# Nitenumen x8 Light Review



## OverTheHill (Dec 3, 2004)

First of all the basic product features, all taken from the user's manual/sheet.

Twin XM-L2 U3 Cool white
USB rechargeable
2 x 18650 2400 mAh cells

Battery Levels

Green: >60%
Red: 60%-30%
Red blinking <30%

Light levels and run times

Low: 15 lumen, 76:20
Medium: 180 lumen, 16:50
High: 850 lumen, 6:20
Ultra: 1800, 4:15
No brightness or run time figures given for the flashing modes.

Weight: 213g (239g with mount)

Modes:

1. Low. medium, high, ultra, strobe, SOS
2. Low, medium high

When the light is on, holding the Mode button for 1.5 seconds will switch between the two modes.

It comes with the usual microUSB charging lead and a spare USB port rubber cover. The microUSB charging port is underneath the light near the front.

*INITIAL IMPRESSIONS*

The light is quite small - about 20mm shorter in length than the Ituo Wiz20 and slightly narrower as well. It has two control buttons on the top of the light, one is for on/off and the other is for switching the light level. The on/off button also displays the battery charge level:









*BEAM PATTERN*

This is just a personal opinion but I usually find beam patterns from reflector lights very disappointing and the Nitenumen is no exception. It has smooth reflectors which give a bright central spot and a series of light and dark rings for spill. The big problem I find is that your eyes tend to adjust to the very bright central spot and the lesser spill almost doesn't register.

I much prefer TIR optics for lights like those used by Ituo, Gloworm, Gemini etc. which give a more even spread of light, especially for wider beam angles.

*MOUNTING BRACKET*

The other big disappointment is the mounting bracket which is the usual rubber band type. In my experience these all allow the light to judder at best and hitting any bumps cause the light to move which is very annoying. The only way round this problem is to use non-slip tape on the bars but why should you have to do this?



Right, that's all the grumbles out of the way, now for the good news.

*MODIFICATIONS*

I opened up the front of the light to have a look at the reflectors. I removed the front plate which is secured by two T5 Torx screws. This was followed by a nice silicon gasket which held two plain glass lens covers. Then the reflectors came out quite easily. This revealed the 2 LEDs which interestingly were on an MCPCB with Solarstorm X8 etched on it!









It was very easy to remove the two plain reflectors and the glass lens covers and replace them with two LEDDNA TIR optics, the same size as used in the Ituo lights. You just need to remove the optics from the white holders and they sit quite nicely over the LEDs and are held in place by the silicon gasket and front plate. You could retain the glass lens covers as well if you wished but I didn't bother. I used the 10 degree LEDDNA optics the same as I have replaced in my Ituo Wiz20 but you could use whatever angle of optic you preferred or even mix 'n' match.

The second shortcoming with this light is the rubber mounting bracket. I've never liked these and sure enough when I first tried it on the bike for a test ride up the road it ended up pointing down within the first 100 metres of the ride. The problem is that an integrated light like this with an internal battery pack is just too heavy for this sort of cheap mounting. The good news is that the bracket is fixed to the light body using a 1/4" x 20 UNC thumbscrew which is the same thread used for camera mounts. This at least allows users to buy an inexpensive adapter to mount the light to whatever GoPro mount they favour.









Personally I use the Exposure QR mounting bracket on all my lights so I quickly fabricated an adapter plate to allow me to bolt the Exposure "wedge" to the bottom of the light. I have also shown how you can also easily attach another inexpensive common type of mount with the light which allows you to switch between bikes and holds the light very securely.

























*BATTERIES*

One slight negative is the two 18650 cells in this light are hard-wired and cannot be changed on the trail. The ad claim on GearBest for the light was using 3400mAh cells but when I opened up the light I found two LGABF1L118650 cells, basically the same as these

LG 18650 F1L 3.63V 3350mAh Li-ion Battery Cell

Doing some reading around on the internet these seem pretty reasonable quality. Interestingly the Evolva version of this light advertised on Amazon UK claims to use 2 x 3400mAh Panasonic cells and even goes so far as to show a picture of an NCR18650B.









