I’ve seen many lights in the side by side format, but none that I’ve seen (maybe I’m looking in all the wrong places) have been reviewed to say they are in a series circuit instead of running in parallel.
I haven’t heard of such a light in stock condition myself. The small sun ZY-T08 has been modded to series for MT-G2 by people here, but it’s a bit of work.
New117 is quite pocketable, I swapped the emitter to MT-G2… while still using the original driver. It is modelled after TK35, which is still in production (recent version is upgraded with MT-G2 emitter), pretty classic design, I would say.
I just ordered two of the generic versions with the plan to also convert them to MT-G2 emitters, I have a hunch that is what others are thinking? Yes? No?
If so to me, the real question is how to mod or which driver to install. Obviously if the existing driver can be modified without a lot of work this light can be great.
As far as the TK35, I believe that only the TK35UE with the MT-G2 emitter has the cells in series (since the MT-G2 requires higher voltage). The ordinary XM-L2 equipped TK35 has the cells in parallel.
The clones have always had the cells in series. I assumed the original TK35 had the cells in series as well. (Series makes the most sense because the light can take both 2x18650 and 4xCR123A, vastly different voltages no matter how the carrier was configured. A buck driver would deal with both configurations properly if the cells were in series.)
In fact, I just went and checked selfbuilt’s TK35 review over here and I’d say that those runtime graphs clearly show a light with series cells.
Olight SR51 XM-L2 are now going for less than $50! 2 x 18650 serial side-by-side. Many have agreed that this is one of the current best buy offerings in this type of light. As everyone says, dont let the OP reflector fool you. Its a well driven thrower with a descent flood beam and Olight quality. Do your research and comparisons and read the comments/reviews from experienced enthusiasts who own one to compare to several others. Mine is in the mail, but I know exactly what to expect. :bigsmile:
I could have sworn that someone linked to this style of clone at $20-25 pretty recently. I’m not sure whether it was sold as the New 117, RD 777, Heisenlin W777, or Uniquefire UF-F10.
The Fenix LD50 (1800 lumens) is an awesome flashlight. It isn't serial or parallel as each emitter has its own battery powering it. But both batteries are run off of one switch. You can even remove one battery and the other half of the light keeps working. You can also mix/match in that one side of the light can have a 18650 installed, while the other side can have 2xCR123 installed, and it is 100% safe to operate in that mode!
Massive flood and really good throw in one light.
The 30 sec official Fenix demo that shows the beam