Review: First (?) Budget LED work light with XM-L

yes, definitely small, which should make it versatile.

i was surprised to see that’s an aluminum housing (looked plastic at first). If the led is mounted to that you’re golden!

Still waiting for these to appear…
Too bad, I cannot find any driver that accepts 12V or more and has 2 modes. :expressionless:

There is a non-budget source, buy a Solarforce high voltage drop in and rip the driver out.

problem:
the drive current is probably a bit low, but maybe you’re able to add some 7135 for a bit more ‘oomph’.

They seem to be 1-mode only… Salvaging driver from some dropin / flashlight is not a bad idea IMO.

The “park” light feature would be nice in these, thus the need for 2- modes. 3-modes would also be bearable.

Look interesting, did you order “pencil” beam or flood beam :D?

I took the flood beam.

Arrived today o/
It was easy to open (most of these cannot be opened at all…).
Real XM-L led inside!!! LED was directly bonded to PCB, which was screwed down with paste to solid aluminum cast. Looks pretty promising!

TIR optics were secured with 2 o-rings or different sizes.
PCB is not familiar to me, it looks like it is about 25-30mm in diameter, lots of components on it. Resistors also, so resistor-mod may come to question :wink:

Draw test gave me a result of 0.81A at car battery with charge of 12.78V (full).
This gives about 10.35W of power consumption. I believe the LED is pretty nicely driven.

Beam looks good with a semi-wide spot and very smooth transition to wide flood.

Pics to follow in the evening. I´m very satisfied with this, it is small as heck! :slight_smile:

Sounds promising! Looking forward to beamshots!

-Garry

Did I mention these have small “rails” on sides so that they can be stacked into packs? :wink:

They look really good! Would make awesome backup lights on a truck or SUV. Wish they had these back when I had a Trooper and went 4 wheeling a lot.

Will be, BTW pretty difficult…
Leads are short, only powersource 12V I have is a car battery.
Maybe, if my wife is helping holding leads and I take a pic but I suck in beamshots…

Nice. I’d love to see some real pics!

Small size, leads are pretty short. Tool included ;)

A8 for reference.

"clip" installed to small rail. Tool in place, connector, cooling fins:

Only the "bezel" removed, two clear O-rings. Glass is basic, no AR. Thicker than in flashlights:

Glass and inner O-ring remover. As you can notice, TIR is not perfectly centered in opening of the cast. On the other hand, TIR sits perfectly

on top of LED and is centered to it. In this case, I would say the "play" around the TIR is a Pro:

TIR is a tad under 36mm in diameter:

I have pretty much zero expertise on optics but it looks clean, clear, uniform in every way, no scratches or burrs:

Ahh, finally to the inner stuff...

LED seems to be a counterfeit after all, anyone herd of L-MX?

Board is clean and nice, no idea what driver this is... Anyone?

Possibly no components below but cannot be sure. Will probably be near impossible to remove, since it seems to be heatsinked with thermal clue / Fujik.

Screws are protected from making a short.

LED has a really small fragment of dirt or a mark in dome - as about 90% of ALL my budget lights with XM-L.

Needless to say, in this use it is totally irrelevant.

Another angle. Fujik crearly seen here so hopefully it will sink the heat.

It will produce some, 0.81A at 12.78V needs cooling...:

Notice how small resistors hardly fit there around the insulator of the screw:

Worklight, TIR, A8:

Just one more with Eneloop to give some reference:

Nice photos! Thanks!

If only they were a wee bit cheaper.

-Garry

Well, this was 1USD cheaper than these:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/110985792915

Far bulkier, came in generic brown box, single bubblewrap.

These small ones come in nice dedicated printed box with molded foam inside.
It says to be 27W in the link but the true intake wattage was just 17W :party:
That combined with more bluish, and even more floodish beam, thinking also that generic leds may or may not have a good efficacy - I would take the smaller one for the price (received 1 of both today).

Resistor R3 is the one to change, currently 0.075 Ohm (R075). Since it appears to be driven well already this may not be needed.
If it’s at 2.8-3A now (200-220 mV) , then getting to 4A requires 0.05 to 0.055 Ohm. Add a 0.2 Ohm on top of the 0.075 to get 0.055 Ohm.
based on the heatsinking that’s visible, 4A might be safe, if the PCB uses a lot of vias under the LED.
Wait is that an MCPCB? If so, then 4A should be a breeze.

Relic: thanks for the tip!

I opened the other one and I think it is an MCPCB (does it mean it is metal core PCB?).
Plate is a couple of millimeters thick, thicker than most basic LED stars.

Would you say that this is a decent light to flood a 30*10 foot area? I'm thinking it might be, but not sure if it has enough overall output.

Yup, Metal Core Printed Circuit Board. If the MCPCB is mounted directly onto the aluminum enclosure heat should not be an issue, even with a mod.

Thanks for detailing it with pictures. Looking forward toward it.

Naaice! Beamshots plz. :smiley: