sacrilege! xm-l is great but we need an emitter w/ lower angle, higher surface brightness than can be pushed to ~3A (and benefit from it)!
Damn it! I missed it! Oh well...I wasn't keen on the titanium finish on this one (prefer this one in black) but sure was a nice price. Can't wait to see how it turns out for those that grabbed one. :)
There are so many lights I want at Int-outdoors. About a dozen, in fact. A $1,000 gift card ought to do it.
I've been pretty good so, if anyone here happens to be my rich uncle, now would be the time to "come out."
buyfoyeverythinghewantsFoy
Missed it ...
mine just arrived. I'm waiting on 3 or 4 orders placed well before I ordered this. it does have china post tag on it and I had to sign for it.
first impression - came in decent cardboard box marked d1, dry threads, weird burr in lanyard hole, silver color isn't bad but would look much better matte, draws 1.65A at tailcap on high from 2 old tired 18650s (recovered from laptop batteries).
lenses haven't arrived.
hole for driver is 22mm
stock lens is a hair under 56mm
sanded down DX 59mm aspheric to fit. plenty of rim left on it - the 66mm lens may fit w/o removing any of bulge (edit, later found it does not even come close).
focal length of 59mm is roughly 10mm longer than where it sits when bezel is screwed all the way down, but it is fairly focused (you can see emitter shape but its blurry). Unfortunately it reduces lux by ~25%...
color is fairly cool white w/ light purple fringe on hotspot, not bad, to my eye, at all...
edit: med and low are significantly more purple. I doubt i'll use any mode but Hi, but if I find that I do I'll probably swap emitter.
dthrckt how good is the anodizing compared to your other lights?
the best anodizing I own is on xtar d06 - this is no where near that. Not as hard as Xeno (although I have scratched red e03 to bare aluminum in a few spots) but it might actually be thicker.
I'd say on par w/ other budget type xxxfire but I think it would be slightly better than average if they had put a smoother finish on the metal first.
It seems like it was medium grit blasted before anodizing, and i think the added texture makes it easier to mar the finish - ie I can put a mark on it by scraping w/ the point of a utility knife (that does nothing to xtar) but it doesn't get to bare aluminum - you would have to apply firm pressure to do that.
I guess trying that on both shows lights how much I care about keeping a shelf queen vs using my gear 
I'm quite satisfied for $30, and I haven't even gotten to try it at night yet.
I'm out of thermal grease but once that's added and I run it on some better cells I'll decide whether or not to mod. I'm betting others will get higher tailcap readings (my cells are terrible).
It might be worthy of a U2 bin, and some fatter leads (although they're thicker than any others I have).
I have no use for blinky modes, especially in a thrower, but I won't change that unless I find a replacement that is as powerful and fits w/o too much trouble (DX SSt-50 driver is on its way but is bigger and has blinky).
i'll review it (and about 5 other new lights) once I've sorted a replacement for my dunked camera...
it is finally almost dark here
dthrckt can you post a pic off the driver and pic of the reflector, can you compare the size with other reflector please like this.
Left Skyray A0 and Trustfire X9 right
It's driven ok, unless if your cells are super terrible. Other good cells would be getting like 1.4A thereabouts or maybe even lower. The higher the resistance the more current the driver would draw, coz the less voltage is supplied (or rather more voltage sagged), the driver tries to maintain overall Power. It does this till the cell no longer can provide any more current.
topped off my two best cells, 4.23V, both have about 1500 mah (1A discharge to 3.0V)
previous two were 3.8V and only have about 1100mah capacity
now I get 1.88A
it is misting/raining/foggy here so I can't get a good idea how far it is throwing but it sure does have a night visible beam in this weather!
I get 70k lux at one meter. If somebody can tell me what my warm white xeno should show at 1m we'll have an idea how accurate that is...
my xtar d06 (xml) at 2.6A is 27k
I'll post lots of pictures up when I get a new camera. In the meantime, I'll measure the reflector for you - once I've picked up some canned air. I'm out of it, and in a house w/ three dogs you can't avoid getting stuff on the reflector when you take it apart...
How big is the head diameter? Is it 58mm or 63mm?
I have a warm white Xeno E03, but a lot depends on the cells and i am getting about 1.9A with fully charged TF Flames 14500. Nevertheless i will measure for you (8 hours later), but your measurement distance for this thrower flashlight should be at least 6-7 metres.
XTAR d06 @ 27k, and this one at 70k, i can say for sure it is over reading.
OD of head is 60.5mm, the diameter of the reflective surface is 50mm
I was pretty shocked by that reading.
At almost exactly 20 feet I get 710 for D06 and 1800 for the Trustfire D1.
My WW xeno hit 84 lux at the same distance but I couldn't repeat that...it is 75 if it has warmed up at all. My multimeter shows 2.0A from trustfire gray. I have 6 of them and each gives a different reading so I can pick whatever one is closest to what you measure and try it again.
Watching the ammeter is like watching the seconds on a digital watch, except its counting down .01a
at 1 meter the xeno reads 2388 peak lux
Ok thanks...will try to verify my WW E03. 2.0A drive is ok....no need to be too accurate, but of course 1.2A is not ok. hehe...
20ft is fine esp for the E03, no worries. 1m is not. :)
Anyway it should be over-reading. A TK35 with 52mm head gives about 23k or so usually and that one is more or less gunned to the max. Your Xtar D06 is 44mm head and 2.6A.
it will work w/o adding grease...but I wouldn't do any sustained runs until I got some grease and applied it
of course, that's how I handle a little budget light that only draws 0.8A too;)
DX has lots of different kinds of grease and at cheap prices (at least as far as weight/volume goes).
everyone seems to like fujik - or at least I haven't read complaints - but I can't say I've done any real testing. I've mostly used arctic silver ceramique because it is available (at a ridiculously high price) locally. It is thick stuff compared to grease. I'll probably continue to use that under stars but just silicone grease on threads.
edit: btw, the star has plenty of something (probably thermal glue not grease) under it...actually, it looks like too much
Bro, i get 54 lux at 20 ft for WW E03. 1.89A at the tail. If i apply this correction factor to the DX light, yeah it is correct. My meter under reads by about 10%.
so, mine over reads by ~20%?! yikes
so basically you're saying the light performs as expected for amperage and reflector size?
btw, thanks
Mine was sent on December 14th, so 14 days ago. It can take up to two more weeks, I want to receive it now! xD
So, if driver's hole is 22mm, the driver for the SST-50 doesn't fit correctly, but maybe it can be adapted... we'll see then, I'm waiting for both items.
How does it compare with the Sky Ray STL-V2? which has higher lux readings?
sorry, don't have one. this is the only light i have in this style/class.
I think you'll be able to use a wider driver - the pill screws into the head but the collar that joins tail and head has space around the pill (so driver could be wider than pill if the circuit still fits in the pill's hole).
A 1" copper coupling will fit over the pill and inside the collar. It isn't a tight fit to either but it will be once I get some copper sheet or foil :)
here's a teaser for you
imho, this light is very well designed - except the lack of a side switch...