Manufacturer:- Candle Power Forums Member McGizmo (Don Mcleish)
Purchase Price :- Around $199 / £112 & $197 / £111 http://www.xe.com/ucc/

Aleph1 McE2s 1x123
Size:- 94.5mm long 31.6mm Diameter at widest point.
Weight (With Batteries):- 3 1/4 oz. 92g
Battery Type / Qty :- 1off CR123A (Surefire, Duracell, Panasonic or similar)
Battery Life :- Approx. 40-50 Minutes at full brightness or 11-18 Hours at low output
LED Type :- 3W Luxeon TYOJ
Rated Output:- Approx. 2100 Lux @ 1M on High and 238 Lux @ 1M on Low
Estimated LED Lifespan:- Over 100,000 Hours (That's an awful lot of expensive batteries)
Colour:- White
Reflector Type :- 27mm Reflector
Lens Material :- Glass
Tailcap Resistor :- 15 Ohms
Electronics:- Badboy 500 set to run at 0.5A output The Sandwich Shoppe
Body Material :- Aluminium alloy with type III HA Dark Grey anodising

Aleph1 McE2s 2x123
Size:- 129 mm long 31.6mm Diameter at widest point.
Weight (With Batteries):- 4 1/4 oz. 118g
Battery Type / Qty :- 2off CR123A (Surefire, Duracell, Panasonic or similar)
Battery Life :- Approx. 60-70 Minutes at full brightness or 13-21 Hours at low output
LED Type :- 3W Luxeon TYOJ
Rated Output:- Approx. 3100 Lux @ 1M on High and 500 Lux @ 1M on Low
Estimated LED Lifespan:- Over 100,000 Hours (That's an awful lot of expensive batteries)
Colour:- White
Reflector Type :- 27mm Reflector
Lens Material :- Glass
Tailcap Resistor :- 30 Ohms
Electronics:- Downboy set to run at 917mA output The Sandwich Shoppe
Body Material :- Aluminium alloy with type III HA Dark Grey anodising

After resisting the lure of the Custom lights on CPF I think I now have something of an addiction problem! These two excellent lights are not helping any :)

This was originally going to be two reviews on the Aleph 1 and Aleph 2 lights. But in a very rare mistake by someone who shall remain nameless. I have ended up with two different Aleph1's.

Now after playing with both lights for a while I really don't mind at all!

The McGizmo Aleph system is designed to be modular and can consist of an almost limitless combination of different parts. The particular lights in my review are pretty much standard as far as these custom lights go, so I can break down the major components parts to give you a feel how they are ordered.

The order spec for these two lights is as follows :-

Aleph 1

McE2S with 30-Ohm resistor
2x123 pack
Luxeon III
Downboy 917 Converter
HA Dark Grey

Aleph 1

McE2S with 15-Ohm resistor
1x123 pack
Luxeon III
Badboy 500 Converter
HA Dark Grey

The McE2S is the tailcap of the light. Doesn't sound very interesting does it? Well you would be wrong there as it performs several important functions. It consists of a spring loaded rubber pushbutton for operating the light in momentary operation. I.E. you push the button and the light comes on. You let go and the light goes off. Simple.

It also has another trick up it's sleeve. If you push harder the light will go into full power thus getting brighter. So why does it give two different levels of brightness? Well when you first press the button down slightly you put the battery voltage through a resistance. This causes the light to operate at a much lower current than normal and thus reduces the brightness. Pressing harder bypasses the resistor giving you maximum power.

If you get fed up with holding down the pushbutton you can also turn the light on by screwing down the tailcap onto the battery tube. Screwing the tailcap down further will also activate full power mode.

When you order an one of these lights you have to specify what value you want the resistor to be in the tailcap. This will depend on on many things, the LED type, Driver circuit and number and type of cells used in the battery tube. This is in itself a huge subject and I will not attempt to go through all of the options here. Those helpful folks over at CPF have already done the legwork so take a look here.

