Review: Ultrafire 1226

LED Flashlights – General Info 18650 Flashlights
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I won this light in a recent Five Flashlight Giveaway hosted by Aurabuy. The SKU is FLFA1XX02233A. Thank you Aura!

Summary:

This is a pretty nice light with a lot of mod potential. It’s has lots of power storage (4 parallel 18650’s) and a fairly big reflector. It’s beam profile is much like the Small Sun ZY-T08/T13, but the hot spot and spill are a little smaller. As would be expected, It throws further than the T08 stock. Measured 54kcd on my meter at 3.45 amps. The beam is slightly ringy against flat walls, but not noticeable outside. There is a slight green tint outside of the hot spot.

It has a handle that my wife really likes. We live in the country with no nearby area lighting. She has been grabbing this light lately when going out in the dark. The light does have one major flaw though. It has next mode memory. The driver looks familiar. I’ve seen mod threads on in before. If anyone knows a mode mod for it, please post it in this thread. Current measured:

High - 3.45 amps
Med - 1.20 amps
Low - .21 amps
SOS - Didn’t Measure
Strobe - Didn’t Measure

Here is a summary of Pro’s and Con’s:
Pros:

  • Looks good
  • Has a good quality finish
  • Lots of heat sinking potential
  • Holds 4 18650’s
  • Large deep solidly built aluminum reflector (62mm OD x 57mm ID x 48mm deep)
  • Has nice handle
  • Glass lens (64mm by 2mm) - Not AR coated
  • All threads anodized
  • Has 10 AMC7135’s on a 46mm driver for 3.5 amps

Cons:

* Next mode memory :frowning:

* Very thin wires for the emitter.

* Rolls until handle touches ground

* Hollow pill that was not properly thermal pasted *

The pill is quite large and has a decent sized lip for the outer edge of the 25mm base to sit on. It appears to be adequate for stock usage. If modded for more current, the pill would need to be modified. There was thin disk pressed in the pill. The disk was bowl shaped from being pressed in by thumb or something. It is very hard to bend for it’s thickness. Maybe a harder aluminum alloy. Even if it is aluminum, may actually interfere with pulling heat from the emitter as it is thicker than the depth of ledge that it sits on. Also, the ledge it sits on is much smaller than the ledge the emitter base could rest against. So the disk is only in contact with the emitter. At a minimum, I recommend pulling out this disk and using thermal paste around the emitter base. Better yet would be to modify or replace the disk with a thinner disk that is level with the upper ledge.

The light came in a gift box. Unfortunately, the trip was rough as it was clear the package had been crushed at least once. Fortunately, the light was well packed and undamaged:

Here are some break down shots:


I think the bezel is aluminum.

The thin disk may not be aluminum. It was more bowl shaped before I pressed it out of the pill.

Back of head and pill:

Pretty nice reflector:

All threads anodized:

Beam is about 11 feet in diameter at 10 feet. Hot spot is slightly smaller than ZY-T08. Not evident below due to the close proximity to the wall (about 2 1/2 feet) and maybe the ZY being held further from the wall. ZY on the right:

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Reserved for outdoor beam shots. The weather is still rainy. Probably won’t get beams shots before it is modded, but I will try.

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That is the one I wanted :slight_smile:

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Thank you for the review. I almost bought one of these for modding. Now I know I will not even be thinking about it. It’s bad enough that the batteries are in parallel but with a hollow pill it’s useless to me without all kinds of major work.

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I don’t really see the hollow pill as a major headache, the driver looks pretty simple and I think I can see the next mode memory capacitor, quite a few people have dropped a suitable resistor across that to discharge the cap quickly - no mode memory, the parallel set up is not ideal but an xp-g2 would work well in there imo.

The stl-v2/v6 uses a similar set up without the pressed in disk and that has never been slated for the design, it wouldn’t be too hard to press in machined copper or brass plug if you were so inclined.

I would prefer it to be 2s2p so you could really drive something hard but I bet that could be done too.

Nice detailed review, thanks for taking the time.

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Thanks for the review ImA4wheelr. I’ve been looking forward to a review on this light and you have done very well. I dont comprehend the thinking on why people design next mode memory. I assume that this light was originally built with a hollow pill and found to not handle the heat from the led so the easiest fix was to press a piece of flat in there as a cheap quick fix and then not bother to put enough thermal paste underneath. I did not see it mentioned put I presume this light is driven with the batteries in parallel. If so it will need modifying for an MTG-2.

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Thanks for the compliments. I need to get a good camera and work on lighting. Had to use a phone camera.

Yes, you are correct. Cells are in parallel. I would expect this light to be pretty floody with MG-T2. Probably just a touch more throw then the ZY-T08 that Relic built.

Gords, I like the xpg2 idea. I may have to do that. I can also try the pencil mark trick I’ve seen mentioned on the capacitor.

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Thanx for this awesome review ImA4Wheelr! :slight_smile:

I now think that this is indeed very similar to if not a copy of the Small Sun ZY-T20 (or is it the other way around? ).

The hollow pill for me is an opportunity to fit solid copper in it and bond to the LED & MPCB. This light could be tuned into an awesome thrower. I loved the outcome of my modded T-08 so much so this one should be better. :wink:

I’m adding this light to my wishlist. :slight_smile:

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Thanks a lot for the review! Frontpage’d and Sticky’d.

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Nice job, ImA4Wheelr! I've been waiting for someone to review this light and I still think it's an excellent mod host in spite of the hollow pill. The hollow pill does open even better mod potential since one can press in a large copper plug (even aluminum would be good). The next mode memory can be easily bypassed by taking care of the capacitor and the driver itself uses AMC7135 chips making it redunkulously easy to crank up the output to whatever level you would want. Add in a dedomed XM-L2 on a Noctigon and you have a bang up thrower. I thought the reflector was bigger than 64mm. It might not ever reach the potential of a TN31 modded but for the money I'd think it could easily surpass 250kcd when done right.

The parallel cell arrangement might not be good for modding with an MT-G2 since the voltage needed is higher than 4.2v but for an XM-L2 mod this light is perfect.

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Thank you Nightbird, Admin, and Johnny. I appreciate the compliments. I still need to figure out how to get a decent outdoor beam shot and post.

Still trying to decide what I should do with this guy. I'm waiting to see how much texaspyro's srk driver is going to cost first.

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I don’t have any idea how to fill up the shallow part. Don’t have skill nor tools.

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Measure the inside diameter of the pill section to be filled. Sonetimes you get lucky and a standard roundbar diameter is the exact size. Then all you need is a hacksaw to cur a section to fit right in.

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strange that nobody made a copper pill for this flashlight ,the driver is very easy to be moded,will be a great thrower

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I wish someone would make one. They wont because it is a ugly color. The sad thing is that Gearbest has this for under $30.