New XM-L Light,, 26650/18650/4xAAA Good Price and 57mm head ......... NOTE: The star is solid aluminium !!! :bigsmile:

Got mine. I love it. Ringy beam, but I don’t mind. Seems well over 600 lumens on a cheapie UF battery even. Feels GREAT in the hand! Not the build quality of other lights we know and use, but I’m going to have fun with this thingy.

rdrfronty, did you try using AAAs? If it’s to be an emergency light, those should be okay.

Got mine today.

I have somewhat mixed feelings about this light. Not bad, but not good either (as stock). Fairly good for the price paid and good for modding.

Pros:

- Nice design, ergonomic & feels good in hand

- Quite throwy (about 28 kcd)

- Good for modding: Just make a good solid pill and add >3A driver

- Multiple battery choices: 26650, 18650 with tube, 4xAAA with included holder

- Initial brightness with 4xAAA almost equals the brightness with lion (didn't dare running real runtime tests with hollow pill, see cons)

- Aluminum reflector & glass lens (egde of lens was chipped)

- Well centered emitter (with centering ring, seems to be standard in budget lights nowadays)

- No memory (starts on high after being off more than 10s)

Cons:

- Driven a bit low (not so bad)

- Keygos 26650: 2.3A, 1.1A, 0.5A

- TF Flame 18650: 2.5A, 1.2A, 0.6A

- 4xAAA alkalines: 1.5A, 0.75A, 0.4A

- I would prefer lower low

- Very bad PWM on low, one of the worst I have ever seen (will measure this later)

- Hollow pill, star hanging on very narrow lip -> Nearly nonexistent thermal path

- Ringy beam

- Build quality is not top notch (but not very bad either, especially for the price paid)

- Threads feel "cheap" and were dirty

- Spring in driver is poorly soldered, "too" long, and moves sideways causing contact problems with 18650 (not with 26650 or 4xAAA though)

- Tight fit with my Keygos 26650 (some 26650 might not fit)

:cry: still not got mine.

Right. The only one worse on PWM is the TB-D7 on low.

Still, though, it is a nice-to-hold, cheapie little performer. Can’t wait to get outdoors with it.

PWM is about 60Hz on low, 120Hz on Med

I'm usually not allergic to PWM, but this is bad: Like a fast strobe.

Ah, thanks. Now I know how low pwm I can handle. I thought I was immune until I used this light on low.

Still not got mine……….grrrr and I was first to order !!!

Can anyone confirm that the star is 20mm, it looks it. I want to start work on a copper slug for the pill.

The star is 25mm

Finally got mine, puts out a lot of light just dont like the Strobe and SOS modes but i am happy that theres no mode memory. I had to resolder the spring because on mine it was leaning one way……….Overall i am happy with the light because of the price but the light does need some better fitting O-Rings and a heat sink for the led.

Still not got mine, just checked my eBay, it could arrive between 13th and 30th of august, which is outside the 45 day PayPal dispute zone, if its not here by day 44 a dispute will be being opened regardless. |(

Thanks fellas for taking a shot at this one, and thanks for the detail-pics too. I’ll be passing on this one though, its just too similar to the HD2010.

I still don’t see how the driver board is being held in-place. I dont see any trace of solder, and it definitely does not have any kind of mechanical retention component. I think its just pressed into the pill. Which in itself isn’t so bad, until you want to replace the driver with something different/custom. That hollow pill is not going to be able to withstand a lot of heat though. ~2.2A I think would be about right for this design. I think anyone wanting to mod this light is going to have to undertake quite a bit of custom fabrication at both ends of the pill to get it right.

Absolute 100 % agreement.

There’s no excuse for that…

So is the consensus that this light would be fine for a non-flashaholic that would only run it on 4AAA's? (Assuming you'd get the AAA battery holder of course!) I think this could be one of the best inexpensive "high-powered" lights running on AAA's or AA's to gift. I wonder how it does on AAA alkalines - I'm sure it would fire up, but would runtime on high be ridiculously short? The person I'd gift it to may not want to buy AAA NiMh's just for this.

-Garry

At the 13th, it’ll be 34 days, which would be slow but acceptable, at the 30th it’ll be 51 days, obviously, not acceptable. Thing is, ok I only paid a pound shipping, but I’ve had free shipping on cheaper lights that arrived in less than a week (i kind of hoped they would take 30 days, but toni was understanding…) I also have a keygos m10 charger and cells, ordered about the same time which still have not arrived. They were ordered from cybeeport888 so I’m kind of suprised they are not here yet as they are usually damm fast and charged $12.odd shipping (no tracking either, hmmm).

Anyway sorry for the thread hi-jack, just needed a moan. :bigsmile:

They’re sending my AAA holder. Speaking of o rings mine didn’t even come with one on the tail.

From what I’m reading , getting the HD2010 is the better idea…

If this one is attached like the driver in my bt-950l , you wont see the solder joint.
Stuck the tip of the iron in the holes around the outside of the driver and sure enough it was soldered.
Think they tinned the copper ring & the board , then put them together.

It shouldn’t be incredibly hard to improve the heat sinking.
Thinking you could pull the led & driver, use a step bit to open up
the pill & then put a copper slug in. But then again,things are often more complicated than they seem
Will have to wait and see when mine gets here…

I was thinking of either machining a brass/copper pill to replace the original or a press fit piece for the original, I’d prefer to machine a complete new pill as I find it easier to solder to brass/copper than aluminum. We shall see.

Is soldering to aluminium possible at all?

I’ve always thought not, but never actually tried.

From reading here, its difficult, I’ve never tried, but since welding it involves reversing the polarity on a mig and using special wire and gas, I imagine you need different stuff to soldering to traditional materials.

Doesn't Match have a post around here on how to solder to aluminum? EDIT - here it is.

-Garry