grovestreet

I am looking for a flashlight with SSC P7 LED with 2*18650 batteries.
All the flashlights looks similar despite the names.

And can anyone provide some positive fb on this site?
A lot of BFers are complaining about DOA, construction quality, and transit time.

socalrider

you will be told ordering through dx can be a crapshoot.. I have always received my product but most of it eventually fails or is glitchy.

Pay a little more and go through us seller like Lighthound or Shining Beam..

you can find more light and info at: https://www.candlepowerforums.com

max1391401

I love my DX lights. I wouldn't rely on them in a life/death situation, but if you have more than one, eg one the helmet and one on the bars, who cares. For the price, they're so much better than anything else. Generally all problems they face are little things that can be fixed, eg wrapping the battery. Here is a great troubleshooting guide for them also. While we're at candle power forums, have a look in their budget lights section, they have lots of experience with the dual 18650 P7s.

ItsJustMe

I have a single cell DX P7 light (5 mode MTE). It did start to flake out after about 4 months, but it turned out the LED die had just rattled loose. I opened up the lens, tightened it and it's fine now.

Some people have horrible luck with DX. I've not had too many problems, and they've fixed the one DOA product that I got quickly and beyond what they had to do. The first light I got from them was one of the tiny ones that used AA cells; it developed a bad switch after a few weeks. The P7 is as I described above, and is fine now.

dougmc

Yes, they're mostly pretty similar. Though I don't really recall seeing any 2*18650 ones -- the ones I've seen (and bought) are 1*18650.

There is a two mode one that has a resistor in it to reduce the brightness -- avoid that one as it's less efficient. Get the five mode version instead, as it pulses the light instead which is more efficient.

I just recently bought this one -- https://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.16501 -- as the LED is supposed to be more efficient than the SSC P7's, and it does indeed seem to be brighter. I haven't tried to measure how long it lasts yet, however.

I've found DE stuff to generally be of lower quality than the stuff that costs 5x as much -- but it's well worth the cost. These flashlights are great for bike lights, especially if you have a backup light just in case.

Cyclist0383

It's impossible to know as the specs often change on the fly, and the build quality is totally inconsistent.

Shining Beam just got the new SST-50 light in. I have the older version (MC-E) and it's far higher quality than the DX MC-E light it replaced, and well worth the few extra dollars.

https://www.shiningbeam.com/servlet/t...-dsh-50/Detail

dougmc

I've now bought four of the DE 1x18650 lights over the last 18 months or so -- three P7s and one XLamp MC-E. One P7 is the 2 mode with a resistor model (avoid this one), two are the 5 mode (good) and the XLamp version is even better.

The only problems I've had with any of them is that 1) in one of them, the LED vibrated loose going over some grooved pavement. Easily fixed at home, but it made me glad I had a spare light with me, 2) the batteries were loose (causing mode changes on bumps sometimes) until I added a paper spacer around the battery, and 3) the glass cover is easily broken when dropped (and easily and cheaply replaced) and broke a few times.

The specs on all of them are pretty much identical (except for the XLamp, of course) and the build quality is pretty much unchanged.

I've bought dozens of things from DE. The quality is certainly hit and miss (the highlight was a Sony PSP charger that was empty -- no transformer or anything inside, even though it was a perfect copy of the original version otherwise) but for these lights, I've found them to be very consistent and the quality is good.

"Few extra dollars" = "nearly twice the price".

I'm not saying it's not worth the extra cost (and even $67 is pretty cheap when compared to the brand name bike lights), but "a few extra dollars" understates the price difference.

Cyclist0383

Considering every light I've purchased from DX has died in less than a year, as have my friends' lights, I'd say buying a quality product first will actually be cheaper in the long run. I don't have enough money to buy cheap stuff.

dougmc

Makes me wonder why all your lights are dying and none of mine are. I imagine we're even talking about several of the same models of light.

Every light (perhaps 8 total?) I've bought from DE I'm still using (except for that 2 mode P7 -- I lost it). They've all been dropped a few times, all the 1x18650 lights have been used as bike lights with the abuse that comes along with that (granted, most of my riding is on pavement), and besides the LED coming loose on one (which I fixed in a few minutes), I've had no failures.

I did have one 18650 battery come DOA from DE (well, it cooked my charger the first time I charged it), but DE replaced it easily, and the other 11 or so batteries I've gotten have been flawless and all are still in use.

Cyclist0383

Most likely because DX quality is wildly inconsistent.

dougmc

Well, for you and me it seems quite consistent -- they all fail for you (though I don't know how many lights you've tried), and they all work for me. And I wonder why there's such a difference.

Yes, it could be a coincidence, but that seems unlikely.

Cyclist0383

I've had four fail on me (MTE MC-E, 2 Rommisen Q5 AA, one R2 Drop-in that LED literally fell off of). A friend had two Rommisen lights from DX die on him.

DX sells junk, and I suspect that some of it is seconds that didn't pass quality control. Oddly I haven't has any issues with any other lights that I have from other venders (Shining Beam, 4 Sevens, Nailbender, Fenix Torch, SBlights, Lighthound), and I have lots of them. Also the Romissen lights I bought at Shining Beam are still going strong while I know of four DX ones that died. That's more than a coincidence to me.

Don't even get my started on their taillights......

ed 

Ultrafire Q5 - flickers
Akoray Q5 - flickered so bad...I desoldered and changed to direct drive
Akoray Q5 - complete failure
Cree Stainless Q5 - zero issues
Uniquefire R5 - altogether failed
Uniquefire R5 - flickers every 2sec with 2x RCR's / runs steady with a single 18650
Trustfire TR1200 - Beastly thrower that has yet to have an issue
MTE SSC P7 - Flickered. I took it apart, cleaned, re-assembled. Still flickered. Gutted and used the head as a DIY bike light.

sknhgy 

My $35 P-7 from DX went bad after a couple of months. I fixed it, but a person shouldn't have to do that. Next I got a MC-E from Shiningbeam for $65 and it has worked flawlessly. The better quality light is well worth the cost to me. The last thing I want is for my light to go out on me when I'm several miles from home on a dark night in the middle of BFE. Worse yet would be to have your light go out in heavy traffic. I want reliable stuff for my night rides. FWIW, I use Schwalbe Marathon Supremes on my "night bike." I don't want flats at night, either.