Unfortunately i don't have the 850 so as to do some relative comparisons, i only have the original SR3800 and Trustfire 3T6. Fortunately i know the Sky Rays and Trustfire current draw in relation to output.
Can you do a tailcap measurement of the 850? Pls list down your DMM and also battery brand and charge them to 4.2V.
Also what is the brand of batteries used for the L1's 1.91A measurement, and i presume they are fully charged to 4.2V?
I am really in a dilemma about getting this one or not, because i already have the TK70, and this one seems like a mini TK70 with way less throw.
My SR-850 draws 2.76A (that cannot be right?! Redid the measurements and: 2.39A after cleaning the threads and tightening everything again) from two freshly charged Xtar 2600, DMM is Mastech 830L with 30cm long 1.5mm^2 ofc test leads. I used red Xtar 2600 exclusively in the measurements I posted here in this thread.
If one wants to make more exact comparisons one needs to eliminate as many variables as one can, see my bench supply current measurement. It eliminates differences in cell characteristics, like internal resistance etc.
You have the better light, the Fenix tk70 is proven quality and it should out throw this one by a huge margin. Save that money for the inevitable 26650 or 32650 powered, hexa-XML or hepta-XML that is sure to come out in a not too distant future. The L1 is a nice light but it also does cost a fair amount of $$$. Don't get me wrong, I like this flashlight and would recommend it to others if it should prove to be durable and not a "fry-ray".
Seems like only the shadow has anti-reflective Glass(purple haze). I have to put this on my list of lights to get, the Shadow range seem quality.
Thanks for your post spambot, I may get one after all. If you plan on doing beam shots, I would love to see a comparison between the 3x and 5x.
The shadows are great quality, AR coated lenses, brass contact surfaces, anodized square cut threads etc, they are very high quality. My TC6 does not like long cells, like xtar 2600, though : /
Will the Trustfire Flame fit?
Hey, that is very good. Actually that'd mean the 850 is the same as 818 and same as Sky Ray 3800. They did not change much. Same OTF lumens.
For lux @ 1m, the 850 has a 67mm head. The DRY, 818, 3800, TF-3T6, Uniquefire 3900 all have 56mm heads. Some diff here...
If my guess is correct, your 850's output is 1600L OTF (as what i and ergotelis measured for the SR3800). So the Sky Ray L1 is 2250L OTF. DRY is 2500L OTF (it can be 300-400 lumens more easily in a v cold place + wind to wick out the heat fast coz it's overdriven and the degree depends on you cell's voltage).
The main advantage of this is heat - with 5 XM-Ls "sharing the load" it gets well over 2000L OTF without breaking a sweat, operation for 15 mins shouldn't be an issue and won't get very hot at all. XM-Ls operating at below 1.5A is cool...extremely efficient.
While the L1 is 2250L OTF, the throw i cannot really give a confirmation on it as you measured at 2.5 to 3m (try 8-10m even though it's a flooder, it's easier and less mistakes).
2.5m @ 3760 = 23500 cd. The DRY gets you 25k on the ~ 10% under-reading DX meter. (you can add 10% more) I more or less know this as i have compared with some other guy's meters on CPF (mostly the HID thrower guys so they know their stuff). There are some figures here on LPF that i see which are very much optimistic. This does not matter for a ceiling bounce which uses relative figures for comparison with other known lights, but this matters for throw.
What brand is your DMM?
I just took the light for a walk. It did fine on high for the 20 min walk, barely got warm at all. It is really bright, much more so than my SR-850, and the tint is so much nicer too. I find that I grow more fond of it the more I use it : ) Might be that I will grab another one, from CNQG this time since Ric actually does some QA.
The not so hard driven penta-XML setup is the main reason that I got this, it has potential for some "overclocking".
I looked at the regulator board and found the sense resistor "stack", as there are three of them piled on top of each other. The top one reads R200, so 0.2 Ohm. I'll not try changing values until I can get replacement drivers. Though the driver runs fairly cool so I expect that you could squeeze a little more juice out of it without releasing the magic smoke. A 20-30% increase perhaps? But that will have to wait.
