I was wondering whether there is a compact 3 x XM-L (maybe XM-L2) flashlight that runs on 2 x 18650, with a good circut board. It may very well pull ~ 7+ amps to tail.
Throw is not as important (up to 200 meters will then be fine), but massive flood will mean more.
But DNielsen, it would then mean that you run out of power after ~ 40 minutes on high; yes …
But it will of course become very hot; well sure.
But what should you do with it? - Light things up.
But what activities? - Some require a lot of light! Just let me buy one more flashlight!
Basicly i want a G25C2 MKII on steroids
I might be a dreamer…
A good SRK? It would run from 2x 18650s and be compact...
The FandyFire G36 is a very nice triple, but only has 3x XM-L emitter, not L2. You would likely want to change the driver though as it's conservatively driven IIRC. I liked mine, but I ended up selling it to someone who needed a good light. It's surprisingly compact. I had wanted to replace the reflectors with OP, or do an OL-stipple to make it a mega-flooder, but never got to...
With a 40 minute run time on high I believe he wants 7A at the tail in series which would be about that amount of time. 14A at the driver or a little over 4A per emitter.
Nothing stock will give you that, Danny. If you are handy with a soldering iron it would be a great opportunity to get your hands dirty.
A triple XP Noctigon with XP-L emitters Driven by a BLF FET driver and installed in a smaller P60 sized host with a 2*18650 battery tube should fill the bill. ;)
Danny, you'd probably do better just getting an SRK and installing the SRK BLF FET driver. You'd be looking at about 4000-5000 lumens from something the size of a can of soda.
My Darth should be arriving tomorrow or Thursday. Others with three LED heads and three 18650 batteries in parallel are the new Solarstorm T3 and the FandyFire YL-U2 Warrior. I have the T3 and the Warrior so far and the T3 is brighter but the Warrior has a much warmer color temperature beam. All three are what I would refer to as skinny beer can lights. The SRK and M6 are fatter beer can lights, four 18650 batteries in parallel.
Based on listed dimensions the Darth is the most compact primarily due to having the smallest diameter head.
Based on the pictures in the above linked to review the Darth should be easy to modify as the driver chamber is readily accessible if you are a light modifier.
I'm a huge advocate of the BSD but you can only mod it so far. Bridging the resistors on my original BSD took it from 1500 lumens to 1930 lumens OTF. Not a huge gain but acceptable. The problem is the magnetic control ring driver. You can't just swap out the driver with any one of the fantastic Oshpark drivers we have going here because it won't work with the magnetic ring. Unless, of course, you don't mind doing away with it entirely and using only the main tail switch to change modes.
The Warrior and T3 are a little thinner than the SRK but not much smaller overall and lose a bit in run time. You can pump out much more light from an SRK when using a FET driver due to less stress on the cells. All 3 can easily be modded into crazy output levels.
Just trying to clarify
Is looking for 2-2,5A/emitter (in hope of finding something stock); depends on emitter, real goal is 2500+ lumens.
Was originally looking for 2 x 18650 end to end, but 3 x 18650 side by side (beer can) seams to be the norm in this category of flashlights, can also work.
18650 is a must, have 8 NCR18650B i use for all my lights.
After a bit of re-thinking XM-L og XM-L2 is not a requirement, neither is 3, 4 or 8 emitters, what is does is what matters.
Simple moding is ok, but have no experience.
Pricerange, well who can put a price on the right flashlight - But under 150 is the goal (for that kind of money i can get a Eagle Tac MX25L3C - 3500 lumens)
The 2500 OTF Lumens requirement says that of the lights I mentioned the Solarstorm T3 is the choice and it is available for about $31 to $35 depending on vendor. Tested 2700 Lumens out. Ihe Darth is closer to 1500 actual Lumens stock and the Warrior is in the 2150 actual OTF Lumens range per reports. Some would go for lower lumens and warmer color output as the T3 has very “cold” color temperature LEDs. All depends on preferences and needs.
The Solarstorm T3 and T4 do look very promising - have been reading up on both. Solarstorm T3 and T4
From what i could find, the size of the two are nearly identical.
T3: Reading of 8,6A out of the tail
T4: Reading of 2,7A on one emitter = 4 * 2,7A = 10,8A of tail o_0
Thats some pretty crazy number coming directly from factory - but i do like
Tint is awefull, but actually find CW more effective at highlighting details. Would never chose a EDC above 4K, but could work for this one.
But cant find any beam shots, happen to come across any? (direct comparison would be perfect)
T3 and Warrior have almost identical size center hot spots and similar overall size beam diameters including the outer corona. T3 and T4 are pretty much identical in size except for the front of the lights, the reflector housing area. The part you grasp is the same size on both and is the same diameter within 1 mm as the Warrior and Darth per listed measurements.
Those high current numbers do mean that the T3 and T4 do get warm fast. You are NOT going to want to leave them on maximum output for too long unless in cold conditions with a wind for cooling. The same is true for ALL the high output relatively light weight lights if they have decent heat conduction paths from their LEDs to the outside of the light. A light weight high output LED light that does NOT get hot relatively quickly is a bad design like some recent SRK lights which have minimal to no contact between the LEDs mounting plate and the light body. People who post about not wanting a light to get hot are just showing that they want minimal output or do not understand the physics of the LED flashlight. If it puts out lots of light and does not get warm pretty fast then it is self destructing internally.
With nothing more than bridging the resistors (takes more time to warm up the iron than to perform the mod), the Warrior bumps from 2100-2200 OTF up 2800 OTF. If the tailcap isn't glued you can perform resistance mods for more output. While the iron is hot you may as well swap out the XM-L and aluminum stars for XM-L2 on Noctigons. Massive output at that point in a compact package.
Since OP was apparently thinking of end-to-end cell configs <span class=“steroids” on MKII “G25C2”> I suppose we should bring up the Solarforce K3. It’s for use with end-to-end bodies and IIRC is compatible with either 2s or 3s setups. Here it is for $80 with a 2x18650 body. Clearly it’s stock output is much lower than what OP wants, and it’s an MT-G2 rather than a triple XM-L2. Installing the appropriate driver for high output should be easy and I don’t know of a lot of lights with this form factor. I’m sure RMM and many others here would be willing to do the mod work for a fair price if the form factor is a driving factor. I recently had a conversation with an LEO where he pointed out that a longer flashlight is really ideal during traffic stops so that you can tuck it under your arm.
