Manafont's Ultrafire Samsung LED drop-in

Flashlight Modding and DIY Parts
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This won’t be a full-blown review, but I wanted to post what I found out for anyone interested.

I found out about the Samsung 3535 LED in this post where Cheap Thrills got a flashlight that accidentally included this LED. The 3535 is pretty much a direct substitute for a Cree XP-G or Nichia 219 which all have a 3.5mm x 3.5mm footprint and similar performance specs.

Manafont is selling a 5-mode P60 drop-in with the Samsung LED and I wanted to try out something new, so I ordered it. It arrived today.

The build quality is very good and seems to be a genuine Ultrafire drop-in (circuit board says www.ultrafire.net on it). Has a smooth reflector. The LED is well-centered and there is a heavy duty black plastic isolation disk that fits in place snugly without adhesive and has a square opening that is perfect for this size LED. There was some dirt on the LED dome, but I was able to wash it off.

The drop-in is made for up to 8.4V input. I was nervous about using 2 batteries, but it seems to work fine. On one 18650 the drop-in draws 1170, 350, and 100 mA. On 2 cells it is right at about half of that, so no real advantage either way. The LED can be driven at up to 1500mA, so it is probably underdriven with this driver.

The mode order is High-Medium-Low-Strobe-SOS. The SOS is quick and seems to only have 2 dashes, so that spells SMS. But the worst thing is that on Medium and Low there seems to be a very, very short pre-flash. That is something that some Quarks have, but I’ve never seen it in a budget light. It’s probably not as bad as the Quark Tactical, but I haven’t tried it outside at night yet.

The memory sets after 1 second Off. I like off memory like that better than making you leave the light on for a certain amount of time. You can get just a flash of light and maintain the mode.

The beam profile looks a lot like a XP-G to me. Decent size hotspot with a smooth transition to spill. The tint is definitely cool white, which I don’t like, but I just wanted to try out a new LED. According to the Samsung datasheets, the top-binned LED is about equal to the XP-G S2.

I don’t know that this drop-in is going to be worth $10.99 for most people, but if you want a different LED, it might be worth playing around with. Mostly I just wanted to get a picture of it for the Flashlight Wiki.

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Thanks for the information and giving your thoughts. I like trying new things also especially low priced stuff, you never know when you might find a jewel!!

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To repost a cpf member's post on this dropin:

"Samsung emitter drop-in w/ medium parabolic reflector.
The die itself is close to xp-g in size.

I'll go out on a limb and say it's the most sorted emitter for a drop-in to date, yep I'll claim it here!
the beam is flawless leaning toward throw (zero doughnut aspect)
Usable spill, but the hotspot it pronounced.

Anyone spare a light amber filter?






^^^ On High > approx 6~7 ft. away
the actual hotspot is smaller than what shows in pic., then there is a hotspot spill, if you will."

Personally I see what was said where Cree emitters tend to have a very faint often unnoticed donut in the hotspot and the Samsung 3535 seems to produce an arguably better hotspot in a P60 reflector. What I find strange is everywhere that sells this led has it specified as "5000k", but it seems that very 6500k cool white in the 2 budget flashlight applications I've seen them in so far.

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Thanks for the mini-review!

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> so that spells SMS

Hmmm, Short Message Service?

I recall come years ago Gransee of ARC suggested flashlights that could modulate the light with data/voice input, and with a sensor that could detect a remote flashlight beam modulated with voice play it back through a speaker, so a pair of such flashlights could do point to point line of sight communication Maybe it’s time (grin).

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That is indeed a beautiful beamshot from this Samsung LED :slight_smile: