Review: Zeusray FL05518 Domed & De-Domed

+ Zeusray FL05518 Domed & De-Domed Comparison+

This is a two part review. Firstly it is a review of the Zeusray torch and secondly a comparison of

de-doming one of these.

One of the Zeusrays was provided by Dealmetic.com for review.

Conclusion Summary:

The Zeusray is a brilliant performing, and in my two examples, a well made zooming flashlight. Very

high output for a standard torch. Good modes and UI. And at a fantastic price.

For the money vs ability, there is no reason what so ever not to own one.

Manufacturer Specs:

-Type of LED : CREE XM-L L2 LED
-Hollow pillow: solid pill(much better heat radiation than the other)
-Adjustable Focus : Can adjust its focus for different usage .
-Max Output brightness : 2000 lumens
Internal wiring applies the high efficient booster circuit, working voltage is wide and can

utilize the batteries in the largest extent.
-Waterproofing design (Not for Diving) (Don’t place it into water)
-Material: High quality Aluminum.
-Switch: Press Tail-cap on/off
–5 Mode: high / middle / low / strobe / sos
-Power by : 1x 18650 (Battery Not Include)
-Color : Black
-Size : 112mm x 31mm(Head Dia)/24mm(body Dia)
-Weight : 75g

Info about my reviews and testing:

I like to keep my reviews fairly informal and not overly technical. There are plenty of talented
people with fancy measuring devices to offer more technical detail. What I want to do is give an
honest appraisal of owning and using this torch, and what a regular punter will make of it.

What’s in the box:

Basically not a lot. Remember this is a budget light. You get the flashlight and that’s it. However

at a steal of a price and with free shipping. This still makes it a complete and utter bargain.

Exterior Design & Ergonomics:

The Zeusray is a compact pocket friendly zooming flashlight that runs on 1x18650. Obviously it is

physically bigger than the infamous SK68 due to being an 18650 torch. It is short and smaller than

a Solarforce L2.

The head uses a plastic aspheric lens, however the quality of the lens seems very good on both of

my samples. The lens is also substantially bigger than that of the SK68.

There is a plain aluminium crenalated bezel. It is not sharp nor can you notice the crenalations

when carrying the torch in your pocket. But it does enable it to head stand and obvoiusly offers

some protection for the lens.

The head is grippy and easy to slide from flood to zoom, even one handed. The main body is also

grippy enough and has a brilliant pocket clip (a clip used on other more pricey flashlight

offerings).

The tailcap is a simple plain aluminium one houseing the switch. Both of my examples tail stand

perfectly with no wobbling at all.

It’s comfy in the hand and in the pocket.

Anodising is typical of this end of the market, but if perfectly acceptable in my book. Neither of

my examples appear to have blemishes or mark easily.

The threads on the tailcap are also square cut. General machining qulaity seems to be very good.

Beam:

On flood mode the Zeusray offers up a wide even circle of illumination. There is no hotspot and no

distracting artefacts either. The beam is smooth and even all the way to the edge.

In zoom mode it is pretty typical of a light like this, you get a perfect projection of the LED. In

this example the XM-L2 appears as a large square shape with some spots. When used at long range you

don’t notice the spots, although you can slightly de-focus the zoom if you don’t want to see them

at all.

When de-domed the beam does change, but I’ll cover this in the section below in more detail.

Overall the beam is very good for a zoomy and simply ideal for certain uses.

Switch, UI & Performance:

The Zeusray uses a reverse clicky switch, so you can change modes with a half press when it is on.

Both of my examples the switch feels positive and nice to use.

It has 3 output levels and then some disco modes. Going:

High -> Medium -> Low -> Strobe -> SOS

There are two very important things to note here:

1. I can detect no PWM on either of the 3 output modes. If it does use PWM it is of high frequency,

or it is current controlled. Nor can I hear any high pitched noises from it.

2. Disco modes are essentially hidden unless you want them. The Zuesray has no memory and resets

within a couple of seconds. This means it always turns on in High, which being a zoomy is perfectly

fine as you never get a blinding hot spot in food mode.

