MXDL SA-76 "Turbohead" (PICS warning)

Mine is on the way, 1-3 weeks, hopefully...

I just pulled the trigger on this as well.

I would venture to guess they are identical. 20mm boards with L-M-H-DISCO-SOS are not very common, so theres a good chance the driver and IU are identical too. $22 is a really good price for this light too.

a new clone is available on manafont for $25.9: http://www.manafont.com/product_info.php/wb666-stainless-steel-aluminum-alloy-t6-1200lumen-5mode-led-flashlight-gun-color-18650-p-10029

Just a little update.... I am really happy with this light. I have had it now for 3 or so weeks and it's performed flawlessly, taken 2-3 hard drops to the floor completely in stride. I am using it this weekend at my cousins house, heonly uses trust fire gray protected cells and my suspicions are confirmed... The tail cap mods I did do not work with protected cells. The extra 4-5mm is to long to make battery tube contact.

Kramer, I got mine a couple days ago and yesterday I put in a Nanjg 105 v2 in it with moon, med, & high modes. I like it a lot!! I don't know what high measures because the only reading I get from it is low but that is .007A. I have to assume it,s getting the full 3A on high. It's still not as good as the HD2010 but the reflector is smaller by a few mm and not as deep (also by a few mm) but I did manage to turn off a street lamp once while my HD2010 does it every time.

My original driver looked nothing like yours but did put out the identical 2.16A. It manages heat extremely well and is super nice to hold and looks pretty awesome IMO. Thanks for the heads up on this one.

EDIT: Forgot to add that I installed a spring on the driver to fix the horrid mode changes with the slightest bumps.

A clone with side switch, beside that it's cheaper than the others:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1600-Lumen-CREE-XM-L-T6-LED-Bike-Bicycle-Light-Flashlight-Torch-/170844182651?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item27c71b587b

I got an ebay version today. It's exactly the same, as the mxdl.

Surprisingly good quality, much better than a common C8 etc...

Tailcap current is ~2.5A with a sanyo cell, and at this current it throws out a nice 36kcd. Not so bad, but will be better with a little more current.

There is now a blank driver adaptor available which will make putting new drivers in this light very easy.

See here.

Nice blank dummy board. Although there is a risk using it in this light because the battery tube needs to touch the -B pad on the board.

Then this slightly larger one filed down should sort that.

Just use the original board as your base. That's what I did. Just put electrical tape over the components so nothing shorts out but be sure to leave the outer ring exposed where it contacts the inside of the pill. Works great for me. I love this little light. Not the biggest or baddest thrower but really comfortable in a cigar hold, throws very well, manages heat better than most lights and, with a KD V2 driver in it, has great moon mode and crazy brightness. All that and it looks awesome and tough, too. Love the head on this thing.

Hard to say... you can see the score line left by the battery tube in the picture below. This is the area that needs to make contact with the tube. At any rate, its easy enough to de-pop the SMT components and use the OEM board as a dummy like JohnnyMac describes. Its definitely a different looking light. I was showing some lights to my cousin and her kids over the holiday and this is the one that got the most Ooh-aahs from people.

here are my mods:

There isn't any coil on it (yeah, difference driver).
But good news, very easy to modify this kind of driver. The resistors -which have been bridged over with a wire by me - are not current sense resistors, but only current limiters, as I see. With this bridge, the current has gone up to 3.8A. (easier without the bridge, if the red wire is soldered to the other side... :) )

tailcap mod: the spring has almost 100mOhm, so with this mod I got a 0.1ohm advantage. Tailcap resistance decreased from 130mohm to 30-40mohm.

a little tin on the positive end of the driver solved the connection problem with unprotected cells

And the result, 44-45kcd in the first 5sec. :) Never will reach the "hottest" throwers, but in this size this is one of the best I think. On mid mode (which means 1.6-1.7A in my case ) it throws like a jetbeam bc40, or almost like a C8 at 3A.

Viffer, I saw that second pad that bypasses the current limiting resistors but had my mind on using an AMC driver. I wonder if the extra .8A makes a big difference in throw. Maybe I'll switch back to the original driver and save the Nanjg for something else. I do like the moon mode though...

Nice mods gents!!

Thanks for the lux measurement viffer. With a U2 and AR coated glass I am guessing it should be very close to 50K at least on a cold start before thermal effects come into play.

Viffer & Kramer, do either of your lights have a couple little scratches in the reflector? I have wear on the ano around the hex area that threads onto the battery tube and a couple small scratches in my reflector. I wonder if either of yours were as rough as mine?

This little light is a bargain compared to the Skyray A0 @ $42 especially when just a little solder and a single rewire of the driver yields a bump from 2A to 3.8A in output! It's a really sharp little giant killer for very little cash. I'd take this over a 980L, a Keygos KE-5 (or any of the other countless 980L clones), C8 or just about anything else in the single 18650 class. $23 shipped makes this baby a winner in my book!

My reflector is clean with no scratches. The typeII finish was perfect out of the box, but I have managed to scratch some edges around the tailcap and head area. So it scratches easier than the best anodize finishes in my collection, although the hex-piece remains scratch free.

Viffer... could you just bridge over these 2 points? Looks like they just stack up parallel R150 resistors in line with the LED+, to throttle down current from transistor output to the emitter. Your wire add just bypasses the resistance. Alternately solder the red LED wire onto the LED+ pad on the right.

2 little scratches on the head under the ano, and the reflector is almost perfect, only a little dust