The battery tube is available in several versions depending on your preference for voltage battery size weight etc. I have chosen the CR123x1 and CR123x2 holders as they take the same high energy density 3V Lithium cells that many of my other lights use. The tube is threaded on both ends and sealed with an O-ring to maintain a high degree of waterproofing for the light. These come well coated with some sort of lube. Probably silicone based?

The head is the heart of the Aleph system. It consists of the main body of the head which contains the reflector and Light Engine (LE) The reflector is a Custom 27mm design made especially for the Aleph1 lights. This is protected from the elements via a glass lens. The lens is retained via a threaded front bezel ring and seals against the light body with an O-ring.

The LE is another area where you have to know what you want! It holds the Luxeon LED and the electronic regulator circuit that controls the current and voltage that goes to the LED. These again come in several flavours and you should understand the different design and limitations of each units. I will for the uninitiated try to briefly explain the different types.

Badboy :- Current Regulated, Step Up. This is what you want for a 3V powered light for 1W-3W Luxeons.

Downboy:- Current Regulated Step Down. Use this for 4.5-6V and 6-9V powered 1W-3W & 5W Luxeons.

These boards are regulators that will give a more constant light output for the majority of the battery life compared with direct driving the LED's which would give a constant fall off in performance as the batteries die. Plus you cannot direct drive very well from a single 3V cell.

For more information on these boards plus other new developments see here.

The Light Engine can be removed from the head and fitted to any of the other Aleph series lights. This gives great flexibility for trying different drive circuits and LED types in different sizes reflectors.

For more details on the construction of the LE see this excellent site from kj here.

As you can see from kJ site you can buy the Aleph lights in kit form if you fancy having a go at assembling them yourself. I personally have more confidence in letting the experts handle the assembly. Maybe one day I'll have a go. See the The Sandwich Shoppe for all the bits.

Now I have rambled on about the parts of the light I should really make a few comment's about the lights as a whole. The fit and finish of each of the components is excellent. Not quite as good as the Super Flashlight 2, but still very very good. Plus I like the Dark Grey HA finish better than the standard Natural HA (Green) finish. They lights feel good in your hand and the tailcap provides a good stop for a reverse hold when using the button. Even the small CR123x1 light with the Aleph1 head works great.

The tailcap allows the light to stand on it's end and be very stable. The tailcap also has tapped holes for various hanging attachments for a belt clip etc. The larger diameter compared with the battery tube makes it easy to turn on and off by turning it.

The head it very well made and contains an excellent reflector that produces a very bright hotspot with a good overspill or corona of light. The light is probably the best throwing 3Watt Luxeon that I have ever seen.

Battery tubes come in various forms. The two shown here are CR123x1 and CR123x2 they are mainly plain with a small raised knurled section. The batteries are inserted by unscrewing the head from the light and the tube is shouldered at the tailcap end. This will cause the cells to make a hard contact with the electronics assembly when the tube is screwed home. It does not rely on the spring tension from the tailcap. This also means that the cells don't rattle in the tube.

The tubes are completely anodised except for the very end walls. This is for a very good reason, the power will not flow through the hard anodising, the end walls of the tube allow a good electrical connection to be made with the tailcap switch and the Light Engine assembly.

The Light Engine is engraved with the voltage and the current rating delivered to the LED. This is great for anyone with more than one of these as mixing them up and putting the wrong higher voltage onto a Badboy would probably result in letting the magic smoke out. You have been warned!

The light output is impressive. Please see the Beamshots section of this site for Aleph shots along with many other lights.

I am not too sure on the battery life, I need to go and look at someone's runtime chart! I have made some estimates based on other peoples Badboy and Downboy figures see specs above for times. I am still looking at logging DMM solutions to enable me to do my own plots. Stay tuned!

All in all I think these are some mightily impressive lights. I am looking forward to the Aleph 3 in the next few weeks and would like some form of rechargeable system for these as well. PILA cells may be a good choice for this. I will investigate further.

www.candlepowerforums.com One of the best forums of any kind on the net. Lots of reviews, opinions and help for the novice to the expert on anything relating to illumination products.

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