Yes it works with unprotected 26550 king Kong's, unprotected 18650 panisonic NCR18650A's with the single 18650 spacer from my TR-J12, plus all my other 18650's, flat tops are no problem.
The tail cap has a spring loaded brass plunger, on the driver side there is a brass positive button that sticks up and out so there is plenty of contact with protected, unprotected and flat top cell's. If you look at the top right of the 4th picture down and the last picture you can just see what i mean.
I don't know if this helps or not. But, on Ebay, I saw a light I wanted, and they only had it listed with battery. I sent a message and asked could I get the light minus battery and charger. They replied with a price, I agreed, paid and got the light!!
OK with the driver's white nylon screw in cover ? removed, the driver is 16.65mm in diameter, there is a brass button that sits on top of the spring, held in by the white nylon screw in cover ?.
There is a recess of 1.43mm on the bottom side of the white nylon screw in cover ? giving 1.43mm of room from the spring side of the driver to the top of the white nylon screw in cover ? where the lip of the brass button sits.
The white nylon screw in cover ? is 3.51mm thick, the hole for the button that sits on the spring is 4.9 mm wide.
Reason's for these measurements is Ive ordered a KD 8x7135 V2 LED Driver 3040mA 17mm I'm planing of doing a driver swap as i really like this light but dislike the disco modes.
I'm thinking there is two ways to do this one is with this train of thought, the KD V2 driver is 4.8mm thick, the board is 1.2 mm thick, so i will have 2 mm approx sticking up from the base of the driver on the spring side, but i believe i can hide 1.40 mm of this under the white nylon screw in cover ?. Then i would use my dremal to make the spring hole bigger on the white nylon screw in cover ?.
Or I could leave out the white nylon screw in cover ? and use it as is and save around 1.5 mm of hight from not using the white nylon screw in cover ? but i worry since the driver is 16.65 mm wide and the KD V2 might need a bit of sanding to fit, the last 105c driver i used needed a bit of sanding to fit.
I will have to buy a new soldering iron tip so i can solder vertical, but i believe the driver swap will not be to hard to swap and will fit, worth the effort for a 2 or 3 mode light with a decent driver with no s.o.s or strobe modes.
Now i just have to wait for 2 months for KD to ship the driver
I like the idea of covering the 7135 chips... I dont know why but those always looked kind of out of place on the battery side of the board. I would try and attach the plastic cover over the new driver, but leave out the brass plug thing.
I will most likely leave out the plastic cover as most modders and torch makers don't use any with similar drivers, and i would not be able to use the brass plug thing as i would have to make the hole wider, but i will try both ways and see what works.
The price is not bad really in the kit you get a really good protected 4500 mAh 26650 cell (see my link in the first post with the battery test) its worth $13.33 usd.
The charger is good as in it will charge at 1.5 amps the highest amp 26650 charger Ive seen so far so its faster then most others, it is worth $10.94 usd (see my link in the first post with the charger review)
Plus you get a holster and a gift box, thats got to be worth a couple of $.
Most other similar 26650 lights cost from $35 to $50 usd and you get no battery, no charger, no holster and no gift box, even though its free shipping i like the idea the gift box cost the seller more to ship then just a light.
To me if you break the cost down for each item it is not a bad deal at all, the light to me alone is worth $44 usd and i like the look of it.
I have a hobby charger, so i don't need the charger, it could come in handy when my hobby charger is busy charging some thing else, but i will most likely use the charger and the gift box the A8 came in to make up a nice gift set for some one with a good cheap 26650 light like the POPPas W-878 XM-L T6 Flood-To-Throw it will make some one really happy
lol I was looking around the net earlier for the same thing. Actually I was also trying to see if any other brand (UF, FF, etc) released the same flashlight under maybe a different name, but nothing...
Since its winter here and wood burning season, i have been using this light a lot and I'm liking it even more, my wife also has been using it a fair bit for hanging out washing after the little one is in bed on nights with good weather.
Plus me beeing a smoker a oftern take it out the back at nite just to play around with. I'm looking forward to the strobless driver getting here.
Please don't pay to much attention to my current draw tests is seams on other reviews and my reading's compared to others i getting was lower results.
I just ordered an HD2010, but I am also eyeing up this one, as it is smaller/more compact but still a 26650. I wonder how this one would compare to the C-mini, maybe someone will do a comparison in the future?