How Zebralight ended my flashlight collecting...(For Now)

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! :smiley:

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.

Didn’t think so. Simple mode memory is a big plus for me.

No, those are buck drivers.
Buck / boost drivers are rare.
But the H15 probably has one because it is dual chemistry (NiMH and LiIon)
It seems the Klarus Ci1C has a buck / boost driver too, to boost for CR123A and to buck for LiIon, als depending on the modes.

K. :slight_smile:

I feel your pain. I purchased that light twice…unseen…once was from a reputable dealer around here that I will not mention. He even said it wasn’t green…when I got it I wanted to puke. Drove me away from ZL. Guess it was the luck of the draw coz others swore there was NO GREEN…. :smiling_imp: :confounded:

That said, ZLis one light I would have to purchase in person.

Currently I own ZERO ZL’s :disappointed:

Older Zebralights (a few years ago) tended to be somewhat green, and the tint lottery could be pretty wild. But my last few Zebralights (SC5w, SC600w HI, SC600w Plus, and SC64w HI) are all very nice.

The greenest one I have is the SC600w MkIV Plus, which uses a domed Cree XHP50.2 emitter. Overall, it’s a decent tint, but white-wall hunting will show a bit of green/yellow in the corona, typical of domed Crees. Here’s my white-wall shot of the beam (auto-exposure, auto white-balance):

IMO, it’s not too bad, and it’s my worst one in the past few years. (SC52’s are worse, but they are several years old.) The ones I like best are the ones with the XHP35 HI emitter, that is, the SC600w MkIV HI and the SC64w HI. Those are very nice tints, clean and even beam, no hint of green.

Basically, if you want to avoid tint shifts in the beam of any light, stay away from domed Cree emitters. The XHP35 HI gives very nice beams.

As for the user interface, that is totally subjective. IMO, it’s the best thing about Zebralights, and I love the programability they added last year. It makes me dislike the user interface on all my other lights, even though many do have decent interfaces.

DMAN, I purchased a sc64w in part because of your post.

Thank you. It is all that.

as headlamps go i think the ui is the best,you can get to what ever level you want very easily ,i think the zebralight ui is exellent

Zebralight had the same effect on me too, at one time. I stopped buying flashlights for the better part of a year after getting my first Zebralight. It was just that good — I didn’t want to use anything else. Eventually I got over that honeymoon period and started playing with some other lights again, but I still have that Zebra, and quite a few others. Its a staple in my collection and in my usage. They’re great lights.

wow.

After I discovered Zebralight a few years ago, I never looked back. The only other lights I purchase are more Zebralights or throwers (just for fun).

I got my SC62 on 10.14.2014. It is my favorite EDC light,even more so than any of my modded ones because of the small size, great output, simple/useful UI, VERY reliable and takes 18650. :+1:

Comparison line up- TX25C2vn DD/Single mode XPG2———-SC62———-D25C2vn w/XPL 5500K

Thanks to your post on the SC64c LE and beamshots, I decided to get one. I was internally debating on which Zebralight I would get, going back and forth… I like the design of the SC600, but it seems to be just a little bit big for easy pocket carry, while not delivering a real substantial output difference from the SC64 series. The SC64 form factor appears to be just about right for an 18650 powered light. So then it came down to the SC64w NW or SC64c LE. 475 more lumens on the SC64w… but the tint on the SC64c LE looks terrific. Decided to chance it. I figured since this is supposed to be a limited edition, the strong cult following for Zebralight will probably prize a limited edition over a standard edition… meaning, if I decide to sell it later I’ll have an easier chance of moving it. That is, unless I’m smitten enough to hang onto it. :wink:

Post some beamshots when you get it, if you wouldn’t mind. Been debating on the LE as well, but worried the beam is too green. I’ve seen more green 351D emitters than not, including three I got in from M.E. that I ended up discarding. Even ZL’s new H503c with the LH351D looks green. emarkd posted his LE that looked pretty good, but thats the only one I’ve seen.

I don’t have any experience in making good quality beamshot photos, but I’ll give it a shot. I do have a camera where I can manually control aperture and shutter speed, so I’ll fiddle around and see what I come up with. Some weeks from now, when I have the light in hand. :slight_smile: