New toy

Just got a XP-G R5 5 mode dropin from DX. It is bright!

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.32954

It says it is capable of up to 18V so a long body should give impressive results. For an XP-G it throws pretty well, the XR-E is generally a far better thrower. Suspect sheer output as the reason for this. DX say 320 lumens

Don't have enough extensions to bung 4 IMR 16340s, let alone 4 18650 but that should give interesting brightness and runtime. Length, longer than a 3D mag body (Excluding head)

I suspect past 12V heat will rocket though.

Runtimes on med/low should be impressive.

DX dropin (18650@4.16V)0 11,300 throw at 1m

Lightbox: 1250

With two IMR16340

Throw: 13,900

Lightbox: 1485

Current: (18650@4.16V)

High: 1035mA

Med: 146mA

Low: 47mA

With two IMR 16340

High: 750mA

Med: 154mA

Low: 67mA Throw: 560 Lightbox: 75 (Which is comparable to a Tank007 E07 on NiMH)

On low - which is still pretty bright it should give 3 days on an 18650 or 8 hours on two IMR cells.

For the time being it has been put in the Trustfire T5 body for playing testing purposes.

Hopefully get beamshots once it is dark. Assuming the fog goes away and it doesn't rain.

Well the pill be going into the Seraph clone.

The Trustfire T5 is the Seraph clone. With two IMR 16340's it is bright! - would love to see what it is like with 4. Have an extension tube coming for a Solarforce and if it fits, I can try it. DX say it is good up to 18V. Probably just get very, very hot but we'll see.

Oh okay....thought you were going to mod the Romisen T5 in some way. Cool let us know how that goes.

Say a bunch of Xr-E S or T bins. Would be fun to swap those in. Maybe in a year or two, if Cree is still making XR-E LEDs

The DX five mode is in the Seraph clone which is always on the left. The other dropin is the five mode that came with the Uniquefire L2 (Probably Solarforce L2 clone, identical other than engraving to the Ultrafire WF-504B) which I also got from DX. http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.33549. This time I looked really carefully and checked that it is 4.2V only. Marked the dropin with a Sharpie marker to remind me it is 4.2V only.

Anyway, here's some indoors beamshots as it isn't dark yet.

Ceiling shots - about 2.5m above me.

High

Low

Note the warmer tint of the DX dropin and the much lower low. The left hand one in each of these shots is being run on 2 RCR cells, the right hand one on an 18650 (4.2V max voltage)

About 2-3" from the wall

High

The hexagonal beam from the Seraph clone is due to the head, not the dropin

Medium

Low

PWM was very evident on the L2 dropin in medium and low to the camera, I can see no flicker by eye.

Wow the spot is still impressive on the T5.......love the big spill, would def make a good dog walking light when it gets dark.

Took the dog out to the local park (Actually at for most of the year, it is the local swamp.) as it was getting dark. Between twilight, light rain and light fog, the beam just got eaten up. Actually I could see no difference in dog spotting range when using high, medium or low. The DX dropin fared a little better than the L2 one, but probably just because it's brighter.

I wish I'd taken the WF-504B as well as it seriously throws for a P60 device. I suspect the foul weather would have eaten that beam too and you'd need a high powered incan to do much with the conditions. I thinkI saw an urban fox, but if so it was female - dog foxes you can smell at 200m/yards.

I doubt the beams of either light in those conditions would do better than 50m/yards. Once it's fully dark I'll experiment out the back s long as the rain holds off.

That would be interesting to see......keep us posted bud.

What we call in Scots "smoorin". If the mist holds when it gets fully dark I'll try some of the lights. the incans will score a lot better as they produce a lot of infra-red light and all digital cameras are way more sensitive to IR than our eyes are.

Which gives you a handy way to test all those remotes - the camera on a phone, no matter how crappy, will soon let you know if a remote is working or not, just point it at the camera and watch.

But it looks like someone is trying to create more sea by air drop. Outside looks like a waterfall. Fizzy was in a real hurry to empty herself and get back in to where it's warm and dry.

Over here we have snow and rain coming down.....slushy.

We're due for more snow next week - just enjoying the interval before we get some more. Warm day here by local standards - it hit 7C/44F. At least no wind. Yet. A big chunk of my roof got blown off in October and cost a lot (>$3K) to get sorted.

Well i just cant wait for it to be over with.

We can expect snow here for another month or 6 weeks, after that it is unusual. If it snows in April, national headlines will be made. I have seen roads round here blocked by snow in June, but that is one in a hundred years exceptional.

Once upon a time (1980-82) I worked for the water authority. We used to pray for snow. Rain ends up in the sea here (A raindrop will last for 5 days here before it ends up in the sea/ocean) snow doesn't.

Snow fills reservoirs, rain doesn't.

I could bore you to death with the reasons for this, but I'd die of boredom first.

We've not had good (from a water engineer's perspective) snow in years.

From an ordinary person's perspective we've had far too much.

Well over here they close down the tunnels due to flooding.....makes traffic and trying to get home bad.

Water shortage is not an issue round here - the last time I can remember the reservoirs getting low was about 18 years ago.

And the nearest tunnel that I can think of is 150 miles away. Would be a big detour...

I guess it would man.......hope your enjoying your weekend.

I'm taking one of my customers up north tomorrow - hopefully I'll be able to find some quality darkness on the way home and get some long-range beamshots. Been charging batteries (14 18650's ought to be enough, along with 40AA's and 18D's) Must remember to take a notebook and a pen or I'll never remember which beamshot was which. Just as long as it doesn't rain tomorrow night. And the dog decides to co-operate.

Just got a phone call. The test range I was planning to use has 1.5 metres of snow on it. The access road is more than a mile long and my car would have utterly no chance of getting up there. And there are trees down on the track.

Ah well, it was worth a try. At least just about every battery is fully charged.

Oh well right.....at least you wont be charging a battery for a while....lol.