(stolen photo)
This light made the rounds a while ago with some photo reviews, It was even one of Vihn’s early mods “FatMaxVN”, but as far as I can see all those photos have disappeared. So I got curious and started looking for one. Turns out Walmart has one (and Menards has a guidesman clone) for $38 on their website. It said it was in stock locally (in the tools section), so I went to get one. First thing, the one in store has the same model number but is advertised as “Up to 2200 lumens” from a single XM-L2, and it costs $49 instead of $38. That put me off, but I was still interested in what’s inside because if you look at the pictures,it looks like they might have an external heatsink instead of just sealing it all in the plastic case like other spotlights do.
So I bought it. First think out of the package, those side fins are just plastic :person_facepalming: The stand thing on the top is metal though, what are the chances they used it as a heatsink?
(click pics to enlarge)
BIG reflector. 76mm inside diameter actually. Here it is with a Courui, Thorfire S70, and Convoy L2. If it can handle the heat it would be a killer thrower host.
I had to take it apart. This is what greeted me. The shiny bit is the refelector. It is plastic but very very shiny. There were a few blemishes under the coating though. The lens is glass. The dull silver is a cast aluminum heatsink, and it is indeed connected to the top metal part that goes outside the light :+1: Everything is screwed together very solidly. The batteries are on the other side of the circuit board, it is a 2S1P pack. The light is driven at 3amps to the LED on high, 0.55amps on low.
Here is the heatsink itself. Good heft to it, though 50% is contained in the plastic, not as much external surface area as I had hoped. Everything silver is inside the light, the black is outside. The plastic just fits around it and screws down. As such water resistance is dubious.
These are the batteries. Sorry for the blurry picture, my phone died (permanently) immediately after taking. Samsung 2200mah 84Wh pack.
I’m returning it today. Maybe if it was ~$30 I’d keep it and mod it, but it would be too much work to put into a cheap-ish host that already cost me $50. It would probably make great numbers with an overdriven XP-L HI and give great throw numbers (500kcd maybe?) and should deal with ~20w just fine.