[Review] 77 Outdoors D25 Headlamp (18650)

I have noticed a few seemingly identical versions of this headlamp, ranging from as little as $10.76 USD on AliExpress, to a whopping $92.99 CND at Lynx OGT.

Other than the battery and headband, is there any difference from all of these versions to justify such a significant price range?

Only difference I’m aware of is the Sofirn D25S where they changed emitters and UI (I think those were the changes, I haven’t owned one).

Damn that Lynx version is expensive. Looks like they have the other generic boruit models too at 10x the price. A few are even sold out!!. Even if they put zebralight level driver, leds from the best bins and improve waterproofing don’t think the price is justified for this host. At $10 though, it’s one of the best bang for buck headlamps out there.

I doubt the driver is any different from one model to the other. Even the green button is the same across all price variations!

Sorry to ask this question again…. but I plan on getting one. Has anyone officially determined if these XM-L2 LED’s are not a real cree? I played with a wowtac a2s then a sofirn sp40 and I was thinking of getting one of those for myself. I then ran into the D25 and thought it would be within 1-2% difference between them, since they all have XM-L2’s. I would actually expect the D25 is better because it has 2 XM-L2’s? I’m not sure I understand.

1. I don’t know if the LED is genuine, considering low price I suspect it’s not.
2. Regardless if that’s the case, performance is not within 1-2%. Let’s assume for a while that the LED is genuine XM-L2…

  • For the same CCT and CRI, the difference between top bin and bottom bin is ~25%
  • Within bin there’s about 7% difference
  • Any CCT differences add variability
  • Driver and optics are not the same, driver has huge effect on performance while optics has quite minor but still way more than 2%
  • D25 has unregulated driver while the other 2 are regulated. This means that D25 output drops as battery deplates which is not the case with the other 2. It may be better at full cell but worse at near-empty

EDIT:
Scratched info that the 2 lights that you’ve seen have regulated drivers as I’ve got notice from RD that this is incorrect w.r.t Sofirn SP40

I see people assume this a lot. Cree lists +–7% which is a potential 14% difference within a single bin. I guess they try to stay within 7, but allow 3.5 extra on each end just to cover themselves.

The bottom line is it’s probably about 7% like you said. Just thought I’d mention it.

I was talking about different 7% and missed this one. :wink:
You’re talking about “Cree maintains a tolerance of ±7% on flux and power measurements”.
I was talking about bin width, f.e. T5 is 260-280 lm (7.7% width) and U3 is 320-340 lm (6.3% width).

So…there’s even more variability than I listed above.

They has XP-Footprint and I think they are no genuine Cree LEDs.
They looks similar to XP-L LEDs.

i’m pretty sure those are LB leds, not cree

The Sofirn SP40 driver is also unregulated. Brightness decreases as the battery runs out.

Strange. It must vary from source to source. Mine had the 5050 (XM-L2) footprint:

Thanks for the correction.

Yes, that is correct… the SP40 is unregulated

I got my first D25 from 77Outdoor on Amazon and they clearly stated in their ad at that time the emitter was Cree-like and confirmed in an email that they were not Cree. Since that time their D25 model has been updated to SST-40 (similar to the Sofirn D25S offering.)

However the D10/D25/D20 based headlamps are apparently offered by many different vendor house brands and the emitters used by each may vary.

There seems to be more consistency with the Sofirn and/or Wowtac headlamps but that’s my assumption.

You are right, I checkt my lights.
The older one, with the driver-pics in this thread has XP-LEDs. This is from Xanes, ordered from Banggood.
The newer from Aliexpress has XM-L2 - Style LEDs, with “LMP” written on the LED.





Yeah, thanks for the info. It really seams that (I guess even for a fake XM-L2?) this D25 headlamp keeps up with the sofirn pretty decent for the first 2 hours (judging by the run time/output graphs)? Am I right? Does having 2 of the LED’s over just the version with 1 actually make it brighter? I was thinking about getting the single LED with the zoom feature, but I want more brightness over zoom.

Never heard of LB.

Really great information from everyone.

I assume that these are still pretty great to have for the price and come close to wow and sofirn, so I have 3 choices; Sanyi D10, Boruit D10 & Sanyi D25

What do you guys thinK :question:

The only advantages of using 2 leds, with a limited amperage driver, is slightly better efficiency and slightly higher output. Let’s say the driver has a 3A limit. A single xml2 running at 3A is let’s say 1000 lumen. The same led running at 1.5A is 600 lumen, not 500. LEDs are more efficient at lower power levels.

So if you have only 3A total, a twin xml2 light can output 1200 lumen (2 leds running at 1.5A each) instead of 1000 lumen. Higher total output and better efficiency.

So 2 leds are better, but there are downsides as well. The special oval shaped mcpcb makes it hard to swap a new led in. If you reuse the oval shape mcpcb you are forced to reflow new leds on it which is harder to do and your limited to 5mm leds.

In my opinion, I’d rather have the D10 with its single led. It’s far easier to swap in a new led and round mcpcb just by soldering 2 wires. I can use whatever 3v led I want. (I chose a very nice tint with good color rendering) It’s also easier to swap in a plastic optic to replace the reflector. I really don’t mind the small loss of efficiency and brightness as I rarely run the battery fully down or use max brightness.

So it’s up to you to decide what’s more important as to which model is best for your needs.

http://www.latticebright.com/En/cpzs/cpzs1.html

For anyone interested just get the Sofirn D25S which they have installed SST-40’s and updated the firmware.

On/Off - Single click
Hold - Stepped levels - Release and hold within 2 sec changes direction
Double click - Strobe, Beacon