NEW New C55 - 18650 clone of sk68 clone

I bought this light on ebay - from seller ultrapire I believe - and for ~$7

Cons: no lens oring, 1.75A at tail on high, emitter had a little spec of dirt under the dome, plastic pressed in switch retainer in tail, one clip screw stripped, pill doesn't screw in like my sk68 clone (it is pushed down by a screw in retainer and pushed up by the battery contacting the driver spring). Has strobe mode (although at least it is relatively slow).

Pros: tailcap more ergonomic than sk68, 18650

The mods: filed the grooves in the sliding piece for more grip - they're quite deep now. sandblasted bezel and slider, painted w/ vht flameproof flat black, sanded high spots on slider and crown. Sanded body and tailcap.

flattened (hammer, mill file) the end of two 1/2" copper pipe caps.

Trimmed one (with grinder) to ~2mm deep cup. interior of 1/2" cap is PERFECT for 16mm star.

shortened 2nd cap to ~.250" (deep as possible w/ a few .001" to clear the shoulder just above positive end of battery)

arctic epoxied the two flat ends together.

drill holes for leads.

trimmed OD of driver just enough to fit in pipe cap.

aligned cupped end of the cap w/ the screw in piece that formerly held the pill onto the battery and squeezed them together in my vice.

You can see there's a little shoulder inside the bottom of the screw in piece - these two parts just happened to be a nearly perfect fit - I just beveled the end of the 'cup' so that it would start in straight.

I put an xm-lt6 in. It draws 2.3A at the tail from a good cell w/ 4.04V. 0.4A on low.

AWESOME light for my purposes now. Gets warm fast but not too hot, low is low enough. I can generally find all three dogs in the yard w/ the flood and zoomed I can check the adjoining yards.

Note - if you do this mod, and want full focus on zoom, make the cup twice as deep as I did (~3 pcb thicknesses total) - I get a square beam but no emitter lines (I wanted wider flood).

and now the pics

Looks great .

thanks, I like it. except the blue tailcap...but I'll wait until the switch fails to mess w/ that.

I think next time I'l leave the 2 thick rings black.

anyway, quite a performer for $16, imho ($7 light, $7 emitter, $2 pipe caps and a spot o' glue)

Verrrry nice. Love what you did with the knurling.

Love it. I had one of these but a lathe and a moment of idiocy on my part messed that up good!

Though about getting another one but waiting for a month... No!

thanks

haha, yeah I waited a long time

removing the anodizing from the knurling was MUCH easier than w/ the regular kind of knurling (w/ lots more lpi)

this was much flatter and more consistent

it took forever to do the slider though - won't do that again. somehow I screwed up the pic size when cropping.

I'll buy more of these when I catch the price down again. It is really great w/ xm-l. That xre was going to be shortlived stock.

If I had a lathe I'd make a couple cuts to give it another 3 or 4mm of slide travel

the xre, right? did you compare throw and or overall brightness before your mod? i'm very close to getting one, and i think it is probably pretty good stock. i don't have your modding skills anyway, so...

yes, xre-q5

though I have a hard time believing cree let that emitter out of their factory w/ the visible piece of dirt under the dome.

I don't have an integrating sphere...but overall, it has a LOT more output now.

I had used the light a fair amount outdoors and I've gotten used to the look of a few targets at different ranges.

it has much less throw - but still more than enough for how I use it.

the stock tailcap readings were part of the reason I went to xml - 1.7A is a lot, especially w/ sub par heatsinking. In reality, the current to the emitter is probably lower due to tailcap resistance.

I would say my skills could use some improvement lol, I'm still learning a lot, mostly the hard way - but if you don't have the tools, that's another story.

It was a very good light stock, even at the everyday price ($10).

I had considered just taking the stock pill, putting a very small bead of thermal epoxy on the edge that touches the threaded retainer then assembling the light and letting it cure. A light layer of grease on the inside of the body would keep the pill from getting stuck to the body.

but, once I saw how well a pipe cap would fit, I went w/ it...

its pretty high on my list, and it sounds like a good deal at under $10, even with the flaws. enjoy yours!

That looks very sharp in the two-toned (tuxedo?) look - much better than stock, IMO.

Would it be possible to measure the lens, please? I'm interested in what other lenticular options one may have.

tux...hadn't thought of that :)

here ya go

23.4mm overall diameter (bezel has 24.1mm inside diameter)

20.7mm diameter of dome

8mm overall thickness

1.8mm lip thickness

13.5mm back focal length

Thanks very much for the measurements.

no problem - if you find a good substitute, please let us know!

I have about 12 lenses coming from 4 different sources - I hope one of them fits...

it seems like a light with a lot of potential. i especially like the small size.

I just changed the driver to a nanjg 105c, 2.8A H-M-L

so, I've got >$20 into this now, but it is one heck of a light. The zoom is lacking, as would be expected w/ this small dia. lens, but it does roughly triple the distance at which I can satisfactorily illuminate a dog

This is the perfect jacket EDC for me, and a good edc for jeans (too heavy for dress pants). I'd like to find a lens w/ half the focal distance, then when I get/mod another I can add a solid slice of copper (I have a rod that fits inside the 1/2" caps).

I keep checking the 'ultrapire' the ebay seller I got it from but the price is staying at 10. I might get another anyway. I have an r5 on the way and that might be better for this lens, and should work well w/ the stock driver.