Zebralight SC5 (1xAA, XM-L2) flashlight review, by selfbuilt

[@Marseglia12345]

I have a EDC with 7000 positive feedbacks on Amazon. Haven't touched it, hardly especially in past year since I bought the SC5 Zebralight which never leaves my shirt pocket. It may be expensive but if you use it 12 times a day, it pays for itself. Better than spending 1/2 the price on a flashlight that never leaves the drawer that you forgot you put it in. Thanks for influencing my purchase.

[@HarryUnchained]

I just got myself the new version which is the high CRI MKII model. I never had a Zebralight before. I'm so amazed with the UI especially with the advanced programmable mode to set the single/double/long click to any brightness I want.

[@TribunusLaticlavus]

Okay that is impressive, probably won't be getting one myself because all my AA based ones don't get used simply because I'm too happy with the sc62w by Zebralight. But I thought they did an impressive job with the sc52 variants in the past, to get this much out of a single lithium primary/nimh battery is something I didn't really expect, I'll keep this one in mind as a suggestion for people that want a powerful small torch without going into the lithium ion world. I suspect the "raised buttons" at 2:55 in the tailcap might be for a larger contact surface and thicker conducting material than you'd normally have with a spring to lower the resistance because this torch will probably demand a pretty high current. -- warning: contains math and physics probably simplified too much below -- The XM-L2 cool white LEDs according to the Cree datasheet have between 500 and 580 luminous flux at 1500 mA. I didn't see any explicit specification for which bin of LED they use but it must be in that range. According to the forward voltage chart 1500 mA matches with roughly 3.05V, so now consider that the LED will be dissipating 3.05V * 1.5A = 4.575W. To drive this the boost driver assuming 95% efficiency (this is a generous estimate considering the current and voltage difference), so we'll need an input of about 4.82W in an ideal scenario. Based on HJKs site the internal resistance of 2000 mAh standard Eneloops and the higher capacity versions is usually in the 0.04 to 0.05 Ohm. So let's assume 0.04 Ohm resistance and ignore any possible contact resistance and losses to the boost circuit and from there to the LED. Now lets assume that the battery is at the state of charge where it delivers 1.2V (a fair bit before it'll be finally empty), due to the high current the actual voltage making it to the circuit will be V = 1.2 - 0.04 * I (and lower than that in practice due to the fact that I ignored some inevitable resistance). So you'd have to resolve P = V * I = (1.2 - 0.04I) * I = -0.04I^2 + 1.2 = 4.82W ==> -0.04I^2 + 1.2 -4.82 = 0 I'll skip all the math but basically just do the classic quadratic formula thing from school and you'll get two values: 4.78A and 25.2A. Obviously in this case the 4.78A value is the right outcome, the other one would be a hypothetical case where the extreme current makes the output voltage sag to about 0.2V but ehhh that's not a realistic value for an AA NiMH battery also the amount of heat it'd generate would be insane. End of the theoretical story for the high output, I suspect the battery will have to feed the torch about 5A, Zebralight doesn't give a runtime for the high part of the only. It lists it as "H1 500 Lm (3min, then 304lm, total 0.8 hr)". I'd be interested to see how well this rough estimate based on the XM-L2 datasheet, battery IR, some optimistic assumptions about the boost converter and probably way too simplified physics match up with real world testing of running it for 3 minutes on high then letting it cool down and doing this until a battery no longer can sustain the high output. I kinda wish I had one so I could measure the stuff myself, it seems kinda incredible really that they get that much out of a single AA in such a small package. But your reviews have never failed me before so I'm believing those numbers and my conservative estimate of roughly 5A (less early on and that or more later on as the battery voltage drops) at the highest output setting. This would drain one of those 2550mAh batteries in 30 minutes or less, probably less before it can no longer sustain the highest output. I'll be keeping an eye on the forum thread I suppose to see if anyone decides to test this in the future.

[@SproutyPottedPlant]

It's on my list, it's at the top it will be my first Zebralight 😊

[@Marseglia12345]

Zebralight SC5- One of my 4 ( four) best favorite researched items LIFE CHANGING ... 1/ Collings Baby Parlor Guitar, 2/ Technivorm KB750 coffee maker, 3/ Orbit 58995 7-Pattern Thumb Control D-Grip Contractor Turret Watering Wand, 14"

[@cvlpa]

OK, ordered. Two.

