budget 16340 zoomie

LED Flashlights – General Info CR123A Flashlights
1

I found this brandless zoomie on dx for $7.37, ordered one to see what it is like. I have not seen a zoomie in this form factor yet.

http://www.dx.com/p/xp-e-q3-80lm-3-mode-white-light-zooming-led-mini-flashlight-w-keychain-black-1-x-16340-377069#.VN6DxYVDvKQ

2

Looks nice. I could use another 16340 zoomie. None of mine will fit a 18340 tho.
I wonder if this one can

I have one of these, similar form
http://www.dx.com/p/edi-t-t11-cree-q3-wc-3-mode-160-lumen-convex-lens-led-flashlight-black-1-123a-1-16340-50680#.VN6OtIY77CQ

I have the yezl t3 version. Same light as the edi.

3

I own both this one (purchased from Ebay a couple months ago) and the EDI T-11.

This new one is MUCH smaller than the T-11 and has an XPE.

I haven’t looked too much at it yet as I’ve been working on other lights. I tend to go wild modding my small zoomies. This new one caught my eye as 16340 zoomies are so rare.

4

I got it a few days ago and although I like the design and the build quality is not that bad (it even has a non-hollow pill), the optical lay-out is garbage. The lens is of long focal length, so when zoomed in it makes a too small hotspot with lots of light wasted inside the head. And zoomed out the lens does not even come halfway close to the led, so that still most of the light never leaves the flashlight and the beam is still narrow, in fact half way zoomed in. I tried to find a way to fix this last night, tried a different lens and thought about how to mod the slider to get the head slided close enough to the led. Everything failed, there is no way this light can be fixed, while several other zoomies with similar problems (though not as bad as this one) can be fixed succesfully.

It is a shame really, without changing the overall design I could tell the manufacturer exactly what measures should be changed to what, the flashlight would look the same, and it would be a great performing zoomie.

But in short: the way it is, it is rubbish, don't buy it!

5

is it actually a zoomie or is it just a very short Ultrafire 602C

Nope…aspheric and a sliding head!
WOW!

Great find….thanks!!!

6

It is a real zoomie with a lens and a slider. It is just that the slider does not make enough distance to go from full flood to full spot, the flood is sacrified. They could have simply designed it with a bit more travel for the slider but they didn't.

If they had done their optical homework, this would have become my favorite EDC-light by far! :-(

7

I made a Solitaire 3-mode zoomie back before the tiny10 boards were done but also had to compromise on the beam so it just goes from a fuzzy sortasquare to a medium wide beam. All in all it turned out so lame I couldn’t bring myself to even give it away.

8

Agreed. They blew it on the optical layout. Biggest problem is the back of the lens doesn’t retract close enough to the top of the LED. It actually stops something like 7mm in front of the LED… a pretty huge distance in a zoomie.

In most lights this would have been easily fixable through modding.

Solution … for most lights, but not this one:

  • File down the back of the bezel. Disassemble the light and file down the back of the bezel. A zoomie can typically be filed within 2mm of the ledge that stops the bezel from falling off the light. I haven’t fully disassembled this light to take a look, but I suspect that this alone is insufficient to give the maximum possible width flood.
  • File down the raised portion of the body that prevents the head from retracting further. If you can file this portion of the battery tube smooth then there will be nothing from stopping the head from retracting further. To do this I’d use a large rectangular handfile with a flat bottom and a smooth edge. The edge of the file will rub against the portion of the light under the bezel, but because you used a smooth file it won’t do more than scratch the anodizing. Meanwhile the business end of the file will wear down the bezel stop. Move the file around the light as you file it down.

Here’s the problem in this light:

  • The lens retaining ring which holds the lens and comprises the front section of the bezel threads into the rest of the bezel from the inside. If the mods above are performed this retaining ring will actually hit the top of the pill preventing the bezel from retracting further! I could file off some of those threads… the head doesn’t need all of them, but I can’t file all of them off or there won’t be anything holding the top of the light. What an incredibly dumb design!
  • Could partially fix this by filing off the sides of the pill and removing the pill o-ring, but that still probably wouldn’t give enough extra travel to the bezel to allow it to retract fully, and without the pill o-ring the zoom wouldn’t be nearly as smooth.