[Review] YLP Gekko 1.0 || Samsung LH351D 90CRI, 1x18650 || Excellent UI and Power / Thermal Regulation

That looks awesome. How floody is it? Has an anduril like UI with high cri and zebralight style look. It’s exactly what I’ve been looking for.

Is it still the original firmware with all the bugs or was it updated? I was really interested in this light and followed the project closely until the flashlight was released. But Inferion wasn’t able to provide the final firmware in time for the release, so he wrote a quick replacement without the originally planned features and without much testing.

Interesting light. For my money I think I’d still go with a H04 - the quick release clamp of the Skilhunt strap is the best I’ve ever used.

Chinese generic (zebralight clone) host with BAD thermal patch and Russian “eficient” linear driver only for you and only for 50$ shipped.( yes , yes i love YLP )

Could you list what kind of defects where on the original firmware? I can try to replicate them to see if they’re still there or have been fixed.

I’ve listed some of them here: YLP coupon for BLF - #233 by SammysHP

I wished it comes with a pocket clip… :(.

Well, I’ve dissasembled my Gekko after reading about bad thermal design and see what I saw. Nice, right? Almost no conductivity to body. Plus copper plate is attached to 1 mm plate in the head (the one you see with screw holes is not body, it is thin plate inside), without direct contact with cooling ribs outside.
I changed glue to good thermal compound. To my personal feeling - heating changed to faster and hotter, means better thermal conductivity.

Welcome to BLF. Next time buy after reading as many as possible reviews :slight_smile: AEDe review at fonarevka

Changing compound makes thermal exchange much better, actually. The only question - why can't put good compound from factory, since it is the cheapest part of all the product, and emitter is attached with screwes. No need any glue here.
All the rest - it is pretty good flashlight. Light, waterproofed, and convenient hi-cri (to my opinion).

Probably you newer saw good L shape headlamp host? Check skilhunt H04 and new H300. Gekko host looks nice from outside only but inside its trash.

I use mine pretty often, so far works fine, when it cooks its own led, then will take it apart and play with it, maybe even fix it, or i’ll test my aim at 100 yards with my .44mag lever action.
It IS a shame, they went thru all those troubles to design and manufacture pretty decent light, even if their driver is not most efficient or advance, but all of it seems to be negated by simple “saving by a shortcut”, simple QC and maybe an extra step to ensure proper heat path would make this light actually reliable in a long run. go figure,

Just google "teardown skilhunt XXX" or another flashlight and you'll see almost any popular model from inside without buying it.

Fixed photos by the way, didn't upload for some reason.

Gekko is not that bad, but yes - even the cheapest Convoy has better machining/finishing.

It is exactly what I mean - so much effort to design and manufacture, and such a poor QC. Even the cheapest Convoy has more and better compound. I spent 8 years in China working in trading and QC of our orders. It is so simple to hire an expat there and let him/her check every 20-30th unit or even less frequent. Even simple presence of "inspector" helps a lot )))

And where did the heat go with bad thermal compound?) It’s just self-suggestion. The only difference is led temperatuture and corresponding decreasing of luminosity while led warm up, and you can not see it without instruments.

This is a wrong question. Not where, but how. Heat dissipation affects emitter lifetime. I'm not going to discuss it, just wanted to let others know about this issue. And I posted same at fonarevka, if you're interested http://forum.fonarevka.ru/showthread.php?t=45417&page=34

It is right question. You just not qute understand phisics of this process. I am not interesting in your subjective feelings, thanks, I have thermal camera and I can measure everything that can be interesting.

I also not going to discuss that. I just let other to know that you subjective feelings of issue deviate from reality.

Not posting it for you personally, so I don't care what you're interested. Don't know why you protect YLP that much, even cheapest Convoy has better compound in it. Other than this - Gekko is nice flashlight.

My initial post is to show people what they buy before they buy it. I would appreciate if I saw it from someone before I bought my unit. By the way, the comment on vk page of ylp says they plan to release second batch of Gekko - same design, but updated firmware. I'm curious if they change something inside too. We'll see, I may buy one just our of curiosity to see what's new.

It has been discussed in length on fonarevka, including very detailed pictures, this problem is well known for a while.

Yep, but I found it too late. And no one posted it it here in English.