Tiablo E3A Exquisite




Tiablo was once known for their thrower lights (A8/A9/A10/ACE), but has also made some other lights, the light I am looking on here is the first in a new series called Exquisite. It is an AAA light with two brightness settings and strobe, it uses a tail switch to turn on/off and select modes. The mode sequence is high-low-strobe and the light will remember the last selected mode. It is also one of the few lights that officially support a LiIon battery. The light is made of aluminum with hard-anodized (Type 3) finish.



The light is delivered in a cardboard box with window. It has some symboles on the side, but not from the FL1 standard.



The contents of the box are the light, two spare o-ring, a split ring, a spare rubber boot for the switch, the manual and a warranty card.



The light uses a XP-G led placed in the center of a small OP (Orange Peel) reflector. The light has a stainless steel ring on the front, this protects the light bumps and drops.



The head is smooth and has then name of the light on it, the battery connection in the head uses the circuit board with a ring, i.e. the threads does not carry any current.



The battery tube has threads with o-rings at both ends. The treads are anodized because the current goes through the end of the tube. This design allows lock-out



The battery tube has some knurling between the flat surfaces.



In the tail is a spring and hidden above the spring is a switch. The switch boot fills most of the tail end of the light, but there are a couple of holes to use for the supplied split ring. With the switch sticking out the light cannot tail stand.



This is the parts I could disassemble the light into without using tools.


This is a nicely designed light with a tail switch that can work with both NiMH and LiIon batteries. With the stabilizing circuit not really working and no LiIon protection, I do not believe the light lives up to its moniker as "exquisite". But this does not prevent it from being a fine light.



Technical specification and measurements



This light is designed for any AAA sized batteries (Alkaline, NiMH, Lithium, LiIon).

Measured size and weight:
Length: 87.6 mm
Diameter: 14.5 mm
Weight: 31.2 gram with eneloop

The light uses a Cree XP-G R5 led.



In the above table I have used 800mAh eneloop and 350mAh LiIon batteries for measuring and estimating the runtime. The estimated lumen are based on the specified 200 lumen and then scaled according to measured brightness. The low brightness is close to specification for NiMH and higher for LiIon. The runtime specifications are, especially for low, optimistic.



The voltage scan show that the light is stabilized down to around 1.2 volt, as usual with stabilization this has a high current draw at the low end. As can be seen from the runtime graph, the stabilization does not really do anything on high, except for the last 5 minutes of a LiIon run.



The stabilization is difficult to see in the high brightness runtime, but works better for the low brightness.




The light uses pwm at 490 Hz for low brightness, LiIon has a higher brightness than NiMH on low and as can be seen the LiIon pulses are higher (Top: NiMH, bottom: LiIon).



Each pwm pulse starts with a spike, this is the regulation starting up and then adjusting to a fixed brightness. The pulse is extremely fast and cannot be seen by the eyes.




The strobe is 10 Hz with 50% duty cycle using the high brightness setting. The initial spike is also present here.



Comparison to other Flashlights

Tiablo E3A Exquisite NiMH, Tiablo E3A Exquisite LiIon, 4Greer WS1 NiMH


Ray S20 NiMH, Ray S20 LiIon, 4Sevens Preon ReVo


For the full comparison to other lights with graphs and beamshots see here.



Notes

Some people have reported that the light failed while running on LiIon.