[Review] 77 Outdoors D25 Headlamp (18650)

FWIW, confirming that my D25 version that worked with your pre-flashed MCU was also - T02-A VER:03.

actually this headlamp is everywhere in China. 77outdoor purchased them to sell after tested by sofirn. That’s it.

Since the D25 has bad UI, I helped sofirn upgrade the model to make it a little bit different if not much better.

It called D25S with 2* SST40 leds 1200LM and different UI: click to turn on/off, press and hold to change brightness levels.

Will be available soon.

Maybe it still won’t be as good as you think it should be. But it’s more usable.

It officially claims 1200LM because the heat sink ability is not that good for more current. You guys can DIY it as you wish.

Sounds interesting Barry0892.

When you say “press and hold to change brightness levels” are the levels the traditional increments or is it stepless/ramping style level change?

Will you be able to extend deals to BLF, many of us do not participate on FB?

Does sound better, look forward to seeing it

Wellp, I just used my D25 about a half-hour ago. I still kinda warmed to the UI. It’s… different… but not necessarily bad.

Still, after also having played with my Q8 at length, and GTmicro today, and given that the D25 has an e-switch, it can very very very easily have the same UI as those.

Click to turn on, click to turn off.

Click’n’hold, or hold-when-on, to ramp up. Unclick then quickly click’n’hold to ramp back down. Unlike the micro, memorise the last level. Doubleclick for turbo. Etc., etc., etc.

Someone here can point you at the innards for the UI most people would want.

Build the D25 with that UI, and you’ll clean up, as no one will have anything like it.

Also, if at all possible, use TIR lenses instead of reflectors. Easy to swap to go from throw to flood and anywhere in-between.

The custom pcb for the LEDs is interesting (ie, 2 LEDs on 1 board), but 2 separate pcbs that “float” on thermal goop and are held in place by the TIRs would awesome.

if too many changes, why not design a new one?

That sounds nice. Hopefully sofirn can also improve it to be more waterproof. Maybe just add o-ring for the front cover like the nitecore hc60 and 65. I’m starting to like this headlamp after the emitter and optics swap but can not recommend it for outdoor wet season use because of its lack of waterproofing. I doubt it can survive continuous rain at it’s present state.

@Barry, I know this might be a bit far fatched, but why not make a 1200lm D25S SST-40s and a D25S CRI with 4000k 95CRI SST-20 LEDs?

Best of both worlds.

I mean press and hold to cycle through modes: Low/Med1/Med2/High/Turbo. :smiley:

because the size of emitters are different. XML2 and SST40 both are 5050, XPG2 and SST20 are 3535

Your changes to this light sound good, Barry. I’ve seen listings for neutral CCT (around 5000K) versions of the SST-40 popping up at electronics suppliers. Any chance in sourcing some of these?

SST40 5000K emitters to sell?

I would buy some, but I meant for the D25S

A product listing for example

Astrolux/Mateminco is using the NW SST-40's in the new FT03.

Ohhh… so they physically exist, not just the product listings? That’s encouraging!

Yep, definitely. Someone who received the NW of the FT03 took a pic of the LED and matches an SST-40 exactly. Also he described the tint as NW, so should be pretty well verified. I got 2 NW's on order but probably will take a few days at least to get one. Problem is they are lower bin, so lower lumens output - sort of a bad thing because the nice feature of the SST-40's was the super lumens output.

Gchart, what do you charge for an MCU with RampingIOS?

Should I take my D10 apart and verify what the driver looks like?

I’ve got two D10’s, so why not try it on one?

A quick driver question, do those big resistors (sense resistors I guess) directly reduce output between the led and ground? How do they not burn up?

I removed one resistor in all mine D10’s. Output dropped about 30% in all modes, but i think it’s still to high

Not sense resistors, but current limiting resistors. But yes, your summary of their function is correct. They’re in series with the LED. The more resistance, the less amount of current that makes it to the LED. Think of it like having one of our FET drivers, but intentionally using really long and thin LED wires (for extra resistance) to keep the amps a bit lower.

The only thing I have done is swap the MCU. Since it appears that the D10 driver is slightly different, unsoldering the MCU and snapping a decent pic of where the traces are running would help confirm if and changes are needed for the firmware (pin reassignments).

One of the locals where I’m doing fieldwork borrowed my modddd D25 and after using it asked me if he could have it for himself. I could not say no☹️. Its either that or my E21A Armytek Elf so opted to give him the D25. I guess I have a reason to buy the Sofirn D25S when it’s available. Hopefully with neutral white SST-40s or high CRI 3535 leds.