There are so many different variations of the SK68. I have ones with the following:
Original Sipik SK68 - Cree XRE led, single mode, solid pill, 18mm lens, metal C-ring instead of an o-ring under the sliding bezel giving the bezel action a grindy feeling that’s not at all smooth.
generic - with 3 modes XPE, o-ring under the sliding bezel instead of a metal c-ring for much smoother action.
generic - with 1 mode XPE, o-ring under the sliding bezel
generic - generic with XPE and 20mm lens (all the others have 18mm lens), o-ring under the sliding bezel.
UltraOK - solid shelf, interior of battery compartment is wider and can accomodate a larger cell, o-ring under the sliding bezel.
Thanks for the report on the performance of that one. A B158 is on my shortlist of upcoming purchases, and I’m always afraid of getting a clone with a under-performing lens.
I’m curious if the HT11 performs equivalently to the B158 in terms of throw. If so, that’d be a better investment IMO having the interchangeable heads. It looks like the HT line might share pills with the B158 as well, which would be a nice bonus.
I really like that (at least in their pictures) they don’t have any markings/laser etchings on them. Really a pet peeve of mine with otherwise nice lights.
I’m going to write to them and see if I can get a ‘BLF’ package including an extra pill or two and all the heads. I doubt it’ll save me any $$ though over just getting each full light. We’ll see…
I have a 17mm FET+1 driver installed with my Anduril version, and working on mounting the flat white W1 LED on a 28 mm MCPCB, and adding a copper heatsink under the shelf. I'm hoping to kill off some voltage/amps by using thin long LED wires. Already replaced the driver side brass button with a spring, and it's got a big amp killing tail spring already.
Decided to go with a W1 instead of an SBT90.2 because the LED wires have to be very long for this light, and thermally, it's a typically poorly designed zoomie for heat mgt. Also the lens turns out to be about the same width as a UniqueFire 1504, and I already have a SBT90.2 in a 1504.
Using a FET+1 because I want to get as close to 6 amps as possible and don't have any other choice to run Anduril on to get 6 amps out of a 17 mm driver, least I'm aware of. (?)
Oh, with Anduril, I got the side blue and green LED's wired up, actually to 2 different input pins so in theory, they can be used/controlled separately. Right now stock Anduril doesn't take advantage of that though. Think the support was in the FireFlies config files.
I have one of those. It was sold as a Nebo Redline.
It looks quite nicely built with a side electronic switch, built-in USB support, and a tailcap magnet.
Unfortunately, the feeling that this might be a good light only lasted until I turned it on.
The output is cool white and quite dim. I’m not sure what the LED is, but if it’s like previous Nebo Redline entries, it is not using a CREE, or even a CREE clone. The LED’s output seems like something I would expect in an 5 or 8 year old light. It’s dim. My guess is 100 lumens max output.
I also worry about durability… the red line between the bezel and the head is a trademark of the Nebo Redline series lights. It is made of translucent red plastic and glows brightly when the light is on. But this also seems to be a major point of weakness. Most similar zoomies have a metal bezel that screws into a metal head. But in the Redline, that thin red plastic is all that’s holding the bezel and lens on. There is no metal-to-metal contact in the head. I worry that if I drop the light bezel down onto a hard surface, the red plastic might crack and possibly destroy the head.
The light makes no attempt to be waterproof or even water resistant. The USB socket under the zoom bezel is not sealed in any way.
The UI is high-low-off, with double-click for strobe. You have to cycle modes to turn the light off.
The entire light is also quite long. It is longer than some 18650 lights even though it uses a 14500.
NOTE: I have not tried opening this light to test modding potential, but I did try modding a smaller Nebo Redline that used a CR123 cell. that previous Redline proved an unsuitable host for modding. It had barely any superstructure around the LED and insufficient mass to run an LED at full power with a 16340.
Although it has a Fresnel lens, Brinyte has the T28 Artemis that is a 21700 zoomie.
Then lens is different, though and it has 3 different leds inside (in an oscillating platform to alternate between White, Red and Green).