NO spill thrower/zoomie

LED Flashlights – General Info 18650 Flashlights
1

Dear BLF community, since this is one of my first posts, hope you will help a noob like me with sufficient details so i ca better understand what you mean. I read a whole lot of stuff on this forum, but a lot of knowledge only leads to more questions, so bare with me, please.
i am looking for a close to 0 spill strong thrower, preferably a zoomie, at a decent cost. Please do not suggest the Laser exciting phosphorus throwers, as the price point is prohibiting for me, i would love one under 50$. size does matter, so i need something compact and with as small as possible head diameter, so i reached the conclusion after a bit of reading that aspherical is the way to go.

Now, to better explain why these needs: i am planing to use this flashlight not for walks in the park, but for attaching it to an airsoft weapon. That being said, i need 0 spill so if i want to point at something in the dark that is 70~150 meters forward, i do not light up all of my colleagues that might be somewhere in front of me(not exactly in the front of the beam, but slightly sideways or lying on the ground. this is a scenario where i go on a outdoor filed. i said zoomie because i would like to zoom in and have lots of flood when i enter a building.

the SK68 replicas proved to be weak and unreliable due to poor led, drivers and small pill, si i saw the Italian Cometa, but that had lots of issues as you all reported too, and it is not found anywhere either. what i liked about it that it had no rings around the spot, in zoom in and zoom out modes too, although it had a bit of a big head.

Regarding the driver and UI, i only need strobe, and turbo(eventualy a low setting), preferably with last mode memory, no complicated ui is really needed like the Anduril. I really love the 2 button tactical switch of an Opsmen Flashlight 501 Fast i had and lost that had a center tail switch for on/of and mode switching and 2 side pads that went straight to strobe(attached picture).

Now, i know there are small to 0 chances to find all that i want in a stock flashlight, but i want to start with the flashlight itself for the start, and focus on upgrading or modifying the driver/tail switch later.
Thank you for your patience, guys!

2

Is Brinyte B158B small enough?

3

Thank you for answering Agro… the size is on the upper limit, but manageable… i did not specify i see that i wanted a more powerful led. I know that XML L2 and XPL hi have small footprint, but hoped to find one with more lumens to help in flood mode, something like sst40 at least, preferably a monster like the XHP series with 3~4000 lumens or even more if possible. since a part of the lumens form the emmiter are wasted in aspherical zoomies, wanted to have enough of them so the zoom beam is as bright as possible. would oyu recomend i take this one and change the emitter?

4

For the driver, you can use a driver with Biscotti firmware you can find in Convoy Store from AliExpress. Mode 11 is 100% - 20% - Strobe.

You can also try a driver with guppy3drv. You can configure it for different UI options!

You can also try a driver from led4power (currently the online store is closed), that you can configure to have several modes and double/triple click for turbo or strobe (you chose).

I also think that I blackened the white ‘reflector’ and other parts (gasket) inside my Odepro KL52 (similar to Brinyte B158B, mentioned by Agro) and it has much less spill when focused. It may have some smaller rings, but it is a nice method to avoid the rings on the zoomie. That and blackening the edges of the lens.

These lights are very moddable so you won’t have much trouble making then fit your needs!

I hope this helps :+1:

EDIT: you can use 3V XHP50.2 leds (not 6V). But…I am not sure if they will look very well under the convex lens …

5

regarding the driver, i will most likely need something custom… a button straight to strobe would be much appreciated.If there is a possibility, i will pull a wire with a press pad from the flashlight out on the weapon replica so i can push it directly. For the moment, i want to see what are the options for a flashlight with good zooming power and LED. Swapping the led with a totally different one won’t cause issues with the focus ?

6

If you liked the Cometa, let me introduce you to the light it ripped off: Jaxman Z1.

7

i saw the z1 beamshots, it seams it spills too in front of it… mounting a black cylinder on top of the head would cancel the spill, right? because i see no other option to render it close to 0… and that is really important as i said…
regarding the driver/tailswitch, does anyone have any ideea how the Opsmen dd it, to have one button for fast access to strobe?

8

Where do you see spill on beamshots? I think this is some mistake, it shouldn’t have any.

9

in the first photo from the aliexpress page, where it shows zoom in and zoom out beamshots:

10

A part of what you see here is rings in the beam - which is normal in aspheric light. One can fight it by blackening light interior and lens edges but they won’t completely disappear.
I think they adjusted exposure time to make the far building look well lit while really it wasn’t. This made rings appear much more pronounced than they were in real use.
But I’m not sure if this explanation is correct.

Anyway, Z1 should not be worse than any aspheric zoomie.

11

So, to conclude for the flashlight, should i go with a z1 or is there one with a much more powerful led? because 900 lumens is not that much when zoomed in, and when zoomed out, abut 50% is gone into the walls, right?