[@cvlpa]

I'm very happy with the SC5! The best flashlight i ever had.

[@Marseglia12345]

so did a friend I informed enthusiastically. bought 2 he did.

[@derekschaible]

Just ordered one

[@JayLewis7]

Awesome review man. I just bought the Sc5w mkii, do you think the performance will be good with an energizer lithium battery?

[@ttran3444]

I like the AA battery feature as I use Eneloop battery. Does Zebralight plan to make this into the Headlamp model? The highest Lumen I can find on the Zebralight web site is the H52W AA model (280 lumen). This SC5 AA model (535 lumen) !!!

[@cpfselfbuilt]

T Tran It's a good question - I don't know what their plans are for the H-series AA lights.

[@cpfselfbuilt]

+DisgruntledVeteran Glad you are enjoying the reviews. Appreciate the offer of support, but I'm not sure how easy it would be to take international donations outside of Paypal. I appreciate the offer though!

[@VictorChua-uc3ly]

I have been using the Zebralight SC5 with AA eneloop pro battery on H1 very often and the H1 is no longer as bright as before right now.

[@bobinmontana777]

I have a couple of Zebralights, excellent SC52, the natural white light and the headlamp. Definitely dependable and excellent go to lights. I like the interface and with my rechargeable 14500 batteries they are still relevant lights in the flashlight community. I always want more in a light, what is your opinion is the AA flashlight with the best battery life, Lumens, etc?

[@cpfselfbuilt]

To be honest, I haven't seen a mass-produced AA light that really wowed me recently. I still carry an old discontinued Preon.

[@bobinmontana777]

My Preon p2 switch was never right. I contacted Four Sevens and they were not helpful.

[@SproutyPottedPlant]

On candlepower forums for AA recommendations everyone seems to be saying this or S15 Baton! Well, I really like my S15 Baton with AA extender tube but it would be rude not to have this too! Must be patient, wait for my favourite UK suppliers to have them!

[@stewartbuckley3937]

I have the SC600 mk2 L2. It does not get a whole lot of use, mainly walking at night for security (that strobe WORKS). For EDC I use thrunite T10's, titanium and aluminium, I ruined the stainless one testing for shock :/ It seems as throwing it down on concrete head first causes an epic fail! Imagine that....

[@dtrrtd774]

too bad they revived the locator beacon from the strobe modes, I preferred that to the fast strobe that it's now restricted to.

[@allyoucanhopefor]

Can you access the strobe mode only from off? I mean, if I'm in medium, can i triple click the button to access the strobe mode directly? (and maybe triple click the button again for exiting it)

[@cpfselfbuilt]

Not to my knowledge - you need to turn off first, and then triple-click for strobe.

[@knifedrago]

One step forward and two steps back, why not 14500? why use different circuit to the previous light..... Seriously I would expect this for Fenix Not from Zebralight....silly marketing!

[@TribunusLaticlavus]

Italo Rando Uhm what selfbuilt explained in the video, the amount of energy a NiMH AA can deliver is actually about equal/higher than 14500 lithium ion batteries. Considering the device is obviously built to handle the high drain from a lower voltage battery fairly efficiently I consider this a large improvement. If you wish similar outputs while using 14500 then use the sc52 or sc52w, this is a really good solution for people who want high outputs while not diving into the world of lithium ion that requires special chargers and more expensive batteries. Yea its a bit bulkier than the sc52 that can do similar things on lithium ion, but standard batteries man... that's a huge selling point and an important feature ;)

[@knifedrago]

TribunusLaticlavus You bet but, next one will be...500 on single AA, 800 on 14500!?Who knows....

