in need of a good torch

I said I would report back and here I am after 9 days after purchasing 3 x Romisen RC-G2 from deal extreme, they finally were delivered today.

The good first

I bought three of these and all three of them are outstandingly made. The quality of the case, threads, switch and lens are top notch for the price.

For a single cell flash light it is bloody bright.. I can easily light up objects that are 25 metres away and beyond.

The spot is good but there is some spillage. The colour temp is very cold.. but nothing to worry about at all. Spill is useful I think.

Unscrew the lens cap and you have a very powerful flood light which can easily fill a large room with light.

Now the bad

I have come to the conclusion that they have a very inefficient DC to DC converter. I know they are running from a single AA and we can't expect hours and hours of run time but the light output falls by quite an amount after only 10 minutes of continuous use on a alkaline battery, am hoping my batteries I've tested are duds but am not so sure. Aod how do you find your run time? I agree with you about torches not needing to be able to operate for hours on end but I have found that my three RC-G2 seem to have very poor battery life. The output light drop is very noticeable even in a lit room. I messed around with one for probably 10 minutes total over a couple of hours and after which the light output at a guess was cut by nearly 50%.

All three of mine also exhibit light output dips/flicker. I have found that it can mostly cured by tightening the end cap when it occurs. From what I have read the Romisen RC-G2 has quite a basic output power regulator, perhaps this is what I can put the output dips down to.

I have read that the Romisen RC-G2 draws 1.5amps from a cell, which is quite a large amount of current to be drawn from a single cell. I was hoping for around 20minutes of full brightness from this torch and so far it is no where near this figure.

Overall it is a decent quality torch and is very bright when at full power for the price... but I am quite disappointed with its power consumption. Therefore I would only call it an emergency light as in my short experience it has hardly any staying power as the output light drops off very sharply.

Am now looking towards a double AA powered torch with a more efficient driver.... Quark AA² perhaps
 
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You get what you pay for ;). Thats the reason I went for a Fenix, after owning a string of cheap torches and even an LED Lenser (may have been faulty). I was sick of less than an hours run time before the light started to dim.

But amigafan2003 seems to know his torches and the Quark range might be a better bet over the Fenix torches.
 
2StepSteve said:
I said I would report back and here I am after 9 days after purchasing 3 x Romisen RC-G2 from deal extreme, they finally were delivered today.

The good first

I bought three of these and all three of them are outstandingly made. The quality of the case, threads, switch and lens are top notch for the price.

For a single cell flash light it is bloody bright.. I can easily light up objects that are 25 metres away and beyond.

The spot is good but there is some spillage. The colour temp is very cold.. but nothing to worry about at all. Spill is useful I think.

Unscrew the lens cap and you have a very powerful flood light which can easily fill a large room with light.

Now the bad

I have come to the conclusion that they have a very inefficient DC to DC converter. I know they are running from a single AA and we can't expect hours and hours of run time but the light output falls by quite an amount after only 10 minutes of continuous use on a alkaline battery, am hoping my batteries I've tested are duds but am not so sure. Aod how do you find your run time? I agree with you about torches not needing to be able to operate for hours on end but I have found that my three RC-G2 seem to have very poor battery life. The output light drop is very noticeable even in a lit room. I messed around with one for probably 10 minutes total over a couple of hours and after which the light output at a guess was cut by nearly 50%.

All three of mine also exhibit light output dips/flicker. I have found that it can mostly cured by tightening the end cap when it occurs. From what I have read the Romisen RC-G2 has quite a basic output power regulator, perhaps this is what I can put the output dips down to.

I have read that the Romisen RC-G2 draws 1.5amps from a cell, which is quite a large amount of current to be drawn from a single cell. I was hoping for around 20minutes of full brightness from this torch and so far it is no where near this figure.

Overall it is a decent quality torch and is very bright when at full power for the price... but I am quite disappointed with its power consumption. Therefore I would only call it an emergency light as in my short experience it has hardly any staying power as the output light drops off very sharply.

Am now looking towards a double AA powered torch with a more efficient driver.... Quark AA² perhaps
Click to expand...

Well, i'm glad you appreciate the quality of the construction and the brightness.

i'm Sorry that you've experienced dramatic flicker / brightness changes from moment-to-moment. this may be due to contamination on the conducting sections of the threads or the contact pad on the electrical module. try wrapping the rear-threads in toilet paper and "unscrewing" - this should remove the nonconductive detritus that may be within.

now... on to the drop in initial brightness:
Alkaline AA batteries have (comparatively) high electrical capacity. in low-drain situations they last for bloody ages. however, when you draw lots of current from them (1.5A is a HUGE amount of current for an AA) their effective capacity drops markedly. in addition to this, Alkaline cells have quite a high internal resistance, and when drawing a large current, this internal resistance reduces efficiency and also reduces terminal voltage, which will dramatically effect the torches overall output.

if you had wanted a torch that was longer-lasting, you should have asked/specified (i did ask in my first post!). Romisen do make a 2xAA torch which should be longer lasting and fluctuate less.

if you wanted REALLY stable brightness and long runtime, as some other users have mentioned, then Romisen also make a torch that uses 2 CR123A batteries. i personally have one of those (Romisen RC-F4) as my every-day-carry (EDC) torch. the batteries last a good couple of hours before if goes to low-power mode.

you are right about the DC-DC converter in the G2 being somewhat inefficient, boosting 1.5V to the 3.6V needed by the LED isn't a trivial electrical process. until the very recent affordability of digitally controlled switchmode circuits, it wasn't possible at all.

nevertheless, if you want better runtimes/brightness stability in your G2's, then you could use Lithium AA's or NiMh Rechargeables.

