[selfbuilt]

[Update Feb-13-07: Just received a second LILL from dealextreme.com, and there have been a few changes for those of you considering this light for upgrades/mods. The clickie has a much lower low mode (~1/3 as bright as high mode now), with new sequence of off-high-low-off instead of old off-low-off-high. Also, screw thread diameter has changed, so tailcap no longer fits on Lumapower D-mini. Screw threads are no longer anodized, so you can no longer lock out the light. Disappointing changes to the threads, but throw and overall brightness on high with RCR is unchanged.]

I just received the new 1 RCR123 fifthunit.com "8W" Mini-Blink (aka "LILL" in their swedish lexicon). Just start playing with it, but I'm very pretty impressed so far.



Quality of construction is good - in fact, it's very similar to the "12W" 18650 VIKA I reviewed here last month. Thickness of the bezel is good, anodizing is smooth, and there are a good number of threads. Once again, there is a spring located on the positive terminal in the PCB head. A bit odd - and you may want to bend down the spring ends to avoid scratching the batteries. Overall, quality is quite good by cheap light standards - I would say it's comparable to an above-average ultrafire.



Overall length is about 103mm, and head width is 34mm. Knurling is not very agressive. Unit fits very comfortably in the hand, and comes with a quick-release wrist strap attached. The head unscrews to allow removal of the lens & reflector, and access the the lumiled star.



The tail features a 2-stage reverse clickie that has good tactile feel (sequence is high-off-low-off). In relative comparison to the 12W VIKA, the low mode is a little brighter (in this case, about 2/3 of the high brightness, I'd estimate). Note that unlike the VIKA, the switch is recessed so the unit can tailstand (although the attached wrist-strap introduces a little wobble).



Popped in a AW protected RCR123 (3.7V Li-ion, 750mAh), and was blown by the brightness and runtime!

According to my home-made light meter, on high, the LILL is only ~10% dimmer than my 18650 VIKA (which itself is close to my 3W-LED 3-D cell Mag). To put that in perspective, the throw on this LILL is in-between my 3W-LED Mag and my Steamlight ProPoly Lux, although somewhat close to the SL. Although I don't have a lux-calibrated light meter, my numbers correlate very well to quickbeam's flashlightreviews.com - I would guestimate low 60s for throw for this light. Note that this is quite consistent with FU's reported lux reading of 66.5 (I find FU's numbers typically slightly inflated, but this one seems about right).


(Note: runtimes are based on throw, and are plotted as relative to initial output, considered as 100%. Hi mode actually throws ~50% more than low, but I haven't done overall output measures yet)

Pretty impressive at 40 mins (Hi) and 113 mins (Low) to 50% on 1 RCR. Unit gets warm pretty fast - faster than my other lights - so I kept a fan on it during the run tests. Frankly, given the amazing amount of light this thing puts out on Hi, I imagine it must be over-driving the LED pretty heavily.

Here the beam plots, on Hi, of the LILL vs. SL ProPoly, followed by LILL and VIKA.



You can't see the coronas too well, but the LILL has a slightly broader, less defined one around the centre beam, compared to the other two lights. Overall similar in shape to the ProPoly (i.e. both have a few faint corona rings, overall spill width similar), the LILL has a much brighter spillbeam. I'll do detailed profiles and report back later.

The light will run on primary CR123s, but with diminished output - the light is about half as bright on primaries. Basically, on high, its throw pretty much matches my Fenix P1. Low mode still works, and is again about 2/3 as bright as the high mode.

So there you have it - amazing output on RCR, good runtime, dual mode, and can still take primaries. As with my VIKA, I haven't tried disassembling the head (I'll let someone else be the guinea pig), but so far I consider this (tentatively) to be another success for FU. My only real concern is how long the LED will last, given the insane amounts of light it puts out on Hi. I'll keep you posted on my testing progress.

Anyone else who has received this light - please feel free to post your thoughts and experiences here.