VINH'S CREATIONS. Watt makes them so special?..........

Ive eyeballed a few lights on his site and ended up snagging a Toolvn, still waiting on the AA version to release. I have no complaints, he made it EXACTLY how I asked through email. Its solid, well centered, perfect tint, and even has added thermal mass.

Ive been emailing back and forth with Vinh asking questions about everything from potential mods to questions about his drivers and he has been a pleasure to work with and even though ive only bought one light, he still responds kindly.

IDK, he seems like a good dude, especially with the charity work he does. Ill happily support a small business like that.

That’s because Hank will be able to mass produce them off factory lines while Vinh has to hand mod each one.

Vinh hasn’t been able to implement the white flat properly yet in his single led direct driver throwers, so he’s sticking to multi emitter ones for now.

Vinh is a small-time (as in not a big or even mid-size corp) maker and modder that sells his mods to people that’ll buy them. I’ve had my talks with the dude here and there on his Youtube channel (Sky Lumen), and he was civil and helpful when I had questions about this or that.

That said, I’m just not a lumen fanatic, and his focus on extreme outputs doesn’t tickle my fancy; on the contrary, I don’t much care for the reduced runtimes that the increased power entails.

(he launched a Sky Lumen V2 pocket rocket a while back, but outside of the extreme power potential [2000 lumens off an 18650 tube light was HUGE back in 2015], it’s no different from what you’d expect from Dale or TK)

He’s just an experienced modder who does a bunch of lights at a time and then sells them.
Really good at consistency and keeping a factory-like finish.
When you mod something many times you get pretty good at it :slight_smile:

“Practice makes perfect” is a popular saying for a reason :smiley:

Great job for him at making a business out of modding flashlights. For anyone that can mod a light to be a freaky beast, that’s talent in my book.

Link to his website?

From what I have seen, he is simply an experienced modder who had made a good business out of a hobby.

I personally am not particularly impressed by his mods, but I am an electronics engineer, so I can see his point of view.

I in no way intend to insult him. He seems honest and competent, and I’d want a fair amount of money for some of the mods I’ve done and how long they take to get just right.

Just search SkyLumen.

Not sure if we are allow to provide direct link to his website.

Vinh is the only full-time modder I know of that does this hobby for a living. The guy has amassed a huge amount of experience and knowledge from the thousands of lights he’s modded so that alone is probably unmatched by 99.9% of the modders here. It seems his main focus is on making killer high output and mega throwers but recently some of us have been trying to get him to look at warmer HI CRI lights too. He is currently manufacturing his first 100% Skylumen made-in-USA light called the Genesis.

Im not going to bash the guy as I have never dealt with him or talk to him. But the one thing I have never really liked about the circumstances is I don’t think he has ever shared his mods.
I have had a Sunwayman V10R ti for several years and have never been able to find much info on how to increase the current for more lumens.
I read several times that “I just got my V10R back from Vinh and it does 2.8 amps”. :cry:
Me as a modder “I want mine like that”, Well how did he mod it? No one knows, so it was a Vinh secret.
After several years of using this light and then the recent Amazon deal on the V11R.
I gave this current mod alot of thought and free time.
After a few weeks of testing buying parts and reasearch, I think I cracked the V11R,V10R current safe.
I was finally able to increase the current in my V10R.
I didn’t keep it a secret I shared it here on BLF.
That’s what BLF has always been about “Sharing”.
Imagine what light and what kind of modes you would be carrying right now, If it wasn’t for people like Toykeeper, Tom E, Tido, TA, Lexel, Comfychair, Dr.jones, JonnyC, Old lumens, and alot of others, the list just goes on and on.
.
Nothing wrong with offering modding services for some cash (some people would never have a modded light without this service) but here on BLF it’s all about sharing knowledge with the Community.
Just my 1 cent :wink: .

He uses cpf mainly ,I don’t think he hangs out here because of the word budget. :smiley:

Many here mod for fun and a few to sell. Vinh makes his living selling modded lights. So he spends countless hours like you did to crack the secret to increase the current and then openly shares it with everyone. Not very good business sense if he did.

I applauded you for sharing your findings, that’s what makes this community so great. But then again, you don’t make a living modding lights.

I have no negative thoughts about Vinh just a head scratching experience with him a few years ago.

I emailed him asking if he would mod a little CR2 light I had with a brighter and more efficient emitter and he said no problem. The cost would be $40.00 and to send it to him.

I PP’d him the money and sent the light to him and about 10 days later and to my surprise, it arrived back unmodded and just like I had sent it with no reason why! My PP account had been refunded the $40.00.

I emailed him asking what was going on but never got a response. Just sharing my experience.

My mistake , I don’t really follow him ,too expensive for me, maybe that’s why he doesn’t get a good reception here because this forum is budget orientated.

I have only one experience with Vinh. I wanted one of my X80's modified for a special gift for a friend. I paid Vinh and the next day I decided to back out and wait a little longer before getting the mod done. He refunded me the same day, no questions asked. Pretty good start in my books. Seems like a very nice guy, easy and straight up to communicate with, I like him.

C’mon, man. :laughing:

If you owned an auto repair BUSINESS and I walked in asking you to show me how to make my car run faster FOR FREE, would you say, “SURE! This is our bread and butter! This is how we stay in business! Come in anytime ya want and tell ALL YOUR FRIENDS too!!!”

Many BLF members have criticized Vinh in the past for the same reason. However, you must understand we don’t live in a communist society. Vinh mods lights for a living to feed his family not just a hobby like the rest of us. Asking Vinh to share his hard learned secrets is the same as asking Apple, Intel, AMD, Nvidia, Qualcomm, etc. to discard all of their patents and share their technologies with the world.

All this time I communicated with him thought he was Electrical Engineer. Ha Ha. If I was EE I would have designed lights years ago. I never thought you can make a living while having fun too. Good for Vinh.

BTW, Too much jealousy and hostile environment. Kinda surprised it exists in this great hobby.

From everything I’ve read about Vin, he seems like a good guy and very honest. Expensive? Maybe. But, have you seen how much your dentist or accountant charges just for 60 seconds of saying, “Hi.” ?

Specialty services are expensive. I don’t grudge him charging $50/hour or $100/hour or whatever his rate is. You can pay or not, he’s not forcing anything on you and he’s not misleading you.

As for him not revealing his mods… so what? It’s his business, not his charity. It would be great if he did, but I certainly have no expectations of him to do so. Try contacting any manufacturer, and ask them for their designs. See what response you get.