The FL05518 version of the Zeusray differs from similar torches by having a solid pill, rather than

a hollow one. This is something the flashlight user community requested of Dealmetic, who willing

obliged. They also upgraded the basic Zeusray to the XM-L2 found in this version.

Why a solid pill, does it matter? The answer is yes. A solid pill offers more mass and more surface

contact area with the underside of the LED star. This is a two fold benefit, it firstly draws heat

away from the LED faster and secondly can handle higher peak temperatures.

The reality is, you get higher total output and a more sustained output for longer.

With my Zeusrays I have been running them on some high performance IMR 18650’s, either purple Efests

or Samsung 25R’s. Both offer a performance hike over a regular protected ICR.

My domed Zeusray pulls 3.75amps on high with these cells. While the 2nd Zeusray is at 3.43amps

after the de-dome.

This means the Zeusray offers up some serious illumination.

This high output means runtimes on high maybe aren’t as long as you’d see with lesser torches. But

the Medium output modes is a nice middle ground here. Sadly the low isn’t as low as what most would

probably expect of a low mode and it still pumps out quite a lot of lumens. Although this is less

of an issue with a zoomy IMO.

In Actual Usage:

I have been using my Zeusray a lot in recent weeks. For me it is a very nice EDC sized light. It’s

high output and good thermal management mean it is ideal for many uses. In doors you will never

need anything other than full flood, although the different output levels are welcome.

It ceiling bounces well and thanks to stable tail standing means this is a useful trait.

Outside the high output and large illumination area make it a lovely torch for walking with, it

really does light up everything in front of you really well. And due to it’s output it lights up

things further away than you’d thing it would be able to in flood mode.

The zoom means that should you want to see something further away it has that ability also. I

personally prefer the de-domed example, but even domed it is still a useful and very good torch.

I really have nothing negative to say about mine.

De-doming:

As Dealmetic sent me a review sample and I already had one I had purchased previously, I decided to

de-dome one to offer up a comparison.

The de-dome was really easy and I did it in the most lazy way. I simply removed the head and took

the entire pill out and let it soak in petrol (gasoline) over night. Next day the dome was gone and

only took a couple of mins to re-assemble.

The plastic ring around the LED to hide the top of the star when fully zoomed (you can get a

projection of the star/Led area) didn’t take to the petrol too kindly, but seems unaffected

otherwise and the beam seems not to have suffered at all in this regard (check out the beamshots

below).

De-doming caused a tint shift to a warmer tint. Personally I see this as a positive thing, the tint

really is quite nice, a neutral warm tint. Versus a cooler tint for the domed variant.

Flood mode appears to be brighter de-domed. And throw when zoomed is massively increased, it really

does get a lot more light down range now. The Led projection is smaller de-domed, but to no

detrimental affect due to the increased throw.

Beamshots & Comparisons:

So this is the crux of it, how does the de-domed one perform vs the domed one?

Well first up, lets not forget how good the stock domed Zeusray is. It’s brilliant!

Also as this is a zoomy, I think we should take a moment to consider just how good these are at

offering nice even illumination when compared to regular reflector torches, even floody ones.

As a benchmark, this is a Sunwayman V11R Neutral White running an Efest 16340 IMR on max output.

Nice tint and considered a “floody” light:

Compared to the Zeusrays the V11R does not offer even floody illumination. Here you can clearly see

the tint difference between the domed and de-domed versions:

Also note how wide an area the flood lights up, it’s a much bigger area than the V11R.

A closer comparison of the Zeusray’s, domed and de-domed. The de-domed seems more prevelent, so I

estimate the higher lumen output, although the de-domed Zeusray pulls less amps. Both Zeusrays are

using freshly charged new Samsung 25R’s.

And zoomed in, you can clearly see the de-domed XM-L2 offers up a smaller led projection image:

On a faster shutter speed you can clearly see how much more intense the de-domed emitter is:

And another just showing the tint differences again, this time partially zoomed in, demonstrating

no rings in the beam:

And some distance beamshots. The chimney in the shot is approx 280 feet away:

I think this is a stark difference in ability considering no other changes other than de-doming.

