Review: 504 XM-L from Dinodirect

That's funny, pac! 16 bucks plus for the drop-in...NOT!

I own two - and reviews have been posted ...

Well , an interesting development ..

I ran the light on high for 5 minutes while taking out the rubbish :

The beam had a nice white spot in the center , now there is a yellowy brown spot in the middle , yellow on the edge and more brown to the center ... [ of the hotspot ]

Also the entire beam has yellowed out [ damn ] , did it change tint on me ? [ I really think it has ]

I own the dd 504b it cost me $12.31 all in. The tail cap switch is really bad worse than a dollar store light. The machining, finish and knurl are all good. The tail cap oring make no contact at all.The beam pattern is ugly. I robbed a one mode 501b of an internal tailswitch and OP reflector. Now I have a nice 504 and a really bad 501 which I will fix someday.

Dang, old! I'm going to run mine for 5 minutes right now!

I have to admit; this flashlight ain't bad. My switch is fine (so far) the tint is just okay and it is far and away the best UF 50x host I've had. I don't like the 3 second mode retention time but I should have bought more than one.

Don't get me wrong; it's no L2 but it is easily the best/brightest $13 light I have Once you replace all the o-rings, lube that bad boy up, trim the pill cover disc so it doesn't flap over 1/3 of the emitter and put the right reflector in . . . okay, that came out wrong. I'm serious, I do like this light, now that I've fixed it.

pleasantlysurprisedFoy

Hi foy what is the correct size O-ring to fix my DD 504b to make a water tight tailcap seal, and where do I buy it? For the money I like this light it is worth fixing up for sure.

I think it's 18mm for the tail cap. You can get them everywhere. Lighthound ships pretty fast . . . http://www.lighthound.com/O-Rings-for-Flashlights_c_101.html

Foy

I bet the driver is moddable just like the UF2100. And while your Modding put a 47k ohm resistor across the big capacitor to make mode memory set almost instaint!

I ran mine 15 mins. straight. Got quite warm, but no ill-effects.

Old, is the reflector unscrewed from the pill, a bit?

I took the head off to inspect, and my reflector unscrewed a bit. Plopped it back in, and it had a nice brown spot of puke (wasn't round, either), and some colors that brought back some memories.

Screwed the reflector on tightly, and problems disappeared.

Prolly not the issue with yours, but perhaps it will help someone.

@BlueBeam, consider it done, ASAP! Thanks!

Seems to be a lot of variation in these. Got mine today. Perfect three modes, 2.8A 800 lumens. Not very pretty but works fine.

Reflector is screwed down tight [ Multi grip tight ]

Mine had the cool blue/purple outer tinge , yellow corona , and white center ... Now its mostly yellow , with a little white in the outer edge of the center .

Hmmm , I will run it as much as possible ... and see what happens

Mine also has the white/yellow/purple effect as well, old.

Not very nice looking on a wall, but the opossums don't seem to mind...for a few seconds.

18mm O-rings from DX fit fine.

Thanks for the o-ring link Vectrex

Thanks Foy for that link to lighthound looks like another good place to spend money

Same here .

I ordered this deal too, a pair of them. I did the same thing Foy did, installed a reflector made for an XM-L, and the result is a larger/brighter hotspot. Confirmed by comparing the same two lights, which had the same beam pattern and intensity before the new reflector was installed. Now I have to order another SMO reflector to improve output of the other one.

Both switches work fine... and the black rubber pill cover is not interfering/touching with the emitter. I think these are good lights for the price paid, and shipping was pretty quick...

Good to see somebody else had this issue . . .

Foy

Do you have a link for the right reflector...thanks a lot!