Wuben E05 Flashlight Review
The Wuben E05 flashlight is a tiny 14500 cell (or AA) flashlight that offers a side e-switch and output from a Cree XP-L HD. Read on!
Official Specs and Features
Here’s a link to the Wuben E05 Flashlight product page.
Versions
There’s just one version of this light.
Price
Looks like these are going for around $40 on Amazon. Is that too much to pay for a simple AA light? (Read on, it’s not just a simple AA light!) It’s also now available on wubenlight.com! Here’s a 20% off coupon, too:
zeroair20
Short Review
I knew right away, just by how this light felt in my hand, that I would like it. I ended up liking it even more than I expected. It’s well-built, smart, and has great output!
Long Review
The Big Table
| Wuben E05 | |
|---|---|
| Emitter: | Cree XP-L HD ((for 14500)) |
| Price in USD at publication time: | $40.00 |
| Cell: | 1×14500 |
| Turbo Runtime Graph | High Runtime Graph |
| LVP? | Yes |
| Switch Type: | E-Switch |
| Quiescent Current (mA): | ? |
| On-Board Charging? | Yes |
| Charge Port Type: | |
| Charge Graph | |
| Power off Charge Port | – |
| Claimed Lumens (lm) | (for 14500): 900 (for AA NiMH): 150 |
| Measured Lumens (at 30s) | (for 14500): 950 (105.6% of claim)^ (for AA NiMH): 200 (133.3% of claim)^ |
| Claimed Throw (m) | (for 14500): 130 (for AA NiMH): 45 |
| Candela (Calculated) in cd (at 30s) | (for 14500): 224lux @ 4.252m = 4050cd (for AA NiMH): 87lux @ 2.998m = 782cd |
| Throw (Calculated) (m) | (for 14500): 127.3 (97.9% of claim)^ (for AA NiMH): 55.9 (124.2% of claim)^ |
| Item provided for review by: | Wuben |
| All my Wuben reviews! | |
^ Measurement disclaimer: Testing flashlights is my hobby. I use hobbyist-level equipment for testing, including some I made myself. Try not to get buried in the details of manufacturer specifications versus measurements recorded here; A certain amount of difference (say, 10 or 15%) is perfectly reasonable.
What’s Included
- Wuben E05 Flashlight
- Wuben 750mAh 14500
- Lanyard
- Felt carry pouch
- Charge cable (USB to micro-USB)
- Spare o-rings (2)
- Diffuser
- Manual and paperwork
Package and Manual
The package is plastic with some cardboard bits, and a riveted-on hangtag. The package shows off the light rather well and has useful information.
Here’s the English portion of the manual:
Build Quality and Disassembly
As I said above, I was impressed by this light from the moment I had it out of the package. It just feels solid and like a nice quality light.
It has a nice ‘flashlighty’ look. And as silly as that might be, it’s something I enjoy about a flashlight.
The cell tube comes completely out and is not reversible. The light is built with the intention that the tailcap will be removed for cell swaps. That is to say that the tailcap threads are square-cut and generally more robust than the finer threads on the head. Both sets are anodized; it’s possible to lock the light out with a short twist.
The positive contact looks like it’d prevent the use of flat tops, but the soft pad doesn’t really prevent any access. The positive end does not have a spring; it’s just a brass button. The tailcap has a spring.
The tailcap has a nice bit of knurling and is big enough, too, to provide a good grip.
Size and Comps
Officially, this light is 88mm long and 23mm in diameter (at the widest, excluding the clip).
There are many AA lights in this size range. The ReyLight Pineapple, for example, is just longer.
And the E05 is much shorter and also quite thinner than the Convoy S2+.
Retention
A pocket clip is installed from the factory. It’s a good clip, with the flip-over style that allows carrying bezel up or bezel down (with a strong preference toward bezel up). The clip isn’t reversible, and even more, it must live in a very specific place on the head of the light, much like some of the newer Olight clips. This doesn’t bother me – in fact, I quite like it because it makes a reliable landmark for finding things, like the switch.
Just a detail shot of the pocket clip hugging the head.
Also included is a felt pouch (which you can see above, “what’s included”). The light fits easily in the pouch, with plenty of room (and even swims just a little). The baggie has a drawstring. This is not something I would use, but I suppose if one needs to carry the charge cable and maybe a spare cell, this would be a good solution!
There’s a magnet in the tailcap too, and it’s plenty strong to hold the light in any orientation. The tailcap has a retaining ring with divots, so it’s likely possible to remove that magnet if you wish.
Power and Runtime
This is an AA-sized light and supports primary cells, NiMH, and Li-Ion chemistry. Wuben includes a 750mAh 14500 Li-ion cell. Thus, the 14500 is the primary power source for this light.
The included cell is a button top and has a micro-USB slot for charging. More on that later.
I performed a few runtimes. Most importantly, a Turbo run with the included cell. I didn’t prove it in this test, but later showed that the light does have LVP, and that seems to happen around 3V. It’s possible to reset the light to Turbo, but the initial (very good) output of >950 lumens isn’t reached again. Furthermore, the turbo rest at around 50 minutes would seem to indicate that the Turbo stepdown isn’t timed, and is likely heat-based (as you can see the heat rises sharply when output is >950 lumens).
