Saturday, August 3, 2013

Zebralight SC52cw

My EDC light! Small as heck, yet plenty bright!




It's stupidly small. Like tiny. When I got it, I kinda went, "This is it? This is what I spent $65 for?"


See, it's not bigger than an Eneloop (which is exactly the same as an AA battery in size.) I also threw in my 1.5" diameter Mooshbot coin and a quarter

So, as you can see, it has a nice and deep orange peel reflector. Not much of a thrower, but it's a great flooder.





The construction is pretty good. Nice hard aluminum. I haven't managed to put a scratch in it yet. Many ridges, especially in the head, but that's to dissipate the heat it builds up. It doesn't get hot, but it easily gets warm. A few seconds on the high mode will do it. So, the Zebralight has 10 different brightness settings, and 3 different levels. So there are 3 main settings, and then each level also has an alternate brightness. It sounds complicated, but the user interface is pretty easy to get used to. Nice button. 

So the H1 is the main setting, and H2 shows alternate choices. This is from the Zebralight website. Of particular note is the INSANE 280 lumens. Many flashlights can hit 280, but this one can do it off of a single AA. That's a big deal. Drop in a 14500 battery and you can hit 500 lumens for the first three minutes. Then it turns down to save on the heat. I might buy a 14500 just for curiosities sake, but it's kind of expensive to get. (Battery/Charger) And 14500 has lower capacity.. 

High: H1 280 Lm (0.9 hrs) or H2 172 Lm (1.7 hrs) / 108 Lm (3 hrs) / 4Hz Strobe
Medium: M1 50 Lm (7.5 hrs) or M2 25 Lm (12 hrs) / 12 Lm (27 hrs)
Low: L1 2.7 Lm (4 days) or L2 0.34 Lm (3 weeks) / 0.06 Lm (2 months) / 0.01 Lm (3 months)

Like I said, you pretty much need Eneloops in this. Or some sort of rechargeable. I get around 50 minutes on an Eneloop. 20 minutes with an Alkaline. (On High 1). A neat thing about the light is if you press the button 4 times quick, it'll flash up to four times. That shows you how much battery you have left (1 flash=almost dead). 

So, on paper, and in pocket, it's great. But what about its output? 

 
So, that far tree is 100 feet away. Sorry about the blurry pic but my camera doesn't really do this well. The hotspot kind of missed. Oh well. But I adjusted the image to be as accurate as possible. 


This is at 50 feet. Incredibly bright. The fact that it's a single AA makes it a terrific light to work with. I mainly use it as a bike light, since its wide flood makes it ideal for biking. Zebralights generally don't have much throw, but the light covers a large area (flood.) Smooth transition from hotspot to the outside of the light too. Great light, and I EDC it everyday. 




No comments:

Post a Comment