I'm not a flashaholic so much as an outdoor enthusiast who needs light, and lots of it, to climb after the sun goes down. I also need light to bike at night. Recently I bought a kit from dealextreme that included a NEW-C56B flashlight, an ultrafire 2400 mAh battery and a charger for about $22. Seemed like a good entry into XM-L emitters which I believe are most likely to provide me with the high volume floody light I need while climbing, and will hopefully be able to double as a bike light.
I measured the current at the tail cap with the battery at about 3.9V. High - 2.3A, Med 1.1A, Low 0.5A. Measured with a quality multimeter. My cheap meter at home reported over 3A on high...
A few Diameters: Lens D=22.82 mm - Pill D=19.44 mm - Star D=16.0 mm - Driver D= 17.2 mm
I bought a pair of Trustfire Flames. Their added length was a little too much for this flashlight. Screwing the tail cap in all the way caused the flashlight to remain off. The little brass nipple was closing the clicky button. By removing the brass nipple, and only using the spring, Trustfire Flames are able to fit without problems. They have a significantly longer duration than the original battery suggesting that the 2400 mAh is an exaggeration.
I went with a zoom thinking it would let me dual purpose this light. After receiving the light I'm not so sure. But first here is the light:
The Kit seems like a good price for those of us without charger or battery already. The charger says it supplies a current of 650 mA, but I measured it and found it to be about 450 mA:
The light was relatively easy to disassemble. The anodizing was thin, the threads were a bit rough, but the fit was generally good. There wasn't any grease, and after applying some the threads ran smooth, and the zoom was much easier to use. Overall the quality was higher than the price led me to believe it might be.
The crown holding the lens is aluminum. The lens was plastic. The reflector is flat stainless held into an aluminum cap by a ring of hard plastic. The tail cap seemed like the worst part of the package. It is hard to see in the photo, but the brass nipple is held in place by plastic. The plastic is malformed, or maybe melted, and it looks like the nipple might eventually come out. As it happens the nipple needs to be removed for longer protected batteries anyway.
The pill is aluminum, and fits very well into the light. The soldering is decent, and although it lacks care it is at least relatively clean. Not sure about the driver, maybe someone here can help me out based on the photos. There doesn't really seem to be any thermal compound present. I added some between the pill and the body, but the light still overheats if left on high for too long.
The Pill slips in. The reflector screws in on top, and also acts as a hard stop for the zoom. The emitter is pretty decently centered, but it sits pretty far below the reflector. It seems like significant light might be lost into the gap between the star and the bottom of the reflector. This would only add to any heat problems. I am considering either forming the reflector into a bit of a cone, or bringing it closer to the top of the pill. I'd appreciate the opinions of others. Will this let more light out? Can I do something about this?