An output test on High, with the included 14500 cell, is incredibly flat.
A runtime with an IKEA LADDA AA NiMH cell doesn’t allow for Turbo; High is the highest option. High for the 14500 and NiMH are (or should be) essentially the same output. They are, roughly, but the 14500 clearly holds output much more stable than the NiMH cell. The light also doesn’t seem to have real LVP with a NiMH cell, but the output gets so low toward the end of the runtime that it’d be hard not to notice. And NiMH cells are more robust in the Low Voltage regard anyway. So it’s not the worst fact that there’s no NiMH LVP.
I’d intended to do a Medium NiMH test, but managed to just do a second test on High. So no new info, but hey, I did the work, so here’s the graph.
In all tests, the switch indicates when the cell voltage is low. It flashes red to give the user a warning. The manual says that the switch will indicate more than what I’ve stated, but I wasn’t staring at the runtime to watch the switch. I did not note these events when testing with the bench power, however.
Power 100-90%: Blue light constant (Stops off after 5s)
Power 90-41%: Blue light flashing (Stops after 5s)
Power 40-16%: Red light constant (Stops after 5s)
Power <15%: Red light flashes constantly
The “stops after 5s” for each of the higher power warnings means that they’d really be pretty easy to miss.
Charging
As I mentioned above, the cell includes onboard charging. I don’t typically like this solution, but I do like that there’s a cell included. There’s also a charge cable included, for attaching USB power to the cell directly (via micro-USB).
Here are two repetitions of charging the cell. Identical, and occurring at around 0.33A, which is around 0.5C – fine charging. And the capacity tests are quite higher than the rated 750mAh, too.
A final note on power: the light has a handy cell polarity indicator silkscreened right onto the body.
User Interface and Operation
There’s a single side, indicating e-switch on the E05. It’s a little proud, rounded, and has a great level of clicky. It’s branded with the “W” of Wuben. As I said above regarding the indexed clip, it’s nice that the clip is indexed, because that makes finding this switch very easy.
Here’s a user interface table!
| State | Action | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Off | Click | On (Mode Memory) |
| Any | Double Click | Strobe |
| On | Click | Mode Advance (LMHT) |
| On | Hold (~2s) | Off |
| Off | Hold | Turbo |
| Off | Triple Click | Lock (Signified by single main LED flash) |
| Lockout | Click | Blue Switch Indicator |
| Lockout | Triple Click | Unlock (and “On” to Low) |
Modes and Currents
| Mode | Mode Claimed Output (lm) | Claimed Runtime | Measured Lumens | Tailcap Amps |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Turbo | 900/300 | 3/60 (LiIon only) | 950 | 2.44 (LiIon only) |
| High | 150 | 3h (LiIon) 2.5h (NiMH) |
170 200 |
0.23 (LiIon) 1.06 (NiMH) |
| Med | 30 | 11h (LiIon) 6h (NiMH) |
42 40 |
0.04 (LiIon) 0.20 (NiMH) |
| Low | 1 | 115h (LiIon) 50h (NiMH) |
– – |
– (LiIon) 0.01 (NiMH) |
Something that can be noted about the output, and coupled with the data here, is that the driver of this light is boosting the NiMH voltage by requiring more current for each mode.
LED and Beam
The emitter of choice here is a Cree XP-L HD. This sits behind a smooth, fairly shallow reflector, which provides a beam with a broad hotspot and reasonable spill.
The soft diffuser sits easily on the head of the light.
Beamshots
These beamshots always have the following settings: f8, ISO100, 0.3s shutter, and manual 5000K exposure. These photos are taken at floor level, and the beam hits the ceiling around 9 feet away.
AA (NiMH, LADDA) Beamshots:
Wuben 750mAh 14500 Beamshots:
Tint vs BLF-348 (KillzoneFlashlights.com 219b version) (affiliate link)
I keep the test flashlight on the left and the BLF-348 reference flashlight on the right.
The 348 has a 10440 cell installed, so it’s a little brighter than usual (sorry about that). Unfortunately, that doesn’t change the fact that the tint of the XP-L HD is its weak point.
Random Comparisons and Competitive Options
Here’s a relevantly filtered page on parametrek.com. There are a ton of lights in this size and category. This one is exceptionally well built, and I have to say I like it as a complete package. For $40, with all the features it packs, I consider it a fairly good value.
Conclusion
What I like
- Full package light
- Great output (and for more than a minute) of over 950 lumens
- Hits its throw and outputs numbers
- Great build quality
- Magnet
- Indicating switch
What I don’t like
- The tint doesn’t really suit me, and won’t suit many enthusiasts
- The indication of the switch could be better (ie, the 5 seconds for the higher power warnings isn’t really helpful)
Notes
- This light was provided by Wuben for review. I was not paid to write this review.
- This content originally appeared at zeroair.org. Please visit there for the best experience!
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