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Reviewer's Impressions:
The Aitec Collimator series of lights is a welcome addition
to the selection of lights available to the mainstream consumer.
Currently there are only enough Luxeon Star LED flashlights
commercially available to count on one hand, and this one
is surprisingly bright.
For those of you who do not know, the Luxeon Star is a new
high-output LED capable of emitting the light of many standard
white LEDs as found in other new flashlights on the market.
The body of the light is machined very nicely with no sharp
edges on the final product. Fit and finish are very good.
It is comfortable in the hand and has a nice appearance.
The light is able to take a moderate pounding including the
standard tosses and drops. The light does like to turn itself
on or off when dropped on either end, so don't drop it or
you might be standing in the dark. There is no anti-roll mechanism,
so it may not stay where placed unless you place it on its
switch end pointing straight up.
The battery carrier is white plastic and although appears
to be the most "inexpensive" part of the light,
it functions as required. Rayovac Maximum alkalines were used
for my tests, and were not included with the light.
The switch was a slight concern when I first started using
it. It has a rather odd feel when used and it appears to have
no water resistance built in due to the loose fit of construction.
However, I ran it through several hundred cycles and have
found no indication of physical failure.
Output was surprisingly bright. On the meter, the light appears
to be drawing about 390 mA from the 3 AAA batteries and the
Luxeon Star LED is heatsinked directly to the aluminum body.
The head of the light does get warm after several minutes
when on. After several nights of use I was pleasantly surprised
by the quantity of light put out by the device. As a result
of the high draw of the Luxeon star, I would expect battery
life to be in the 1-2 hour range for bright, usable light
with it dimming considerably thereafter.
The quality of the beam was far from what I have come to
expect from the current generation of Luxeon Star LEDs and
lenses. It appears that Aitec has manufactured their own collimator
lenses instead of using the ones that come from Lumileds,
the manufacturer of the Luxeon Star. These collimators are
not quite the same quality of the Lumileds collimators and
as a result the beam is a bit askew from center (see the "Label
on Collimator Lens, Beam at 1 inch" pics, above.) This
does not, however, prevent the light from illuminating a large
area in front of the user.
Curiously, the Aitec manufactured collimator is significantly
larger in diameter than the current production run of the
Lumileds collimator. As a result I was able to simply drop
in a new Lumileds collimator into the Aitec light cavity and
the resulting beam was perfectly centered and significantly
more narrow. This is an area where Aitec may want to consider
some improvements.
As mentioned before, water resistance is negligible. A simple
suction test indicates that water can easily get into the
case through the rather large gap around the edges of the
pushbutton switch and around the collimator lens. I would
not trust this light under any conditions where it would get
significantly wet. This is another area where the light could
benefit from improvement
Overall the Aitec AT2005L is a good general "around
the house" light. OK for use in a vehicle. I would hesitate
to take it camping, hiking, etc. for fear of it being damaged
by water. It should be able to withstand its share of abuse
otherwise.
+ + + Pluses: Tough, Bright, Lightweight,
Stands up on tail end, Nice fit and finish
- - - Minuses: Not water resistant, Short
battery life/no regulation, Battery change requires light
to do, Beam askew from center
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