My EDC - i can personally confirm that it's excellent in every way):
2x CR123A Romisen, RC-F4 = http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.7999 (grey)
2x CR123A Romisen, RC-F4 = http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.3386 (black)

I've heard many many many positive things about this one:
2xAA Romisen, RC-P3 = http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.1780 (black)
2xAA Romisen, RC-P3 = http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.1781 (grey)

Another one that i've spotted, not heard much about it but it looks good.
2xAA Romisen, RC-I3 = http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.7502 (grey)
2xAA Romisen, RC-I3 = http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.7503 (Black)
 
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Aod said:
Well, i'm glad you appreciate the quality of the construction and the brightness.

i'm Sorry that you've experienced dramatic flicker / brightness changes from moment-to-moment. this may be due to contamination on the conducting sections of the threads or the contact pad on the electrical module. try wrapping the rear-threads in toilet paper and "unscrewing" - this should remove the nonconductive detritus that may be within.

now... on to the drop in initial brightness:
Alkaline AA batteries have (comparatively) high electrical capacity. in low-drain situations they last for bloody ages. however, when you draw lots of current from them (1.5A is a HUGE amount of current for an AA) their effective capacity drops markedly. in addition to this, Alkaline cells have quite a high internal resistance, and when drawing a large current, this internal resistance reduces efficiency and also reduces terminal voltage, which will dramatically effect the torches overall output.

if you had wanted a torch that was longer-lasting, you should have asked/specified (i did ask in my first post!). Romisen do make a 2xAA torch which should be longer lasting and fluctuate less.

if you wanted REALLY stable brightness and long runtime, as some other users have mentioned, then Romisen also make a torch that uses 2 CR123A batteries. i personally have one of those (Romisen RC-F4) as my every-day-carry (EDC) torch. the batteries last a good couple of hours before if goes to low-power mode.

you are right about the DC-DC converter in the G2 being somewhat inefficient, boosting 1.5V to the 3.6V needed by the LED isn't a trivial electrical process. until the very recent affordability of digitally controlled switchmode circuits, it wasn't possible at all.

nevertheless, if you want better runtimes/brightness stability in your G2's, then you could use Lithium AA's or NiMh Rechargeables.

My EDC - i can personally confirm that it's excellent in every way):
2x CR123A Romisen, RC-F4 = http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.7999 (grey)
2x CR123A Romisen, RC-F4 = http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.3386 (black)

I've heard many many many positive things about this one:
2xAA Romisen, RC-P3 = http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.1780 (black)
2xAA Romisen, RC-P3 = http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.1781 (grey)

Another one that i've spotted, not heard much about it but it looks good.
2xAA Romisen, RC-I3 = http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.7502 (grey)
2xAA Romisen, RC-I3 = http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.7503 (Black)
Click to expand...

Cheers for that Aod I will give it a try with some NiMh later on today.

I think the AA route would be the route I'd rather take, they are so handy and I have quite a number of them.

Those 2xAA powered Romisens look quite nice I must admit I would never of guessed that I paid £5 for the one I am currently holding, can't stress how good the build quality is for the price.

It is a shame I can't seem to find a 2xAA powered Romisen with more than one mode, would be nice to have low, medium and high settings to help conserve battery power when full brightness isn't needed.

It is quite a leap in price compared to the Romisen's range but the Quark AA² R5 Edition looks very appealing run time looks great believe it is using one of the new more energy efficient Cree emitter and has different power modes which I think I'd find useful to conserve battery power http://www.4sevens.com/product_info.php?cPath=297_305&products_id=1620 works out about £38 delivered though.. quite a jump from the Romisen range!
 
Aod, I tried a NiMh cell in my Romisen MXDL RC-G2 earlier this week and your right it does make a massive difference. I now have solid light output which is bright and isn't pulsing every few seconds.. this torch is amazing for the price! I will probably buy another when I next make another purchase at deal extreme.

Still have my eye out for a 2 cell AA torch.

You recommended this one: http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.1780

But I am also looking at this with it's two modes.. but is the emitter an older model? http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.9070
 
Just bought a few SST-50`s in the past few weeks,got an MG from shiningbeam and a Lumapower D-Mini Ultra VX which is great for its size puts out a lot of light.Going to mount this one to my bike and use it on that.
 
Yup - just got an MG P-Rocket as well - it's awesome - anyone want to buy a camo MG PLI? :-)

I liked the look of the D-Mini Ultra VXbut was put off by the non regulated output.
 
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