Ah, it’s good to see the 50E is now being sold at more places. Other good high capacity 21700 are LG M50 and Samsung 48G (the 50E is designed to replace the 48G).
Thank you for making me feel like part of the group. Flashlight prices are out of control. Back in 2011, you could pay $334 to Amazon and have a pristine Olight SR90 in top quality casing delivered to your door guaranteed. The thing was 2200 lumens and most importantly over 100k cd throw, with long sustained runtime because of the 8 X 18650.
Sofirn is the only cutting edge LED torch technology that I can afford. I don’t think I could pay more than $300 and change for the biggest and baddest but that is what they are nowadays $500+. Plus they are not sold on Amazon, but Sofirn is sold on Amazon. God bless Sofirn. Thank God for BLF.
I would say flashlight prices are falling left and right. New leds and new batteries are giving better performance for a fraction of the price compared to a few years ago.
The BLF GT is 1800 lumen and 1,200,000 cd throw and sold for either $120 or $160 depending on the group buy.
The GT70 is like 7500 lumen and about 600kcd and $220. Both are 8 x 18650.
That’s a nice thought Jason, brace yourself for the new wave of technology and it’s inflated price margin… 
If it’s worth it, people will buy it. If not, it will sit in a warehouse.
Give me an example of what your talking about. Do you mean the laser excited phosphor mini throwers or something else?
Thanks for bringing the BLF GT70 to my attention. I may take a risk and try it out, based on the numbers on paper and design. In the meantime, I will keep using my Sofirn C8F 21700.
Here is another light from Sofirn you may be it interested in, the SP70. Check the pictures on the last page for the latest info. Hopefully it will be available soon. It is like a smaller version of the GT70 and will be very affordable.
Yes I am interested. +1 :+1:
I finally recieved my 21700 C8F. The shipping took a lot longer than normal.
Driver and switch pics plus performance data is all here.
I notice the brightness climb as well.
I’ll have to compare the top of ramp with the dbl click.
I get the same output for both.
I tested the low voltage indicator and protection of the C8F 21700.
The side switch lights for 5seconds when turn on the light or made any press like mode switching.
It glows green when battery is above 3,4V.
It blinks red when battery is from 3,1V to 3,4V.
It blinks red fast when battery is under 3,1V.
The light shuts off at 2,6V.
The indicator also start to glow when battery draining to another indication level.
Repetitively I get a bit different results, but the difference is not big and it’s about 3%
Thanks for testing.
So there is no orange, just green and red, right?
Once the battery is below 3.4v the battery indicator stays blinking beyond 5 seconds, right?
This seems like a pretty nice design.
If it under 3,4v it blinks red for 5 sec without any action needed. And again turn off the switch indicator until switch pressed.
I got my light today. Brightness climb is totally out of control on mine.
Starts out at about 1000lm, then climbs to 1634 over the period of about a minute. Highest reading I could get.
Added 18 gauge leads from the driver to the mcpcb, and swapped the mosfet for an SIR800…
3,904 at startup with the sofirn battery.
Yeah mine too, specially when you can visually see it. Does it still do the gradual climb in output now after you swapped the FET??
Sofirn battery is a very decent cell, prolly a IJOY? Well they match my abused IJOY’s anyways…
It climbs a little, but not the minutes it did before. Gets warm now too.
Double click it’s very apparent. Exactly like hid car headlights. Ramped to the top it wasn’t really noticeable before, but the meter just kept increasing. Like the was reading temp or something.
Battery is back on the charger. I’ll check it over time in the current configuration to see if it’s still climbing.
Got another of the same light inbound on the slow boat. It’ll be nice to compare the two. I grabbed this current light from Amazon. Way to go if you’re in the US. Three days.
Wow, your low output and slow climb is really strange.
Mine climbs up over maybe 2 or 3 seconds and hits 2600 lumen.
Did you measure the tail cap amp draw after the upgrades?
The last time I talked to Sofirn they said their tests showed about 3500 lumen.
I wonder if they are testing production lights or prototypes? Maybe they got some low quality FETs that’s really reducing output. It doesn’t seem likely the led wires are causing such a huge difference in output.
Anyway, it’s nice to see the stock driver (modded) can put out big numbers. You retain the battery indicator function.
Tested it after the fet and wire upgrade. Battery fresh of the charger.
|0 seconds|3920|
|15 seconds|3740|
|30 seconds|3600|
|45 seconds|3520|
|60 seconds|3480|
12.4a at start on turbo.
Climb seems to be completely resolved.
Ill check the next one too.