The first XM-L T6 bin flashlights and P60 modules. This is the beginning

Oh my god! 567 lumens on med mode!

How about the heat on MAX after 2 minutes Don???

Imprehesive!!!!!!

Can you measure current draw on HIGH and MED, when time permits? thanks!

That looks really really nice! : ) Now I have to get one, lol!

2600mA High

960mA Medium

90mA low

1100mA strobe

Looking good!

Definitely an XM-L, not something one can take for granted from HK dealers.

But...... 567 lumens maximun? maybe is not driven at full specs? or bad dissipation?

Umm draws 2600mA on MAX.... lets imagine the LED gets 2400mA...........

ummm

About 1A on med mode and only 220 lumens? an xpg-r5 at 1Amp gives 320 lumens

Mode spacing is roughly 100%

40%

and 4%

Not bad spacing though medium might be better a little lower.

The head does get warm - there is a lot of aluminium foil stuffed in with it to make it a tight fit.

But the lumen maintenance over two minutes is extremely impressive - this may be the best maintenance of light on max of anything I have. The reflector seems a bit different from the usual P60 one. I'll do some pictures to explain, I've failed to put it into words.

The LED is not perfectly centred in the reflector as you can see from the picture above.

There are certainly more XM-L lights in my future - I never bought a huge number of XP-G lights - but I can see me replacing most XR-E ones with XM-L's or modding the XR-E lights.

If it'll stop snowing for a while I'll try for some beamshots, I've dug out an M bin MC-E, my brightest P7, an R5 and the XM-L. All have fresh from the charger 18650s in them.

Since the test range is a lot more reflective than usual, I'm going to drop the exposure a lot so the next shots will not be comparable to the usual ones.

You have to take off about 30% from LED figures to what a light puts out the front. This is why I almost always use the L2m body and flat bezel ring so at lest the losses are consistent.

The XM-L does need a lot of current from what I've read - at lower currents an XP-G can beat it from one test I read somewhere.

It isn't close to the claimed output but which one ever was?

The LED certainly isn't getting 3A, probably in the 2200-2500mA range. It might actually be brighter than the MC-E - it certainly is after a minute - remember the errors in these tests could be quite large.

So visually the XML is brighter than your MCE, no matter what the numbers say

Yes - it is also a better colour and no holes in the beam at any range.

Beamshots uploading now. Turned out the R5 I'd grabbed was actually a single-mode R4 so it got left out.

While I wait for the beamshots to upload, here are Lambda's from his Varapower lights with an XM-L in them.

http://flashlightnews.net/forum/index.php?topic=2398.msg30577

Control. It isn't all that dark as the cloud level is about 100m and there is a lot of reflected light pollution.

XM-L High

XM-L Medium

XM-L Low

MC-E High

MC-E Medium

MC-E Low

P7 High

P7 Medium

P7 Low

Great stuff Don!

Now I am excited to get mine!

Those beamshots pretty much put the last nail in the coffin for the P7/MC-E for me...

Thanks for the photos.

-Match

I did never buy a MC-E or P7 and it looks like I don't need one in future. I ordered The XM-L C8 from KD and I hope that one will even perform better than these drop-ins.

It should do - dedicated lights have much more mass for heatsinking than P60 lights. That said, what really impresses me is the very low drop in output over two minutes compared to other high current dropins.

Thanks for the pics. I went and ordered a skyray type XM-L light. It costs 5usd more with the body then the dropin alone. I can't help myself but i like p60 hosts the most. Will probably change the driver to around 1,5A or more depending on what the original body or any other i have can do regarding heat.

KD says backordered.... yuck! probably around january 15 then...

Even though I have ordered a bunch of hosts, drivers and emitters to build my own XM-L light I have a bad feeling that one of the small pieces might not fit (if they all arrive somehow, ordered them from 4 different sources) the combination at all and reordering process starts again.

I don't want to risk my XM-L pleasure with heat issues etc, so didn't think of getting a P60 drop in in the first place.

KD has two already built, non P60 XM-L flashlights 1x18650 C8 body and another one with 2x18650. Anybody ordered one of these two and received? (EDIT: Apparently some of us already have theirs on the way)

I wonder very much how efficient would the drivers on these two be and if it is worth upgrading 1x18650 one with a 8x7135 + MCU driver sold on KD.

_ Must add:

The parts I collected are:

PROJECT1 : a TF1200 body from Lightake + T6 1C Emitter from EBAY or T5 1C from KD + 2x18650 3A 3 Modes Buck Driver from KD + MCE Aluminum Reflector from DX (I guess I'll have some problems with this reflector since it doesn't seem to have springs)

PROJECT2 : a Silver C8 with Q5 on it from KD + T6 1C Emitter from EBAY or T5 1C from KD + 8x7135 + MCU driver from KD

So the output drops considerably because of bad heatsinking? Even with foil trick? (it's not night and day but should help a bit.)

Did i miss th current draw or it was not tested yet?

Yes, it seems to be heat rather than battery voltage droop, at least up to 3A from an 18650. If you take the M bin MC-E in a Solarforce L2m body, it starts at 3240 lux which has dropped to 2720 lux by two minutes, a drop of 16%.

The XM-L dropin starts at 3160 lux and drops to 2990 lux at two minutes, a 5% drop. Both were tested in the same body, heavily wrapped in foil to make the dropin a tight fit that gets forced into place by the head.

It is quite possible they are using the same drivers for both.

The XM-L draws 2600mA on high so it probably isn't getting the full 3A it is rated for.

Lambda has run one (on a large copper heatsink) at 4A for hours on end.

http://flashlightnews.net/forum/index.php?topic=2395.0

There are also some beamshots from it in that same forum.

I got my XM-L drop-in today. Has very well-functioning memory: If the light is off for more than 2 seconds, it will remember the last mode. Modes are H-M-L-Strobe-SOS. The bottom of the driver says "sheng guong" on it. I was reading a draw of 2.2 amps, but I don't trust my ampmeter. Like Don's, the LED is a little off-center. Definitely more light than my XP-G R5 lights, but it isn't dark yet, so we'll have to see. I'll work up a full review this weekend.