Zebralight SC64c LE w/High CRI Nichia 219B R9080 $150

Keep up the good work, Bob! :+1:

How many of these have you modded now? Any catastrophic fails along the way?

I use mine every day and am still wowed by the tint.

I was already a fan of Zebralights and 219B sw45k emitters, so this light is definitely in my top three favorites.

If anyone is on the fence about getting one of these, do it!

I’ve done…. maybe 30? A couple dozen for customers, but also a handful of my own personal lights. I have one completely dead light and one that misbehaves, but my success rate has generally been quite high. I’m also using a much more gentle reflow method I’m really happy with now. No takers on the dedomed LH351D yet, but I rather like the one I built for myself. A significant improvement on the regular LE since the tint is awesome on every level, not just turbo. I also recently built a 219B Zebralight H53 which is a neat little light. 165 lumens with an sw45k 219B.

Sometimes it doesn’t quite go as planned. This component was ripped off the bottom of the board because it was encased in excess adhesive used to hold the positive lead in place. Possibly repairable if I’m willing to put hours of effort into it and carefully reflow the entire board on both sides, but obviously not saleable anymore. There’s absolutely no way to avoid this kind of loss.

In more positive news, I shipped some lights today, and more will follow over the next day or two :slight_smile:

Heading to the post office to drop off three lights. If all goes as planned, three more tomorrow! You should receive a shipping notice from PayPal if yours was shipped, but please let me know if it’s missing a tracking number it should have.

Can’t wait for my tracking notification!
Thanks for your hard work :+1:

Can you please send me tracking? My PayPal notification did not have it.

Thank you

I had a family emergency this afternoon and won’t be able to deal with any modding stuff for several days. Please rest assured any outstanding orders are essentially ready to ship, I’ve just been taking some time to understand an issue I was having. I should still be able to reply to PMs if anyone has any concerns.

Mr. Bob_McBob:

So sorry about the family emergency. Hope all works out OK.


Just received my Zebralight mod after it walked through Canada. I just wanted to tell you publicly what a wonderful job you did on a light I’ve always wanted - simply beautiful.

Big thank you for your efforts, expertise, and the kindness you’re showing your fellow flashaholics.


And for anybody on the fence: This is just what you wanted it to be. Looks and acts like factory, and subjectively much brighter than expected. This is a great, professional service he’s offering.

He even includes some perfectly-cut d-c fix, which was appreciated as I often use my EDC for a photo-fill light, but didn’t want to commit to a floody. This emitter produces great skin tones - just a richer, I don’t really want to say pink, mostly more accurate and warmer tone, and if you need to, you can correct it down a little and achieve truly superior results. It’s certainly not magenta-ish like an older digital SLR, just richer. Mine was a 45sk.


Thank you again! And good luck with your family.

x2
my heart goes out to the McBob family

and major respect to Bob for breaking the Nichia Barrier on Zebras, and offering my favorite LEDs

Just received my modded zebralight. I went for 4500k with frosted glass. I have to say it’s the best beam I’ve ever seen out of a zebralight( own 15+ ). This will be my new edc. Would you consider modding an 18650 powered zebralight headlight with a nichia?

Hope everything works out ok for you and your family.

Paypal ship notice received . Thanks Chris . Hope the family stuff is going well .

Got my light as well. Wonderful job, Bob_McBob! The 219b is a funny emitter. Unlike the 219c or SST-20 it always looks good, no matter whether it’s on the BBL or significantly below. The sw35 in mine is quite perfect.

Output on H1 at ~30sec: 434 lumens.

Thank you for the kind words here and via PM. It has been a rough couple weeks, but nobody died or anything that serious, and things are looking up a little.

I’m pleased to say all outstanding BLF orders are now shipped. As usual, if you selected a tracked method, I don’t have any idea whether PayPal actually sent you the tracking number, because that’s how they roll. I will go through my records tonight and send tracking numbers where appropriate just in case.

Good to hear things are looking up for you Bob!

+1 regarding would love to purchase a 219b ZL headlamp! :+1:

I would love to be able to offer a Nichia Zebralight headlamp, but the only model with the correct pads and driver voltage is the H53. I built one of these to test, but it’s limited to about 165 turn-on lumens with the floody version. I personally find it a somewhat unsatisfactory mod to actually work on compared to the SC64c because you have to smash the glass, which does some (non-functional) damage to the exposed edge of the reflector and also requires using one of my limited stock of replacement lenses. Unfortunately with the 18650 models, the only possible emitter swaps are either a different XHP35 or XHP50, and the high CRI XHP50 models are good enough there isn’t anything better available to swap in.

This all comes down to the integrated driver Zebralight has been using since about 2011. The LED pads are on the driver itself, so you have to use an LED that fits the pads and has the correct voltage. Zebralight used XM-L2 in almost everything before switching to XHP, both of which have few worthwhile emitter swap options. The SC64c and the other XP-L2 models only exist because of the quirky requirement Zebralight used to have for tint binning with the high CRI models. The XP-L2 EasyWhite is guaranteed to be extremely green at 4000K, but it was the only option that met their tint binning requirement. It’s literally the only reason 3V Zebralight models with standard XP pads exist. The SC64c and the various AA models are the only ones that support the 219B, LH351D, SST-20, etc. Since Zebralight follows spec sheets religiously, we even got lucky with the SC64c being limited to 3A, which is right on the upper end of somewhat acceptable for the 219B with the excellent thermal management.

On the plus side, Zebralight came to their senses and changed the SC64c to LH351D after I posted my original Zebralight mod. It’s still a bit green on the low settings, but much better than the XP-L2 EasyWhite at any level. But, not an R9080 219B of course.

Thanks for the explanation Bob. You are doing great work.

Headlamps are my go to for work. Just dreaming of one that had such a nice emitter as the 219b.

Do you know of a high quality headlamp that would work w the 219b? If so, maybe you can PM me and we can work out the details to purchase this mod. :wink:

E21A would be nice if possible now…

I received my sw45 last night and its everything I hoped it would be-really fantastic! Big thanks to Bob_McBob for this excellent service! I hope anyone who is on the fence, jumps on this great opportunity before its too late :slight_smile:

Basically the ultimate EDC light for us snobs. :slight_smile:

Hey Bob, hope you are doing well.

Are you able to do a triple Nichia with optics.