Having a smaller projection with higher intensity also makes it easier to aim the torch at the

target. The stock XM-L2 with it’s large square projection is somewhat unwieldy.

However to be fair to the Zeusray in 100% stock form, it is brilliant for flood and acceptable for

throw. But de-domed it becomes brilliant at both.

I decided to compare throw and beam of the de-domed XM-L2 Zeusray to some other zoomy lights I

have. First up is my modded Aleto, this uses a 26650 INR battery (it looks like a scaled up SK68).

And has an XP-G2 NW on a Nocitgon and a Qlite 3.04A driver.



The XP-G2 has a much smaller led image, so lights up a smaller area at max zoom. But at this range

I see no benefit of the smaller LED. And in flood mode the Zeusray offers up a lot more lumens.

Next up is one of my long term favourite lights, the POP lite T33. It’s a little underpowered in

this competition with a claimed 220 lumens from it’s XP-E and 3xAAA power source. But I like the beam

the TIR optic produces over an aspheric, and it has proven to out throw far higher output reflector

lights in the past.



I still like the zoom beam profile of the TIR equipped T33. And it also illuminates a large area on

full flood, but it is clearly out gunned in shear lumen power in this contest.

Last up is for those struggling to comprehend how bright the Zeusray is. Here is a comparison

against my best performing single mode SK68 clone, with it’s stock XR-E and running a freshly

charged Efest IMR 14500.





Clearly the Zeusray is in a completely different league to the SK68. The 14500 powered SK68 barely

even hangs with the AAA powered POP lite T33.

Video Review:

thanks for all that information! Was thinking about dedoming mine, now you have assisted me in my decision

Good review and great pictures,
thanks

Awesome work. I have 3 of them, two for friends. But I think I need one more to de-dome :-).
But based on your work all of them should be de-domed.

I really like the de-domed tint…… I’m off to the garage to get me some petrol! :slight_smile:

Probably a daft question, but what is the purpose of the dome anyway? Is it just for protection?

Looks like I have to pick me up a few. Thanks for the review!

Wow! Nice comparison! I've been impressed with my stock one.

apt323, I had to do a double-take when I saw your avatar and make sure it was you. You been lurking behind the scenes or just coming and going? Anyway, glad to see you're still around!

-Garry

That tint shift is a very good thing in my opinion ,the standard light is a bit cold and the full zoom looks much better also, this with just a de-dome has to be one of the best bang for buck flashlights out there

Thanks for the review.

John.

so you soak the whole pill, driver and all, in gasoline?
Or just put it LED-side-down in a shallow container?

I put a cross-reference in the “consolidated ZeusRay” thread

pointing to this new one

If I wasn’t being lazy I’d de-solder the star and only soak that. But I was feeling ultra lazy and the Zeusray was such a bargain price I honestly didn’t want to faff about with the soldering iron so just chucked the entire pill in.

Apparently that worked okay? There sure is a difference in the beam shots.

Edit: The gasoline didn’t wreck anything except the dome?

Great review and even greater pictures, now i get why you said more lumens after the dedome.

I bet you have just made a lot of Zeusray owners here dedome theirs :slight_smile:

Look in the very first pic. There is a brown plastic cover that hides the star and led leads. This is to make the projection on full zoom cleaner. The petrol seems to have eaten this plastic partly. But it hasn’t caused any harm overall and I can’t see any real issues with the beam.

If you have the time, de-solder the star and just soak the led. But I don’t think it’s caused any real harm chucking the whole pill in. Just make sure it still seats well on the pill.

You can take out the brown reflector before you dedome the led if you want, it is a little bit tricky but with some pliers its possible to remove intact and reassemble afterwards.

EDIT
Here is a picture from Tom E that helped me take it out safely.

Thanks!

It really looks better de-domed in your beam shots. Thanks for the great review as well.

Beam shot comparisons to other zoomies that alone is worth a 1000 words and you did a superb job.

Thank you for the review and the great pics!