Yes, the potted electronics of the Zebralight models means it’s a major bear to replace an LED. I know it’s a cost cutting measure to just pack it all up in potting material and leave it up to “send us your light if your LED ever fails, and we’ll replace it for a nominal fee.” Last I heard, it costs almost as much as a new light for that service, so… yeah. Not good.
mistake or not, it's wrong to give customers something other than what they paid for.
really?
can you please name another company (and a specific model if possible) that competes with ZL overall in build quality, driver efficiency, programmability, UX, and price? genuinely asking because i'd like some flashlight variety in my life, but i haven't found something i like more despite looking pretty hard.
i "almost" bought these but didn't:
- emisar (e.g. DS4V2): i love the variety of emitter options, but perhaps most importantly, the driver efficiency isn't there. this is the main overall reason why i believe it's not competitive with ZL. build quality isn't as good, either. not potted and not unibody are also issues, but i understand why some wouldn't want that for ease of modding. i think anduril is worthy of consideration, but i think i would prefer ZL's firmware more because i only want to use my own preset output levels that give predictable runtime. not interested in ramping or "fun" features. still, i would have to use it to know for sure, and i've never used it.
- overready boss: not exactly sure how build quality compares. for the price, i hope it's better than ZL. the driver should be pretty efficient, but no clue about overall reliability since there are fewer of them in the wild. as far as i'm concerned, it has by far the most advanced firmware out there. the only issue for me is price.
- Lux-RC (various models): they make the drivers for overready boss, and their lights are even more exotic and impressive. the price is way worse, however. i could never justify buying one of these, but i would love to have one.
Of course, such a consideration is always subjective. ZL does fulfill a very specific niche. Does everyone need every single element of that niche to be precisely their way? Not necessarily.
These days, Nitecore, Fenix and Olight are making seriously solid, rugged tactical flashlights that can give Zebralight a run for its money in terms of build quality, materials, and emitter choice. Of course, it depends upon the model, because Nitecore, Fenix and Olight offer cheapies too.
Emisar and Oveready Boss are smaller niche / custom flashlight builders. So, I don’t think they’re fair to compare.
By the competition, it doesn’t mean the entire brand has to be better. But take a look at something like the Lumintop FW1A. A single emitter reflector flashlight with Anduril UI. Very solid light, overall. Superior UI to ZL. Pretty much half the cost of an SC64, with discounts applied. ZL is never discounted, BTW.
I haven’t yet tried emitter swapping in a Zebra, but I’ve read about it. From what I’ve read:
- The first challenge is the lens retaining ring. It’s press fit and flush with the glass. To remove, you have to press the lens inwards as much as possible while inserting the edge of a knife or thin screwdriver so you can lever up the ring. This risks damaging or destroying the lens, and if it shatters while working on it, possibly damaging the reflector. Additionally, press-fit rings like this really aren’t meant to be removed. There is a chance it might erode the socket in the aluminum head. If that happens, it might not stay in place if the light is dropped.
- The second challenge is the single board containing driver and emitter. In order to make for the most compact possible light, All Zebra flashlights since the SC600 II do not use a separate star. Instead, they have a single board that contains both the driver and emitter. Heating up the entire board uniformly risks other components falling off when you try to loosen the solder on the emitter. This rules out many common reflow methods. The best way to reflow the emitter on these lights is probably a heat gun on a solder reflow station with a small tip that just covers the emitter. Withe driver out of the light, put the nozzle right over the emitter and turn it on until the solder loosens. Then use tweezers to life off the emitter. This minimizes the chance other parts will come off the driver.
- Also note that because there is no separate star, you’re pretty much limited to the same size and voltage emitter as the light came with. Forget about swapping an XM footprint emitter onto an LE with XP emitter footprint.
- The potting compound. From what I’ve read, the potting compound used on Zebras is a soft silicone that can be easily removed without damaging the underlying components. I don’t expect this to be a big roadblock to changing the emitter. And in any event, the silicone can probably be ignored since it isn’t on the part you’re trying to reflow (the emitter). As long as you can get to the screws to remove the driver you should be fine.
I’ve successfully swapped the emitter on a DQG Tiny IV, a light that also used a single board with no separate star. Based on that experience I might give it a try on one of my broken Zebras. I don’t think I want to send a broken Zebra back to the manufacturer for service, because I’m not confident they’ll still be around for the long haul.
However, maybe 10 years ago I did send back a defective Zebra for repair. They did repair it and I received the fully functioning light back 3 months later. So I know their service used to be good. I do not know if it still is.
I bought mine from Nkon in May of 2020, it was cheaper that way but took forever. I’ll compare it to my YLP. Now I’m curious lol.matte finish, I prefer my shiny 64w hi lol.
Is there any easy way for someone to verify that their SC64c LE is High CRI?
JetBeam RRT-01 2020 is advertised as High CRI on Neals site:
“the Nichia 219C is 90+ for vivid color accuracy.”
Without a spectrometer it’s entirely subjective, but there’s a pretty big difference between CRI 90 and CRI 70. Point it at some vibrant natural and artificial colours, particularly reds, and CRI 70 tends to make everything look very lifeless and muted. Plus the CRI 70 version has a much nicer neutral tint 
That may be a mistake by Neal, rather than Jetbeam.
I notice on the official jetbeam RRT-01 Raptor website, there is no mention of the 219C being high-CRI.
Or you can just put it side-by-side with another light of similar color temp that you know to be 90 CRI. When you put them side-by-side the difference between 70 CRI and 90 CRI is quite noticeable.
You can just look at the emitter when it’s turned off. High CRI phosphors have a much deeper orange tone compared to its low CRI counterpart when you look at it.
Based on my experience, 4000k 90 CRI emitter phosphors will look clearly orange while the 70 CRI ones will just look plain yellow.
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For reference:
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Interesting.
My Niwalker ET2 v2 has a 3000k emitter in the left reflector (a 6000k TIR cluster in the right socket). It’s rather orange looking. My Zebralight SC64c LE is more yellow and to my eyes, somewhere between the two colors in your photos.
It could depends on the color rendering of your ambient light used for viewing the emitter phosphors. I used 90 CRI lights in nearly all the fixtures in my room so the differences could be more apparent. You could try comparing the emitter appearances using the sunlight.
I test CRI on the palm of my hand
pic is a link
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Agreed, Jetbeam haven’t stated that the 2020 model is 90+ CRI. He said the Jetbeam boss said it was 90+ CRI. I reached out to Jetbeam and they said it was 70 CRI. I told Neal and he offered a refund (the RRT-01 hadn’t been sent yet).
The product page might have been correct on Neals site in 2019 but it was re-used for the 2020 model.
Very helpful, thank you.
My LE from around April 2020 looks more like the slightly orange LED on the right.
Tint is slightly green on lower modes, and nice and warm on higher modes.
Hand looks white/pink under LE 4000K and 219B sw45k.
High CRI :partying_face:
The Jetbeam site used to say it was high cri. I also communicated directly with them at the preorder stage and they said it was high cri. After I got it and it was not high cri, they initially did not believe me, then said they would test and find out, then confirmed that the wrong emitters had been installed and they were not high cri, then stopped answering my emails.
Probably not going to order a Jetbeam again, definitely won’t preorder. But at least I was able to get someone to swap a 219b sw45k into the light, so now it is even better than was initially promised, if more expensive.
I swapped an actual high-CRI 219C into my 2020 Jetbeam RRT-01.
However, currently mine is non-functional. I removed the driver from it and put it in my old Niteye EYE10, whose driver I actually destroyed trying to replace the driver wires some time ago.
I guess I should check with Jetbeam to see if they are still selling replacement drivers. They were when I asked them, but that was a year ago.