My multimeter is a "Mastech", cheap thing I got off of DX. I have a uni-trend clampmeter also, but it is not really suitable for this kind of precise measurement. The luxmeter I used is a DX "CT-1330B" version.
A thought just crossed my mind: If I get a second one I could use two extensions and do a DD/AMC7135 setup out of one for some really impressive output. How many lumen does 5 XML blazing at 3A put out? 800 a piece? That would be 4000 lumen crazy! Question is, is the voltage high enough?
There is not much to it, the 3x has a triangular spill beam pattern and the 5x has a more square spill beam pattern, the hotspots are in both cases round with no obvious artefacts. The 3x has deeper reflectors so its hotspot is slightly more defined.
You don't need no drivers for 5X XM-L and 2 more extensions on DD, just run the cells from 4.0V down. From what I see, the heat performance should be the same as DRY, no issue for 1 minute runs, 2 mins max. The good thing is that the design is the same as the SR3800 rev 0 and the DRY.
It's easy, in your country at this time of the year you probably get 2700L OTF with 3 XM-Ls. You'd get 4500L OTF with 5. You can pull this off with 4 amps, but your host needs to be cool probably host surface not more than 15 deg C (hence ambient needs to be quite a bit lower, preferably with the aid of wind)
You could bypass the driver, so at least it's usable later. Need to see if the 5 emitters are in series though (I think so).
The tint is probably 1C/1D from your description.
PS. Where to get the extensions? Maybe Ric can source for ya. Needless to say, you need to know what you are doing to pull this off (includ cells monitoring)
Thanks for checking this flashlight out for us SPAMBOOT!. I am in a thinker corner and twisting about buy or not. How is the heatsink? is it fixed with a reflector on its own? Or is it a dropin module as the Sky Ray 3x XML ? This flashlight should have some crazy potential if the heat management is good
Isn't this the driver for L1 5xT6 ? http://www.manafont.com/product_info.php/flashlight-diy-part-circuit-board-for-pentaleds-modes-module-p-8002
Cnqualitygoods is currently selling $85.00 only!
cnqualitygoods needs $8.50 shipping for me (unregistered to be same as Manafont). KD is a bit lower.
BTW SPAMBOT, do you have any single XM-L lights to do a ceiling bounce side by side with the L1 again so that i can have another relative figure to compare? Yezl, Ultrafire C8, UF-980L, anything? P60s are not advisable.
Unfortunately the Shadow TC6 one that i have is NW, plus there are some variation in the drive level (some are 2A, mine is 2.5A)...so can't compare.
It is neither a drop in nor is it a threaded drop in like in the SR-850. The external parts of the flashlight head is in four pieces: a bezel, a solid conical piece that the LED's and reflector is mounted to, a square flanged part that houses the regulator and finally a fluted retaining ring which holds the regulator PCB in place. The heat sinking is good, but if you plan on going for crazy power you may want to add some thermal grease to the threads between the conical and the flanged parts.
I thought so too, and at first glance they look very similar. Their layout is different however. Could be it is still a usable replacement, but it is not a direct replacement.
Only usd91.90 + 2.27 for registered air parcel at bestinone.net.
$15 cheaper, figures... 
I had to go searching for the original thread to find this one. Spambot, thanks for the report. I'm still on the fence, but since I held off on buying any of the triple XM-L lights, I'm very tempted. I'd like the TK-70 since I have a TK-35 and I like the quality, I just can't bring myself to drop $200 on one. So do you guys think someone will come out with one that has a different battery configuration or more emitters?
Right now, I have 3 C8s ghetto-taped together. LOL 
Thanks for the review SPAMBOT. I really need to justify that +40~45 USD between this light and Trustfire's 3T6, or maybe I can get a NW Shadow with that moneytoo. I understand this light feeds every led with ~1.5Amps, right? And the driver pill seems to have cables twisted in some pictures I found. Do they look like they will break easily?
Only if you don't loosen the regulator retaining ring first. Loosen that ring before unscrewing the conical part from the flanged heat sink part and there is no wire twisting occurring at all. I cannot comment on how much each 1,27A is the LED current, I just measured it with my clampmeter at its 40A range.
(1,27*15)/(1,77*12)=0,897. 89,7% efficacy, not bad!