Shadow TC6 XM-L Any thoughts before I buy?

im sure you will too... ive been drooling over that for a while

I posted my opinion regarding this flashlight here

I really like it.

I'm glad I bought it now. Thanks for the link.

After that can consider the JM05. For $39 shipped, it is really very good value. Shame that it has no NW option.

http://www.intl-outdoor.com/shadow-jm05-t6-26650-800-lumens-fashlight-p-212.html

High output (650 lumens OTF, 2.6A draw), good heatsinking, good throw for the size, no PWM. A single Kingkong 26650 has the capacity of a pair of TF Flames 2400mAh.

I seen that one, looks very well built. I'm not very familiar with 26650 cells. Not sure if I want to dive in into another exotic battery + charger. I see it comes with 18650 sleeve :-) . Might have to get one, However there out of stock :-(

Woah...no shit. Out of stock!

My first charger is the Ultrafire WF-188. Already factorered all these small, medium, big and XL batteries. Figured that i'd pay like $4 more to get a universal one.

Or join the rest of us, get a hobby charger! (power it with a spare notebook power adapter or something)

I'm afriad to say but I'm a flashaholic in training :-[ . I'm realy a novice when it comes to batteries, chargers well electronics in general. Lol I'm learning ...slowly.

I plan to get a NW Shadow. Which one is more versatile do you think? OP or SMO reflector for general use?

I already have a SMO TK35 and TK41 and a TF X8. They throw well but may have some artifacts. OP sounds more smooth but I still wouldn't want to dim the output.

+1

http://www.rcaccessory.com/bc6dx-ii.aspx

seems like a ton of money - actually, it is a f@!$load of money. but mine has nearly paid for itself by reviving SLA and power tool batteries.

For general use I would go with OP it will smooth out the beam and give you a bit more floody beam. I chose the SMO for more throw, I hope it won't give out the rings of saturn.:-)

I've only recently become aware of this intl and shadow lights. They seem to lie in that niche between lights that are inexpensive enough for impulse buy but not as overpriced as many 'high quality' lights. Good thing for my wallet they don't have fat lights w/ (physically) parallel batteries:)

No rings of Saturn on the TC6. I have both reflectors OP and SMO. Maybe I'll take some beamshots tonight.

:-) Beamshots would be great. Thanks Hikelite!

Where did you order the spare reflector from?

Well it was actually a free gift from CNQ for delaying my order 2 weeks.

I've take some outdoor beamshots last night with the two available reflectors, SMO and OP for the Shadow TC6. (2.6A, XM-L T6 1A)

18meters SMO vs OP 59 feet

60meters SMO vs OP 196 feet

60cm SMO vs OP 2 feet (zoomed)

60cm SMO vs OP 2 feet - Heavily underexposed

The first two beamshots aren't matching perfectly on the spot, so don't take any decision just by those two.

The heavily underexposed pictures are too underexposed to mean anyting in reality, I have underexposed them to pick up any difference in the beam pattern.

Simply because it's the same flashlight and the same reflector construction (different coating, SMO vs OP) you won't see any difference between the two unless you are trying hard. The SMO reflector's hot spot is barely any tighter, but it is.

The beam is very nice with any of the reflectors.

Edit: It was -6 Celsius last night but the Shadow TC6 just could not get hot in 2 or 3 minutes of runtime. I wanted it to get hot to warm my hands.

I cannot see any pics?

I've updated the links, it seems postimage.org didn't work, but imageshack is working.

Thanks for the comparison Hikelite. The OP on the underexposed image looks nice. I see it feeds the spill while their hotspots look nearly equal from the pictures. I guess OP would be better all around for me. But I'd prefer 3C for outdoor and it should loose some lumens. I hope it lights up the road just as good.

You don't loose lumens on the 3C it's the same T6 bin efficiency as the 1A.

It looks nice indeed. However those are so underexposed that don't justice to this flashlight . As I said it was only to try to pick up any difference between the two, to actually see a difference. Just above the underexposed images you can see how the same output looks to my eye. So when you look at those you hardly notice any difference.