I picked up a little headlight off ebay a couple months back that’s worked out well enough to relate.

The listing was/is ‘UltraFire CREE XM-L LED bicycle headlamp + battery + charger’, twenty bucks shipped to your door. The form factor is like the UltraFire UF-18B but the electronics, LED and switch are different. These lights use a single 18650 li-ion rechargeable battery, are machined entirely out of aluminum and have a semi-integral handlebar mount.



It arrived simply but adequately packaged but the extent of the included owner’s manual/instructions was the international on/off symbol on the switch. Said switch cycles high-medium-low-strobe-SOS-off. The end caps are marked + and -. The light claims to use the XML U2 LED, which industry literature tells me is brighter than the XML T6. It has a simple flashlight-like reflector and plano, and throws the traditional round hot spot plus aura beam pattern.

(Does it really use a U2? Is it a genuine UltraFire product or a fake? Will the included charger burn my house down? I dunno, I dunno and I dunno, respectively.)

How bright is it? Sorry, I don't own lamp testing equipment, but this light humiliates my Fenix L2D. It holds a couple of CatEye LED headlamps I have by the nose and kicks 'em in the seat of the pants. I know we each have different wants and needs in lighting, but in my world I can’t see running this thing on bright on the street at night – medium is plenty. For the first time since I gave up on my Ed Kearney Bicycle Lighting Systems headlamp thirty years ago, I don’t feel like I want more photons. The strobe setting utilizes the brightest output and might induce seizures in the twilight or dark.

Run time, well, first, let’s talk about 18650 batteries. The 'UltraFire’ battery that’s included with this headlamp is marked ‘4000 mAh’. It has about as much chance of actually having a 4000 mAh capacity as I do being the direct descendant of Genghis Khan. I estimate the actual capacity to be in the neighborhood of 800-900 mAh, and the light puts out full brightness on high for maybe 35 minutes. However, fitted with a name brand 3400 mAh 18650 charged on a quality charger, the light doesn’t noticeably start to drop brightness on high until after three and a quarter hours or so. With that kind of run time, the ease of swapping batteries and given the lamp’s small form factor, I like it better than lamps with a separate battery pack and cable. YMMV.

The battery compartment will accept longer protected 18650 cells without any issue. The threads are cut clean and came lubricated, with a sealing o-ring, and the – (negative) cap removes easily for battery swap/recharge.

Likes: smallish, light weight (152 gm w/o battery), all aluminum construction, easy to mount/move/remove, secure, powerful light, long effective run time, cheap.

Dislikes: no warranty, wasteful optics, no marker light thrown to sides, sketchy included battery/charger - and of course the ridiculous class II laser safety warning sticker! The bright strobe is great for daytime use, but I'd much rather have an additional lower power strobe for twilight than the SOS setting.