*RUN TIMES*

I haven't used the light for an actual ride as yet for a number of reasons so can't give an accurate impression of its performance. However, I did run it on the bench to get an idea if the run times quoted would be realistic at all.

I set it up with a fan running on low and the light on its highest setting (1800 lumens). After just on two hours the battery indicator went to red. Got fed up at 3 hours so aborted. Light seemed to be dimmer by this time though but still a decent level. The light never got very hot even with the fan on its lowest level.

*BEAM PATTERN*

I haven't done any beam shots as I don't have a camera which is good enough to give an even half-decent impression of reality. Side-by-side comparison with the Ituo Wiz20 that I have though yields the following observations.

The beam tint is definitely cool white in comparison to the Wiz20's neutral white. Comparing the Nitenumen on High (850 lumens) with the Wiz20 Medium (800 lumens), they appear very similar brightness level. Stepping up to Ultra (1800 lumens) on the Nitenumen and High (1500 lumens) on the Wiz20, the Nitenumen X8 definitely looks a bit brighter. There's not a great deal in it though and could easily be accounted for by the cool white tint in the X8 just looking brighter than the neutral white in the Wiz20.

One other thing to note is that even though I have fitted the two lights with identical LEDDNA 10 degree optics, the bright central spot on the Nitenumen X8 seems a bit tighter. I don't know if this will effectively yield slightly more throw at this point.

*HELMET MOUNTING*

I measured the weight of my light to be 210g without any mounting bracket. With its slightly smaller size and weight compared to the Wiz20 I think this might be a viable candidate for helmet mounting if you wanted an integrated light without a separate battery pack. It would need to be on the top of the helmet though which is not my preferred position with respect to hitting low branches.

*VERDICT*

Even though I haven't ridden with the light in anger yet, my impression is this is a very good budget alternative light, if the couple of modifications I have detailed are undertaken. Some users might even prefer the rubber mount and use some form of non-slip tape so it's only really the beam pattern which needs dealing with in my opinion. Others might choose to helmet mount the light so again a mounting modification is probably in order there anyway.

I like the fact that it has the ability to switch the interface to cut the strobe and SOS modes out of the loop and the double buttons make switching on and off quite straightforward. It even has a memory to come back on at the level in which you switched it off so all good stuff.

The fact that you can easily change the optics to suit whatever beam pattern you prefer is a big plus for me and I suspect several others on this forum who like to tinker with their lights. The one downside for some might be the cool white LED tint but if you are adept in these things you could even change this for something more suitable. It is very easy to get the light apart for this sort of modification. Just a series of small Torx screws and the whole innards slide out of the case.

The cells inside (LG) seem of decent quality and the test run times that I did seem to indicate that they should last a decent length of time as well.

All-in-all, for the money, a very well made light and for very little cost and effort it can be modified to produce something which is very impressive indeed. The two biggest failings are the beam pattern and the rubber mount, however, as I said these are easily overcome and you end up with something to possibly rival the Ituo Wiz20 or the Fenix BC30 but for half the price.

Currently available from GearBest for £36.45 or $45.47.

Nitenumen X8 on GearBest

For users in the UK the same light is available at Amazon UK as the Evolva X8 for £39.99 and delivery should be a lot quicker.

Evolva X8 on Amazon UK


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## Staypuft1652 (Oct 8, 2016)

Thanks for your review.


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## tigris99 (Aug 26, 2012)

nice review!

thing needs to see a sphere though because just run time vs battery capacity tells me that the light is considerably lower output, but the cool white tint is making up for it. which cool white does always appear brighter (very noticeable) vs neutral white at the same lumen ouput. Whole "glare" created by cool white does that too the eyes sadly. 

Not a bad looking light overall for cheap commuter light.


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## garrybunk (Feb 12, 2014)

Thanks for the review & teardown! Shocked to see quality LG cells being used! Like you said, a decent budget alternative with some D.I.Y. though I'd still like to know a little more about driver output and why it's not getting hot. Also, was there a solid wall behind the emitters?

