Sunwayman V10r Ti First Impressions

So as I said in my last post I sold my Surefire E2D LED Defender to buy a new toy, this is that. I had been looking at a few different lights
(Nitecore EX11.2, JetBeam Raptor RRT-0, Mac's Customs Tri-EDC, and HDS Rotary). In the end, none of the lights I was looking at really stuck out at me until someone on Candle Power mentioned the Sunwayman V10R, 210 lumen max, 1 lumen low (although some get lucky and go much lower), and it was $80. After looking around and seeing no bad reputation about it I decided I was going to buy that one, I also noticed the Titanium model ($130) was getting great reviews and most Titanium models went lower than their Aluminum models, and there was a Titanium AA extender available too. The only other Titanium light I had been looking at was the Mac's Tri-EDC which ran $300!

I ordered it the Thursday before Labor day which sucked because the USPS doesn't run on Sundays and government holidays... So I had to wait until Tuesday before it came in, If I had ordered it one day earlier I would have gotten it 3 days earlier. Such is my luck. Either way a well respected Candle Power member (Kuku47) is in the process of making his second run of Tritium Tailswitches, of which I have one pre-ordered so that will be coming in a later post.

This is my 4th flashlight (if you count the Ziplight) and my first Titanium light, actually my first Titanium anything... I'm very impressed by this little light, I've only had Surefire lights so far and the quality is just as good as a Surefire, the selector ring easily rotates, the fit and finish is superb, and the forward clicky has a nice tactile feedback.

The aesthetics of this light are very nice, not the overly machined "hey look at me" result of a CNC machinists' drunken wager like some lights tend to be. The head has 3 grooves in it that I assume are heatsinks, the selector ring has grippy notches that don't stand out too much, and the body has a nice combination of flats and grooves that just works with the light.

The ramping from high to low is very smooth and the beam has a nice hotspot with an even flood, no artifacts in the beam and a neutral tint. The low is almost unusable, a dim spot in a pitch black room, going up to a blinding wall of light from the textured reflector.

The LED is perfectly centered, which is good because my OCD would really kick in right about now if it weren't. By the way I've been running my light on a Panasonic lithium primary for those of you wondering, my high isn't as bright as it could be but I'm hoping some AW rechargables will remedy that.

The switch on this light is where it starts to show some weakness, for a titanium light the black rubber boot is unattractive at best, but Steve Ku's electronic switch should fix that. The only real complaint I have about this light is one shared by pretty much everyone else who has one of these lights; the pocket clip. The pocket clip is a piece of black metal that seems to be an afterthought to a very good light, I don't even have a picture of the black clip because the first thing I did to the light was remove the paint from it.

The pocket clip simply snaps in place around the body in one of the two grooves, this is problematic for several reasons;
1. The clip moves around easily, scratching up the finish of the light
2. The edges of the clip catch on everything and aren't exactly dull
3. The clip being attached like this is ugly, plain and simple
I can possibly think of more reasons to hate this clip but I'm stopping there.

 The lens is pretty dirty but as this is a pocket carried light I am not worried about it, overall I really like this light and the modding community has embraced it as well, Kuku47's electronic switch replaces the clicky with a much nicer looking piece and adds some tritium bling as well, he also has a pocket clip (Nitecore Ti I belive) that screws onto the tail and looks much nicer, I haven't seen his 18500 or 18650 bodies yet but knowing his past work they probably look amazing as well. My favorite idea so far was one brave soul who drilled the heatsink and put a few vertical trit's in there, it looks amazing!

People have already modded these with different LED's as well for different tints or just because, one guy even put a McGizmo clicky on because he wanted to see if he could.

If Sunwayman keeps bringing lights like this to the table then this will not be my last, I seriously love this little light!

For $130 this light really is a great deal, it's not the brightest thing out there but it's a great little EDC light!