Today, Dino Direct fixed and returned my broken Fandyfire X8. Remember that mess? Took them long enough, but lo and behold, the exact same light was sent back, repaired.
I opened it and began to play around, as you'd expect. It started with the light-up-and-tap test, then the shake test, then the brief run-time-have-fun-lighting-up-dark-spaces-in-the-house test. All passed. And it soon became obvious that running on two fresh 18650s, this was one of the brighter XM-Ls by a long-shot. Seemed somehow brighter than I remember it being before it went "kaput" leading to it having to be fixed.
But ole' Joe won't be limited to large-sized lights, and two cells seems too big, so I took the light tube apart and plopped in one protected 18500 TF and...there was light! Not as bright as when using two cells, but the thing still holds its own with my Manafont C8 XM-L, if just a step behind. Nice light...and no heat, none at all. Not even after 38 minutes of constant on. This should be one healthy little XM-L!
The runtime test commenced shortly thereafter. One a fresh cell gave me under an hour of diminishing output, around upper 500-ish or 600 lumens of light.
Output is diminishing, I'm told, because regulation doesn't kick in until above 7 volts. This is getting half that and performing beautifully still. The weight, well, shortened, that is still somewhat of an issue for a cargo pocket, so I can't say for sure if Mr. Little X8 will be an elongated searchlight beast or not, but I was surprised at this more-than-tool-box worthy little champ. Here he is trouncing the Coleman 500 lumen ANSI-rated MC-E (not to be knocked, one the most durable lights I have and reliable for comparing other lights to).
Here's a beamshot when the cell was fresh...
Not bad considering it's only on one cell and below it's operating spec.