Yes, it’s not as efficient as driving an LED at 1A or 2A but we do get the peak brightness of an XM-L at 3-4A.
Plus, LED’s just don’t go poof at even 300%+ of their recommend current, specified by the manufacturer.
The HD2010, one of the most highly regarded budget lights, is in fact directly driven at High mode.
What’s wrong with driving at whatever current you want using a constant-current driver? Direct drive has no advantages over constant-current drivers at all.
Nothing at all, except linear driver using AMC 7135’s burn the excess power as heat.
Other than that, using a constant current drivers does enable you to control the brightness.
Linear drivers aren’t great either. Especially AMC7135 based ones - you can only regulate current in 350mA steps using them, so no option for moonlight and low modes without resorting to PWM.
Synchronized buck/boost drivers would be best, for those who want to run 1 cell. Buck/*boost* because draining modern 2900/3100/3400mAh cells requires boosting due to them having not-so-high voltage.
Mouser shipped mine out, Qty 3, XM-L2 T6's. We will see. I got 2 cheapo Sipik SK73 zoomies, 1 with a U2 1A, other with a stock T6. I can do ceiling bounce measurements on these 2, then swap the XML T6 for the new one, interesting comparison then...
33696933 - Wow! That was fast! Dunno about the DRY - single or multi LED? Was the form factor the same for mounting? Height the same? What's the tint comparable to warmer or cooler than a T6 3C? Can you notice brightness diff or can you do a ceiling bounce test w/meter?
Sorry - lots of Q's... You are the first one known to get, see, and install these things...
Ok, maybe this evening you can see how it does in brightness? From the specs for a T6, was expecting it to be at a U3 level - 2 bins higher, probably somewhat difficult to see, though in a 3 LED DRY, maybe it would be more pronounced. Also, there was speculation it will be easier to dedome tham the standard XML's - wondering about that...
Should get mine in a couple of days, chose USPS shipping.