without any machining problems.
  • It’s big and heavy but that’s what you expect in this type of light
  • Minimal branding
  • Tripod mount!

 

Con

  • Unknown LED’s but they seem to be cooler neutral white.
  • While the eye is not a good measurement of lumens, to me it doesn’t look like 12,000 lumens
  • Beam has some artifacts.
  • Quite heavy with batteries

 

Conclusion

This light is a little bit of a mystery. Haikelite doesn’t list it officially on their website, and there isn’t a ton of existing information out on it. I have seen some suggest that it’s not a true Haikelite, however all the circuit boards do have the Haikelite name on them and the box is consistent with other Haikelite flashlights I have had. Maybe it’s a Banggood exclusive? I don’t have the equipment to verify the total number of lumens yet but since we don’t know for sure what LED it’s using I am somewhat suspect if it can hit the claimed 12,000 lumens.

There are a handful of good high quality soda can floodlights on the market, and with this one being somewhat and using undocumented LED’s possibly, it’s hard for me to say this is the one to buy. I have not had any problems with mine, the UI is decent and it’s got a pretty neutral tint and its been working without issue. The timed stepdowns are a bit disappointing, I would prefer thermal regulated ones instead so you can get maximum lumens for the most amount of time.

 

If you are interested I will have links and any discount codes I might have in the description below. If you have a Haikelite Q30, let me know what you think of it in the comments below. As always thanks for subscribing and I will catch you on the next video!

 

If you are interested in picking up the Haikelite Q30 you can get it for $58.99 at https://goo.gl/8zwbjG (Affiliate Link) using coupon code: BGMMY

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Astrolux FT01 Review (Cree XHP 50.2, 2215 Lumens, 21700mAh battery)

Astrolux has a new larger light the FT01 with a Cree XHP 50.2 that takes up to a 21700 lithium ion battery and has onboard microUSB charging. Thanks to Banggood for sending this to me to take a look at.

 

Full Image Gallery: https://imgur.com/a/yoGueKe

YouTube Version of this Review:

Packaging

Packaging on this light is a white cardboard lift off box. It has silver embossed image of the light but no real technical detail except for the sticker on the end denoting the model and color. Inside the light is well protected foam cut to fit the light. It comes with a lanyard, orings, a spare button and the manual. It also comes with a conversion tube that shipped in the light to hold an 18650 battery in the light.  

 

Construction

Starting at the tail cap it has a 3 lobe design that means it tail stands pretty well. You can attach a lanyard to any of the wings. The rubber button is easy to access the mechanical button underneath, and requires a decent amount of force to lock, but momentary comes on sooner. There is no knurling on the tail cap but instead smoothed over flutes, it’s not a lot of grip. Inside there are double springs in the tail cap. There are quite a few fine threads at both ends of the light, the tail section being anodized. The walls of the body tube of the light are quite thick.

 

The body tube has 3 panels of a flat diamond pattern milled into it. These would be fine on an EDC light but are not as grippe as I would like on a tactical light. The head of the light contains just a little area milled for heat dissipation  and aesthetics. The front button feels pretty tactile and has an audible click. The LED under it is used as an indicator when charging. The microUSB port opposite the button for recharging. The cover is very well done, it’s out of the way, and the tab doesn’t catch your finger. The bezel on this light is a a screw on aluminum piece. On mine it’s not round, with one side hanging over the body of the light a little, while the opposite side is a flush fit like I would expect, it has crenelations. The lens is glass and isn’t antireflective from what I can see. The reflector is deep and has an orange peel.  

 

This is a big light in all dimensions for what it is.I measured it at a length of 143mm, 37mm head diameter, and 29mm minimum body diameter. The weight came in with a Sanyo 20700 in it, at 250 grams.

 

I compared the light with a Lumintop ODF30 which uses a 26650 battery and the Lumintop is considerably shorter due to not having a tail switch and recharging but it just shows how big the Astrolux is for what it is.

 

LED/Beamshot

This light has a Cree XHP50.2 in a fairly cool white. My example suffered from pretty bad cree rainbow, the center was the cooler white, but then you got a pronounced green ring, before fading into the cooler white again, not my cup of tea. The reflector is deep, and has an orange peel.

 

Runtime

For my runtime tests I did so with 2 different battery sizes for this light. I used a LG HG2 (3000mAh) for the 18650, and then a Sanyo NCR20700 (4250mAh). Surprisingly both lights had relatively similar total runtimes, about 150 min and 170 min respectively. However the main difference you saw was that runtime after initial step down from turbo. Tubo lasted 2-3 minutes. Then with the 18650 you saw about 45 minutes of high before stepping down due to voltage. With the larger capacity 20700 I saw that high mode last for 65 minutes which is a nice real improvement.

 

UI

This light uses an easy interface. The tail switch is the on/off button and that’s all it does. The front button controls the modes. You have 5 modes in normal operation. Double click to access the shortcut to turbo. From any mode if you press and hold for about 1 second you get strobe. There isn’t memory on this light and it starts on low always.

 

For being marketed as a tactical light I don’t feel like the UI is very tactical. I would prefer a little quicker access to strobe for a tactical light. Having to press on at the tail and then long press on the front switch either takes 2 hands or changing your grip, neigher are ideal.

 

Recharging

Fastest I saw for the built in MicroUSB recharging was 0.72A, which means it took right at 4 and a half hours to charge the a 3000mAh 18650 battery. This is fairly slow by modern standards, I would like to see at least an amp. The side button acts as a power indicator, going red when charging. I will say the charging port cover is well designed, it sits flush and the tab doesn’t catch your hand at all.

 

Pro’s

  • I like that this works with a 21700, 20700, and an 18650 batteries with the included spacer.
  • Minimal branding and the light is available in a sand/gold color as gray and black

 

Con’s

  • It’s big, and heavy for what it is.
  • It’s expensive without a coupon, for not coming with a battery
  • Pretty bad Cree color shift rainbow.

 

Conclusion

It won’t be a big surprise but this isn’t a light I personally enjoy. It’s too big, heavy and the UI is more general purpose then tactical. I like that it comes in colors and you can use the newer larger generation of 21700 batteries. However for tactical useage you won’t find it on my belt or bag.

 

I do think this would be an ok light for someone wanting to get something basic for an older person in their life. It’s larger, and USB rechargeable. You could give it to them, and tell them to just use the tail on/off switch. Low is fairly high powered, and is probably brighter than many alkaline incandescent lights they had previously. The modes are easy to cycle through if they wanted and turning it off and on again resets it. Other then that I generally think there are better options on the market for most applications with this one.

 

Get the Astrolux FT01 for $55 with coupon code: BGDLH at https://goo.gl/ZhjsaA (Affiliate Link)