Focus Zoom Lens Cree Q3 Flashlight $10 at Meritline

Surprisingly bright for a 1xAA battery. I keep one with me most of the time. I use rechargeable Eneloops in it. It does get warm if you use it for very long. Very nice light for the price.

I got 2. My impressions:

1. Takes a long time to arrive. Apparently sent from Singapore. I believe there's another site selling it for $1 less, also listed here on Ben's.

2. The zoom mechanism feels rough, might benefit from some silicone grease.

3. Both lights have different light color, one more bluish than the other.

4. At the max zoom, you can see the shape of the emitter. Strange.

5. Not much grip for removing the battery cover. Also, thread feels rough, and I'm not sure if grease here is a good idea. It needs to have good electrical contact.

6. Clip is very tight. Too tight.

7. Only one light level. Works with NiMH. Did not try with alkaline.

OK for $9 or $10. Not fantastic.

^ It is normal to see the emitter die shape at max zoom on any flashlight that actually does a full zoom range. It is also normal for different color hues with cheap lights as they don't sort or spec LED color bins to keep cost down.

Threads are usually rough on generic lights. You can grease them if the end of the body tube isn't anodized and makes contact with the tailcap (then don't grease that part, it is the primary electrical contact. Usually on aluminum bodied lights to keep good conduction you will need to remove oxidation from the contact points periodically. Steel wool or fine wet/dry sandpaper are both good for this.

Usually when I receive a generic light the first thing I do is strip it down and clean it out, steel wool the contacts and treads, and grease the threads. Often this isn't just a good idea but necessary because minor quality control issues can even keep a light from working properly due to metal burrs or anodization where it shouldn't be, etc.

This is a good deal for the money but you can't expect it to compare to premium brand lights costing > 3X as much, and it won't last 1/3rd as long due to issues like inferior heatsinking and low quality switch, BUT for occasional use the price is right and by the time it fails there may be better LEDs which entice you to upgrade your light regardless of whether it was generic or a premiere brand.

With the single-mode switch and 2-watt power, you're gonna flatten batteries in a hurry. That's okay, because you're getting a lot of light, but it's only appropriate in situations where you *need* a lot of light.

On the other hand, this looks like a cute little host body, and would be appropriate as a starting point for modding. Swap out the driver board and you'd be looking at an elegant light, for a more civilized age.

^ If you just want a longer running light then the driver board can be modded... it's very likely to be the typical cheap boost design where the drive current is determined by a (cheap, metal film chip type) sense resistor (probably the only resistor on the whole board, or there might be two in parallel). By making the resistor a higher ohm value you decrease drive current proportionally.

You can replace the resistor OR take an X-acto knife blade and scrape away some of the thin metal film on the top surface so what remains of the film is higher resistance due to there being less of it, about halfway across the resistor swiping from solder joint to solder joint will halve the current. When finished protect the scraped top by covering with nail polish or equivalent.

The trick is measuring either LED drive voltage or battery drain current periodically with a multimeter after some scraping of the resistor top layer, then repeat until you get the value you are looking for. If measuring the LED voltage you will need the datasheet to see the current curve associated with the voltage you measure - or at least it'll be a reasonable approximation of how much you're dropping the current with the mod.

I'm not so sure the body is worth the effort to mod much though, especially if you are buying a driver board you would typically find it about as cost effective to just buy a different light with equivalent driver board already in it instead... unless you really need the zoom feature, but for a light small enough to be conveniently pocket carried it's kind of large for only 1 x AA power source, I'm thinking a more desirable light would be one where the body tube were as big as the head so it could take an 18500 Li-Ion cell for much longer runtime, though not everyone wants to invest in the batteries and/or charger if they don't have them already since it doubles the total cost.

This is a $10 really bright flashlight. I have it and like it. Although I appreciate them, I feel the above reviews are overkill for a $10 flashlight. If this were a $100 flashlight, that would be a different story. - Just my opinion.

#6 agreed. The reviews are accurate, but this thing is fantastic for $10. I've used mine for everything from working inside my PC to chasing wildlife out of the backyard at night. The zoom really makes a difference, especially when using it at long range. My dad saw it in action and asked me to order 2 more for him.

Flashlights are good to chase away wildlife but they bring out the geeks.