I haven’t measured it. I wouldn’t be surprised if it ran 20% longer at the same lumen levels, just as a very rough guess… but the ratio will be different for every mode. Maybe the average is 10, maybe it’s 30. Couldn’t really say without detailed measurements. Maukka’s reviews might be a good place to start, since he tends to measure efficiency, but I don’t know if he reviewed the right lights for this comparison.
The other big benefit of a well-regulated driver like Zebralight’s is you have access to turbo for most of the cell capacity instead of a slowly declining maximum output.
I always thought electronic components could be sourced cheaply. Once a driver is designed and parts are bought, why can’t a regulated driver be produced for next to nothing? Or why hasn’t someone reverse engineered the Zebralight and stamped it out? I not advocating this but simply wondering why good drivers have to be expensive in this day and age. Powerful calculators can be had for $10 that do more than my first Texas Instrument that cost hundreds.
Note that when I said the Zebralight SC600 IV Plus stays much brighter than the D4, I also said “when held in hand”.
The Zebralight uses a 1-piece head-body unit. The body tube around your hand heats up much faster than the D4’s two piece unit consisting of head + body tube. Sure when tailstanding, results may be somewhat similar, but when held in hand there’s just no comparison. The Zebra blows away the D4.
Also, turning the D4 on, it’s rather hard to tune the output to exactly 2200 lumens. Usually, when you turn it on you get either max or min. And on max it heats up and ramps down very fast.
Also, some D4 ramp down faster and more than others, especially if you put in a powerful cell. I tried one of my D4 yesterday with a VTC5A and it ramped all the way down to around 50 lumens within a minute and stayed there. But another of my D4 only ramps down to around 500 lumens or so before stabilizing.
Indeed. You can immediately see a Zebralight begin to ramp back up, if you grab a “hot” one that has been tail-standing awhile.
When cycling, I can keep the SC600w MkIV Plus operating at it’s full 2300 lumen output, as long as the air is coolish and I’m cycling at a reasonable speed. It only lasts about 30 minutes at that output, though.
I still haven’t convinced Hank to update it to RampingIOS V3 or Anduril, which both make it a lot easier to hit specific output levels. Updates also make it a lot easier to calibrate lights to have nearly the same thermal response. Even on the old version though, the thermal behavior can be calibrated… just not as quickly or precisely as the new version.
It would also help to use a 3-channel driver instead of 2, like use a FET+N+1 instead of FET+1. That makes the middle modes a lot more stable, more efficient, and less hot.
You could start a “want to buy” thread here.
_
I’m not that Hank, I’m the other one
WTB Emisar D4 2.0 with the following features:
- RampingIOS V3 or Anduril
- Option for Oslon Square LED (not sure if these fit on XP footprint though)
- One-piece head and body tube for much better thermal management (like a Zebra).
- Body tube fitted for 21700.
- Knurled body tube
I fail to understand this too.
Sure, regulated buck/ boost drivers have many components, and buck or boost drivers have more components than regulated FET drivers, and FET DD drivers have very few components, but i can’t see why they can’t put nice drivers in budget lights for 2 or 3 $ more either.
I guess it’s not a selling point for the targeted buyers…
It would increase the price by 25% sometimes…
It would be great if more brands sold their drivers separately, like Sofirn and Convoy do.
Skilhunt and Nitecore have nice buck and boost drivers too.
As for Zebralights, i think some of them look really nice, and the quality must be great too, judging by the price…
But too expensive for me to try if i like them…
One of these days. I keep reading how everyone that owns one loves it. I don’t think I can recall a bad review or experience with the company. I am slowly seeing price creep in my purchases.
I have own several in the past. I sold them all.
I did not like the UI. The tint was a lottery, I did get a sc62 with nice WW tint.
Now you have read how someone that owned several didn’t love them.
Wait, I still have a H50 in my foot locker. Its 3 speed twisty.
I didn’t know Skilhunt uses buck boost drivers. Do you know which models?
I’ve been trying to figure out what kind of driver the H03 uses but its not clear to me.
Thanks
IMHO, the admiration and cult following towards Zebralight is legendary and well deserved. I just wish they were easier to disassemble… so reverse engineering could be better facilitated! 
I still own a nice reliable S6330 (3 x XM-L with 3 x 18650) that I break out from time to time to admire its design perfection and efficient independent 3 channel boost driver with thermal throttle. It was way ahead of its time and still far better built than most other lights in its price range. Now if I could just remove the driver without destroying the entire light so I could re-flow new emitters. The driver is double sided with integral emitters on a single mcpcb. Great for efficiency and compact size, but not so good for mod junkies.
Similar as chadvone. I have bought zebralight headlight, because all the praises I’ve heard. It’s well made, light output is good, I like the low lumen modes, but that UI is terrible and unintuitive (for me). Because of that, I don’t plan to buy any other zebralights.
Latest crop of Zebralights has a programmable UI.
Pretty easy to program for the following:
single click - low or moonlight
click and hold - medium
double-click - turbo
Here’s hoping for a ZL with mag ring UI controlling an E21a/Optisolis Quatrix.
The driver efficiency is great. The host / build quality is good. Ergonomics are usually pretty decent. Overall size is usually quite compact. Output is generally pretty good, and spans a wide range from super-low to reasonably high. A variety of emitters are available.
However, the UI isn’t great, the tint is usually not very white or very consistent, it’s extremely mod-unfriendly, many of the emitter choices aren’t great, the lens coating tends to make the beam green, recent models crush batteries, and the prices tend to be relatively high.
It’s a mixed bag, so it really depends on what you value in a light.
I use a H52Fw for headlamp purposes, though I’ve been meaning to make a nicer custom one sometime. Otherwise my only ZebraLight use these days is to occasionally pull out a SC52 as a lumen measurement reference.
Do the new ones have mode memory?
Um… sort of?
The mode memory, if it can be called that, remembers six things in the default mode group, and nine things in each of the two extra mode groups, plus one more thing in the strobe group. So if viewed from a certain angle, it has 25 mode memories.
But if you want it to automatically come on in whatever mode you were last using, no. It doesn’t have that.
Well, sort of. In G6 or G7, it can be programmed to use the 1-click slot in a manner similar to mode memory… but it takes a minimum of 15 clicks to change the level, so I don’t think that really “counts”.
TL;DR: No, not really.