-Garry


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## OverTheHill (Dec 3, 2004)

garrybunk said:


> Thanks for the review & teardown! Shocked to see quality LG cells being used! Like you said, a decent budget alternative with some D.I.Y. though I'd still like to know a little more about driver output and why it's not getting hot. Also, was there a solid wall behind the emitters?
> 
> -Garry


I didn't really want to tear it down that far Garry as I was passing it on to my daughter for commuting duties. I was just curious to see what actual cells were in the light which is why I only went down to that level. The light does get hot very quickly on the highest level with no airflow over it so I'm guessing the thermal path is at least half-decent.

If you look at the picture of the batteries you can see the aluminium "shroud" which contains the LEDs bolts directly to the case and there are two screws which attach the MCPCB to the shroud. I don't know if there is a solid heatsink behind the MCPCB or just a couple of tabs.


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## tigris99 (Aug 26, 2012)

Garry

It not getting hot would only be due to either it not sitting stationary long enough to get hot (wiz20 takes forever to finally heat up) or that thing isn't pushing near the claimed lumens. Or simply both which is most likely.

Sent from my XT1565 using Tapatalk


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## garrybunk (Feb 12, 2014)

That thermal path doesn't look the greatest to me. How well does that shroud contact the case? I also can't see if the emitter pcb mounts against that shroud. My guess is that it's not driven very hard, and that the limit it is driven to is about all that mediocre setup can handle - i.e. "good enough".

-Garry


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## Staypuft1652 (Oct 8, 2016)

OverTheHill said:


> The light does get hot very quickly on the highest level with no airflow over it so I'm guessing the thermal path is at least half-decent.


Hmmm


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## OverTheHill (Dec 3, 2004)

Staypuft1652 said:


> Hmmm


I'm not sure what you mean by that but imagine this scenario for two identical lights.

One has a great big slug of a pill which is part of the case that the LEDs are bolted directly to with plenty of thermal paste behind. The other has the MCPCB that the LEDs are attached to but only attaches to the case by a couple of small tabs.

Which one do you think would feel hottest to the touch most quickly when run on high and sitting on the desk with no airflow?


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## OverTheHill (Dec 3, 2004)

garrybunk said:


> That thermal path doesn't look the greatest to me. How well does that shroud contact the case? I also can't see if the emitter pcb mounts against that shroud. My guess is that it's not driven very hard, and that the limit it is driven to is about all that mediocre setup can handle - i.e. "good enough".
> 
> -Garry


Yeah, it kind of reminds me of ledoman's attempt to increase the thermal path of the KD2 using copper sheet. I'll have to get the light back off my daughter when she is not using it over the Christmas break and do a more thorough teardown and maybe some more thermal testing.


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## Staypuft1652 (Oct 8, 2016)

OverTheHill said:


> I'm not sure what you mean by that but imagine this scenario for two identical lights.
> 
> One has a great big slug of a pill which is part of the case that the LEDs are bolted directly to with plenty of thermal paste behind. The other has the MCPCB that the LEDs are attached to but only attaches to the case by a couple of small tabs.
> 
> Which one do you think would feel hottest to the touch most quickly when run on high and sitting on the desk with no airflow?


I meant that someone had mentioned about it not getting hot after you had mentioned it getting hot quickly on high. Looks like a decent light but admittedly I know zilch compared to you folks.


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## OverTheHill (Dec 3, 2004)

Staypuft1652 said:


> I meant that someone had mentioned about it not getting hot after you had mentioned it getting hot quickly on high. Looks like a decent light but admittedly I know zilch compared to you folks.


I think the confusion may be that I said it didn't get overly hot with airflow from a fan yet it did get hot pretty quickly with no airflow.

The first situation is trying to replicate a more normal scenario where you would be riding with the light attached to your handlebars with the accompanying cooling airflow.

The second situation was meant as an indication that the internal thermal pathway of the light must be reasonable because heat from the LEDs is being transferred to the outer casing pretty quickly. You can't infer that if there is any sort of cooling airflow.

Most lights running at these levels will exhibit this sort of behaviour to a lesser or greater degree depending on the design.

My point being that under normal use this seems a pretty reasonable light.


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