[@TribunusLaticlavus]

Italo Rando Assuming it'll run 800 lumens, with xm-l2 and cool white then I'd have to guess it'd need about 2.5A going through the LED at which point it'll have fV of 3.25V based on the datasheet. So 8.13W of power needs to go into that LED, should be in the realistically possible range to deliver for decent 14500 cells I'd probably want to opt for a high drain type like IMR though. 680 lumens is roughly average luminous flux of the 3 cool white bins @ 2A, doing some rough guess work based on the datashee (look it up on the Cree website, just google XM-L2 and it'll lead you to the pdf)t: 2A is ~240% relative luminous flux in the flux vs current chart, so we'd need 800/680 * 240% = 282% relative luminous flux. The chart there is roughly 2.5A and at that one the forward voltage is 3.25V, there will be some losses in this with the battery internal resistance and the buck boost converter so you'd likely be looking at needing at least 9W. Also those charts both assume a junction temperature of 85 degrees Celcius, I suspect this probably won't happen when driven that hard in a torch with a low thermal mass. But I've seen AW IMR 14500 batteries tested at 3A on HJK's site with relatively little capacity loss energy wise compared to the lower drain currents. This to me indicates that the batteries should be able to handle it with some headroom to spare although I suspect the heat aspect may be the bigger issue here design wise. The energy is there with the right type of batteries but I'm not sure how they'd be able to sustain that output for a meaningful amount of time, a pid controller would have to thermally regulate the output really quickly (or a really short timed stepdown). Not saying its impossible, new LED technology may be developed and technically I suppose they could do it now too but it just won't be able to run at that output level for a meaningful amount of time. Oh one thing that is worth realising, they probably opted for making the DC-DC boost circuit in the sc5 family this way to reach a rather nice efficiency. The deal with DC-DC switching converters is that you have to optimise them for a certain input voltage and output voltage range, as you make those ranges wider efficiency tends to be the price you pay. So considering the high currents needed from a NiMH AA to drive an XM-L2 at 500 lumens (see my long comment on this same video elsewhere) they probably deliberately optimised it for normal standard batteries because heat would otherwise be an even bigger issue. After all most people who are interested in lithium ion are more likely to go for the slightly larger 18650 market or CR123A/RCR (16340) product lines depending on personal taste.

[@TribunusLaticlavus]

Zhengyis I actually do like the batteries, but not really for torch use. They do come in handy to power my relatively low powered projects with their nice higher voltage than NiMH batteries while being a lot more compact than their 18650 cousins. Another aspect that I appreciate about the 14500 lithium ions over NiMH is that the open circuit voltage is a good indication of the state of charge. Not so much for NiMH, but when it comes to pricing, availability and total energy capacity NiMH AA batteries beat 14500 hands down in my opinion. Except perhaps in some of the theoretical higher power uses on a single cell, but even that isn't really ideal for the 14500 size. I'd rather use NiMH in that case which is much less likely to fail unsafely than lithium ion chemistry.

[@dtrrtd774]

*removed*, that is, not *revived* ;)

[@vectraB97]

I had a similar looking zebralight. Ended up in the trash after very little use. It had so many build quality issues.. it wouldn't work reliably no matter what I tried.. and the button was to sensitive.

[@123bdog]

Torbjørn Larsen Most people would RMA the light instead of throwing away 50+ dollars. It wouldn't cost you anything and you would have a working Zebralight with no problems, like I do.

[@vectraB97]

Rod Shaftwell I didn't feel the build quality was worth the hassle.. a quality flashlight shouldn't have issues after 1-2 months minor use. The switch was to easy to accidentally turn on. The range wasn't very good. The only thing that was premium was the price..

[@123bdog]

***** Of course it still works. I have had 5 different Zebralight models over the years and not one has had a single problem. Not one failure of any kind. Dropped them many times too lol. The vast majority of people get working lights with excellent QC, and if they don't Zebralight makes it right with no cost to the buyer.

[@123bdog]

Torbjørn Larsen The accidental activation problem was an issue on their lights over 3 years ago lol. Obviously you haven't tried a Zebralight in quite awhile. It's your prerogative. They actually do make some of the best flashlights in the world.

[@vectraB97]

Rod Shaftwell it is 3years ago since I had a zebralight.. I'm not throwing away more money one crappie build quality.. the ship has sailed for zebralight. I rather use my money on something that's never failed me. like fenix..

[@di2ger]

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