Flashlight Host and Uncommon Budget Flashlights

This one?

Yes, that one.

I received my Nightwatch IRA from enogear yesterday - site is till down though. The IRA is one big chunk of alum with also a nice chunk of copper press fit, acting as a thick shelf for the MCPCB, which is also copper, anchored with 2 screws. It looks like a modder drilled out the shelf, cut a piece off of copper bar stock, and press fit it in there nicely.

It's one sic light, maybe the best heat sync'ing you will find in this size. But it only has a XHP-70, not XHP-70.2, but think enogear listed it that way, though looks like everywhere else it's listed at 3600 with a XHP-70.2. Max on turbo was only 2600 lumens on a Shockli 5500, think it was listed at 3600. UI doesn't quite match what's described on other listings - no manual, no shred of paper included and came in a plain, cheap OEM unmarked white box, in a bubble wrap bag. No spare o-ring, lanyard, etc. Not a good way to ship a heavy light, but the shipping bag had some padding to it, not your typical BG or GB bag. No shipping damage whatsoever.

The UI is a bit clunky - for the side switch, must cycle thru modes to turn it off for regular modes. For the lowest mode and turbo though, you can single click them off (press&hold for lo-lo, dbl click for turbo).

Can use the power tail switch though for power ON/OFF and last mode memory.

It's a very moddable light, so far - easy driver and LED access, no LED's under the switch though but maybe the switch board can be replaced. I'm looking at modding to a XHP70.2, custom 6V driver, using two 26350's - should be able to fit the cells with some modding for fitting longer cell space - brass button to replace the driver spring, mods to tail to get the tail switch deeper, etc. Think it would be a waste of the heat sync to only use a 3-4V LED.

Just received the Amutorch AX3 - at turn on about 3000 lumens, but both LED's light up very low when not on, about a good low moonlight. So have to unscrew the tail to completely shut off the LED's, oh boy... I bought it for modding potential, so a tear down will tell me how moddable it is, and if so, the problem will be corrected.

Found 2 interesting 18650 cheapies on AE:

  1. - 7.53$
    fairly beefy, finish looks good, anodized threads….apparently has a lighted tailcap that shows battery status (red/green)

seen this branded as Sanyi or Boruit

link

  1. - 3.87$
    available as both zoomie and reflectored (seems to use the same head though) - has no proper LED shelf I think.
    USB charger in the tailcap right besides the clicky. This had me puzzled for a bit, looks like they use a pair of diodes + fuse or PTC across the driver to make this work. Probably a 4056 in the TC. I wonder how good charge termination is. Very interesting.

I wonder if the TC legos onto other lights, that reverse diode in the driver should be easy to do and not affect operation of most drivers.

EDIT: just noticed the Wuben LT35 and L50 use what looks like the exact same tailcap. Hmmmm…….

Link

Someone took it apart (this is the driver):

I ordered them both out of curiosity. Plus the cheapest C8 I could find - 4.15$ :partying_face:

I finally managed to twist’n’pull hard enough to get the pill out of the “Thorfire” CT01s. Will see if I can’t scare up a moderate-current driver and nicer LED to replace the hateful little ones inside the light now.

Hardware-wise, it doesn’t look too bad, but the evil blue/purple beam and craptastic driver definitely need purging.

Will see what I got in “inventory” that I can stick in there…

A-ha! #1 has a tailcap driver with a momentary. That’s how there’s a battery indicator in the boot.
The driver looks similar to the on the Ultrafire zoomie has, with a few minor differences. In the head there’s a 50 ohm resistor to the body, but 220 work too.
The thermal path in the head is bad. The LED sits on a pill that’s sandwiched between reflector and body, otherwise freely slides in the head with ~0.2mm clearance to the walls.
I managed to press it in with some copper shim stock, it should be a lot better now.
I need to wrap my head around the driver, maybe there’s a way to get something like Anduril running in this thing.
The XM-L2 clone went out, a 5000k 90+ LH351D went in.

Driver:

  1. has fewer surprises. I does have a LED shelf, ~3mm thick, it’s press-fit and not as bad as I thought.
    Quite long (129mm), the reflector is pretty deep (22mm dia x 20mm).
    The USB tailcap is a stacked construction and probably uses a 4056 charging controller. I have to do measurements yet, I expect charge termination voltage to be a bit on the low side due to the diode solution.
    This one got a 4000k 85CRI LH351C instead of the angry blue XM-L clone.

Next-mode memory and strobe+SOS, of course. :person_facepalming: Otherwise this would be quite okay for under 4 dollars.

TC:

Driver (with the diodes + fuse that allow TC charging):

Kaidomain seems to have them as well, and with an SST-40 option…

Must… resist…

Well, now that I have a couple XHP50.2 3V LED's on order from Cutter, one is definitely going into the IRA. 16 amps in this light? No problem at all...

What’s up with the lens? Frosted outside except for a small roughly-hexagonal part in the middle? Weeeeird.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Good-Quality-DanceLite-C8z-CREE-XM-L2-U3-5-Mode-Focus-Zoomable-LED-Flashlight-Torch-1x18650/32792598751.html

Electric zoomie:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/WholeSale-50sets-lot-Authentic-imported-t6-led-Flashlight-Charger-18650-power-zoom-auto-focus-ultra-long/32252976059.html

Hum…I guess I wouldn’t rely on that :stuck_out_tongue:
Still, it is a different thing to see!

Maybe it gets rid of the artifacts at the outer edge of the beam you typically see with zoomies?

Wonder if a wavien collar would fit, or if it’s even any good to begin with

Most likely it is just the reflection of the bezel.

I checked that. It shows up in 2 different pictures from different angles. It definitely looks frosted.

See below.

Hmmm, hang on. This kinda looks like the same picture, just rotated 75°. I bet it is just the really deep bezel shroud making a reflection. Notice the 6 points of the bezel and the 6 sides on the lens? I bet it’s not frosted.

They also have a re-branded Nightwatch IRA w/ 50.2 and no SS bezel:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/2600Lm-DanceLite-DF8-Self-Denfense-CREE-XHP50-2-18W-Powerful-LED-Flashlight-Lamp/264235622566

And some type of larger driver heatsink fin reflector C8 design, looks like kiriba-ru’s heatsink head but w/ reflector, using those uncoated Nightwatch springs:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/DanceLite-C12-CREE-XP-L-Hi-V3-AMC7135×12-4200mA-2-Group-3-5-Mode-LED-Flashlight/264235622592

For some reason, your link did not work.

Here is a fixed link:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/DanceLite-C12-CREE-XP-L-Hi-V3-AMC7135x12-4200mA-2-Group-3-5-Mode-LED-Flashlight/264235622592

Keep in mind Ebay links are only good for maybe 3 months then go dead. Typically.