[Review] Sofirn SD05 Diving 21700 Flashlight

To add to the confusion of this timed step down and the difference (lumens) in up / down switching to medium, Sofirn has a newer version without the timed step-down. And is advertised as 3000 lumens.

I presume they changed to the XHP50.2 - 3 volt variant and are using their SP33v3 driver adapted to the magnetic switch.

I asked to have the 5000ºK emitter. Read somewhere they can cater to special requests. Waiting for an answer…

edit (18:03): Sofirn Web Store

Thanks for your input, I’ll have to ask Sofirn on my next order

Decided to investigate this further, I have an earlier batch Sofirn SD05, I notice its brightest level is a bit less bright than the later version, however the early version SD05 has NoPWM on all modes (Low-Med-High), whereas the later batch Sofirn SD05 has fast PWM (detected by shining the light through a small portable fan blades).

Which seems to indicate that the early SD05 appears to use a similar boost driver as the early SP33v2 “2500” lumens version.
(also checked that the early SD05 “Medium” mode stays the same whether it was switched from Low-to-Medium or from High-to-Medium)

The later SD05 which has the different “Medium” mode (“Low-to-Medium” or Off-to-Medium is the regular Medium) [Off -to-Medium means the control ring set to Medium when battery inserted), has fast PWM on all levels. And the High mode is brighter (consumes more power).

The old SD05 (which likely uses XHP50.2 6-volt LED) seems to consume up to around 6 Amps max by measuring tailcap current.
whereas the new SD05 (likely uses XHP50.2 3-volt LED) consumes around 8-9 Amps max tailcap current.

Lan Lee gave me this link SD05 5000ºK w/out timed stepdown.

You did confirm what I suspected. The newer model is DD w/fet and has its downsides. But not having this timed throttling is a net gain.

I ordered last night - it’ll take some 8 to 12 weeks to get here. I have orders backed up since March.

One another note, Hank4U2 hank posted a discounted SD03 on AE link. $12 US.

Funtastic is looking into some 50 units, but I saw 60 down to 52 w/in a couple of hours.

Yeah I might not be able to get that many as Sofirn is offline. I’ll grab whatever is left.

@ Funtastic:

Should be more considerate. The idea is that if many people are interested in a 5000ºK version, they would make readily available.

Deobfuscation: I’m not Hank4U2 and I’m not Hank Wang and I’m not the other hank-plus-a-number.
I did post the pointer to the sale on the SD03. Hope y’all got a chance before the reseller sucked them all away.

@ hank:

So sorry. My bad! Corrected the OP.

Disclaimer: I’m not a prolific diver, I did about 200 dives, almost all in warm water (Caribbean like), few NJ shore and some quarry in PA.

I think considering a price this is a best recreational (take on the trip to warm place and dive) diving light available right now.
Timer sucks but it is not a show stopper, medium is enough for night dive, you don’t need to blind everyone and fish (on recreational dives you are in group 3-7 people - guide/dive master and 1 - 3 pairs), if you want to take a picture you still need flood light and here high CRI is nice.
High is nice for day dive when you look into holes checking if somebody hides there but then 3min timer is not an issue.

Another thing, for some time I was wondering about this thing fluoro diving, when you look for stuff that illuminates under blue/UV light. Blue is better, UV harms marine life and blue is causing better response, negative is that you see blue and you want yellow filter to get it out.
Anyway, I have Ferei W150 that I modded and put Royal Blue Cree XT-E in it. It is blue but it is not very strong.

I got 3 SD05s and I thought, lets put a blue LED in one.
Right, easy to say…
It is 6V LED, where do I get 6V blue LED, then….

it was like “wait a minute it already has a blue LED in it, it just has a phosphor on it”
So, I took some small pliers and removed dome from the LED, it wasnt gentle :slight_smile: and it already removed most of the phosphor from LED, I scraped a rest carefully using wooden splinter and now it is a blue light!!
It seems little less blue then Royal Blue but I think this is actually good.

LED Before

LED after

Close on low

Back in light with reflector

Next to Ferei W150 (guess which one is it :slight_smile: )

In real there are no violet rings visible just blue, smooth transition from spot to spill.

That’s some resourceful thinking there, arek98! :beer:

Hey, talk about modding a light!

Unfortunately arek98, your links to pics come up 404.

Should be fixed now
Also I hopefully will try it underwater in September. With current situation no way to go on the trip right now. Can’t wait, hope to see something nice :slight_smile:

I’m an authorized distributor mate.

I just tested mine and at 45°C it starts stepping down. That’s lower than the previous driver. The manual says 55 but it tests to be 45. That’s disappointing

Sofirn made a version without stepdown timer
https://sofirnlight.com/sd05-diving-flashlight-5000k-new-version-without-3-min-stepdown-p0116.html
https://sofirnlight.com/sd05-diving-flashlight-3000lm-p0016.html

Great! I’m glad to see Sofirn / Wurkkos finally removing timed stepped down and letting their “ATR” spread it’s wings.

Tempted by the removal of 3min. timer I’ve ordered one directly from the Sofirn site.

I took it for some diving the very first day and I must say I was pleasantly surprised: it easily outperformed my old HiMax H7 clone.
I’ve tested it up to 30m(~100ft), it was working without any problems (no photos this time though).

While being a really nice (maybe a little to small for me) light, it has one serious flaw (at least for me): 6000K LED.
I know it’s mostly matter of ones preference so I won’t hesitate to say: I hate cold LEDs.

So next step looked quite obvious: let’s disassemble the light, replace the emitter with 3000K XHP50.2 and be happy ever after.
Unfortunately Sofirn has made some some further changes along with the step-down timer removal.

1. Disassembly

I must say this was second most difficult screw I’ve dealt with this week.
I’ve 3D-printed few head adapters but all failed to remove the glued ring.
Eventually I’ve made hybrid printed key with four M3x8 screws that fit nicely into head’s cuts:

I’ve bought proper 5kg vise, screwed it into my desk and after a brief struggle I’ve managed to remove the header.
For my surprise Sofirn has exchanged blue thread locker to red one, that’s much more difficult to break.

2. PCB

This was the biggest disappointment here. The boost converter is gone, now we have most simple MOSFET driver that passes PWM-modulates battery connection directly to 3V LED :frowning:

Two ICs aboard are PIC12F1882 (datasheet) + AON6512 MOSET (datasheet).
Three hall sensors are TSH251 (datasheet)

3. Some scope dumps

PIC generates 20kHz frequency that looks like thins (measured on the LED connectors):

LOW:

MEDIUM:

HIGH:

And there doesn’t seem to be a difference in duty cycle when powered from 3.6V (left) vs. 4.2V (right):

4. Conclusions

Switch to new driver is a step-back for me, I realize this solution is 2x cheaper than boos converter but I feel such nice light deserves something better…
The good side of new design is SOIC8 package of PIC controller, so it should be easy to connect to and reprogram.

Anyway I now wait for 3000K XHP50.2 to arrive (I’ve ordered 6V version so I guess I’d have to reflow it to 3V pcb taken from this light…) I’ll let you know if when I succeed :slight_smile:

Btw. this seems to be my very first post on BLF so: Hi everybody! :slight_smile:

Welcome to BLF! What a great and informative first post.

No, the 6V XHP50.2 is different than the 3V version, you can’t reflow it to a 3V MCPCB.

Boost driver would lose Turbo at 3.7v which was around 8 minutes. The only good thing about the boost driver was 2hrs of High 920 lumens.

Thanks for that info! I’ll look for 3V XHP then.

EDIT:
The worst new of the day: CREE doesn’t make 3V 3000K XHP50.2, just two cold colors are available :frowning: