NEW TrustFire TR-DF003 2x26650 3xCREE XM-L Diving Light

That is too funny since a friend of mine actually had his dive light stolen by a Giant Pacific Octopus. Once they get the third arm on something, it’s theirs! They have about a three-year-old “MINE” mentality. He ran out of air before we could figure out a way to get it back. When we went back down, that light was nowhere to be found.

Even though I do have two of these modded lights now, I’m not ready to feed one to the Octos although I was pretty close after my 5th dive with the first one of these P.O.S. lights. |(

Hi Deepdawg,

I had completed the mod prior to you posting the photos. I don’t know if this is bad or not, but in addition to performing the mod on the handle and head contact points, using my dremel with a mini wire wheel, I had also removed the anodizing in-between the threads on the handle too, in addition to removing the wide anodized strip below the heads contact point. Was this bad that I did this?

As I mentioned before, the light appears to work excellent and is as easy as any of my normal lights to get an amp reading at the tail. I only have to perform the tail spring mode at this point. Thanks.

I’m not sure I understand exactly all locations you’ve removed anodizing from so a pic would help.

The only risks of excessive removal of anodizing are increased risk of oxidation and seawater corrosion, possible reduction in o-ring seal-pressure.

If you also worked on the o-ring channels or the portion of the head that acts as the outer o-ring seal, then you just need to be sure you’ve left them very smooth and uniform so you don’t compromise your o-ring seals at depth.

This particular anodizing has a thickness so I didn’t want to mess with any of the o-ring surfaces thus changing the seal pressure but since I left the “too-fat” stock silicone o-rings up front, you could just do the same and they should compensate. I don’t unscrew the handle often and probably won’t again until deciding on a more permanent spring fix.

EDIT: If you look at my second photo, you can clearly see that some of the anodizing has worn off of the inside o-ring surface of the head of mine just from all the previous assembly and dis-assembly that I’ve done with mine trying to get it to work. I just try to keep that surface real smooth so the o-rings will seal well.

So really, as long as the light always gets a good post-dive rinse, the only real issue might be appearance. Heck, maybe now you could just strip the entire handle and polish it. It might be a nice aesthetic. jk

I made some minor edits to the mod post and I will leave them in bold for a while.

EDIT 1:

I had forgotten how the unmodified light would not even shut off on dry land without removing the tail spring. This is because the anodized coating on the tail thread wears off with normal use.

The effect WITH the tail spring in place is that you have to remove the tail cap completely to avoid the partial connection at the tail thread. You’ll begin noticing it as an intermittent blinking of the light at first even when the tail is backed off but eventually it just gets worse and you’ll risk current draw while the light is in standby.

The effect on the modified light is that, like when diving, you just have to retract the tail 2 rotations to uncouple the battery chain and that will cut power completely. I added this to the post as problem number 10 that is ultimately solved by the tail cap modification and I added a small paragraph in the TAIL CAP MOD section.

I forgot to mention this because I recognized the problem before it even happened so I removed the tail spring almost immediately after getting the light so I was used to it needing a 2 rotation retraction to shut off on dry land.

What took me a few more dives to discover was the need for the HEAD SHAVE MOD which had me puzzled for quite some time until I figured out why the light was working fine on dry land but not when at the pressures of depth.

EDIT 2:

In the HEAD SHAVE MOD section, I just emphasize the importance of keeping the mating surface between the head and handle as flat as possible for a good grounding mate between the two and I touch on how I addressed this with my limited shop.

Excellent write up, DeepDawg! I know you've helped a bunch of members with this light and given many more a good reason to finally get one. Your mods really don't sound difficult at all and are well worth the time spent doing. Bravo!

Hey JohnnyMac,

Thanks for the positive comment, I glad I’m helping out.

I would rather think I’m helping those who already have the light rather than encouraging others to buy it. My feeling is that so much was overlooked with the design that I am not comfortable causing additional sales of this beast.

As I mention in several places, I completely expect better options to show up on the market soon that will have magnetic switching like the XTAR D35 or the X-BEAM U2X3 both of which have magnetic switching. Price drops on these are inevitable as more designs and clone start hitting the market.

If you look at other CREE T6 dive lights like the truly wonderful YEZL Q2 which is the exact same product as the KEYGOS S3; they all are beginning to drop fast in price as more designs and their own clones invade the marketplace. Three years ago if I saw a KEYGOS S3 performing on a dive, I would have expected to pay $200+ for it easily. They can now be had with batteries and a charger for under 50 bucks. That’s friggen ridiculous! Sure I had to replace all the o-rings on my S3 but that was cheap and it’s now easily a 200FSW dive light with what truly feels like about a 1000 lumen output.

It’s true that I bought a second TR-DF003 since I’m comfortable with my mods and I was able to get a second one with big 26650’s and a decent 26650 charger at my door for $60. Part of the reason I did that was because I was already invested in one of them PLUS I knew there would be no other way in the future to get spare parts other than to cannibalize one so I could one day service the other if parts begin failing. I was just lucky some poor bloke was dumping a new one as a complete kit with batteries and charger probably because he saw the writing on the wall with these things.

But for now, mine are both modified and working fine and if readers want to take a chance buying these and following my improvements rather than waiting for better options, I think they will likely have the brightest hand-held dive light on the block . . for a while.

But as I mention in my post and as others have confirmed, the claimed output on this model is way off. I see 3800 and 4500 all the time in ads when we all know 1700 lumens is probably about it with the three CREE T6’s in parallel even with 26650 batteries. And if you rewire it for higher output, it gets too hot on land and it will have too short of a run-time to be a good dive light since you can’t add a third battery.

So once again, I personally encourage those who haven’t bought one yet to consider waiting for a better design to become affordable if you can. If not, mod away and you might be happy with the TR-DF003 aka “TuRD”.

I love your forum and thanks again for the comment!

Hey Dawg what was the screw length in the tail. And how did you secure it in detail please?

Hey DeepDawg,

Here are the photos of how I modded the light. I don’t know if I ruined it for salt water use removing the extra anodizing that I did. I had just assumed all of it needed to go on the threads and inside the head. I still have to order the upgraded O-rings that you suggested, but I still have all the originals plus all the spares they included in the box. Please let me know what you think of what I did. The last photo is simply a shot of what the beam profile looks like outside of the water in case anyone was curious. Thanks again for all the help.

Between the stiffer head spring and the tail cap mod, I was hoping my home remedy fixes would be improved by people with proper shops like Pokasaha.

The screw I used for the 26650 contact was a 1/4-inch brass Flathead machine screw with the flat head soldered to a small copper plate I made from sheet material. I then ground down the screw until the assembly was the exact height I wanted. I knew I only wanted 2 rotations out to cut power since the o-ring seal range is pretty limited. It’s also why I stiffened up the head spring because I knew there couldn’t be much range in the tail cap o-ring seal so I wanted the head spring to firm up within that limited range.

What frustrated me was how much 26650 batteries can vary from brand to brand so I must now keep the battery sets MATCHED TO EACH LIGHT!!

To hold the battery contact against the bare aluminum cap, I cut a round piece of stiff plastic from the lid of some container and punched a hole in the center for the screw to come through.

I was lucky that the grove that was used to retain the spring existed because I sized my plastic disc such that it snapped tight into that grove while holding the contact firmly against the aluminum cap as you can see in the tail cap pics.

I then used the conductive grease that I mention between the copper disc and the aluminum for improved conductivity. It’s been working great but I would still rather have an even tighter press fit between the copper disc and the aluminum.

At first I tried not using the plastic retainer and I had signs of ground contact loss and intermittent contact even when the tail was backed off as my battery contact would rattle around in there.

And I DO NOT recommend more than one piece for a battery contact. I had the same problem when I tried using thin plates to change the height of my battery contact rather than grinding a permanent height to a single-piece contact.

The bottom-line you want to think about in every move you make is that any chance for this much current to break contact it will. This will frustrate you with intermittent function.

Richie,

You sure ground off a lot of anodizing. I see you even ground out the o-ring channels on the handle. Also I can’t see the contact ring on the head very well, and I hate to say this after all the anodizing you’ve removed, but it looks like you may want to be sure you’ve got a good bare metal surface for the ring at the base of the head.

Sure enough, from what I’m seeing, I would be concerned about your o-ring surfaces giving out now at depth pressures.

Not to worry, just don’t dive it as is. If you can, try to bring those o-ring surfaces back to as smooth a surface as you possibly can. It looks like it might be tough access in the o-ring channels on the handle but just get everything as smooth as you can.

The next problem might be having to re-size the o-rings for the amount of material removed but as I said in another reply, the stock o-rings are so big that you may be able to use them but you still need to have a smooth surface or they won’t seal. You will know if you need o-rings with bigger cross section by how hard it is to screw the handle back onto the head.

But if your surfaces aren’t smooth, not only will it leak at depth, but you’ll damage the o-rings every time you unscrew the handle from the head.

When you think you have everything done right, first test dive it without batteries and with silica gel packs to run defense for your electronics in case some salt water gets into the housing. I would say four atmospheres should do (about a 100FSW). But you REALLY don’t want to have salt water hitting 26650’s with a fresh charge inside a cast metal dive light. I would consider that a safety breach.

A bit off topic:

I see in the background that you also have another CREE dive light I have. I think they first hit the market as the MAGICSHINE MJ-810E.

It’s been cloned to death and I had read many complaints that the magnetic bezel wasn’t indexed so it would slide around changing modes all the time. I bought a great look-alike new for $25 on Fleabay. Unbelievably bright for the money. The switch on the one I got is well indexed and holds its mode positions just fine. I just don’t care for the lens seal design so I couldn’t give it the same depth blessing as our TR-DF003 or my KEYGOS S3 with the o-ring mods I’ve done to it but again $25, really??!!

Hey Deep,

Yeah, give a man a dremel and he’ll grind away the world…LOL. I’ll be sure to check it out very carefully without batteries before diving with it this spring. If I find it isn’t reliable, I’ll dismantle it and use the components for another project.

As for my Cree MC-E lights, or AKA Ugly light, I actually love those lights. I purchased mine from NovaeProducts.com and got a deal on them for about $50.00 each. They’ve since come out with the XM-L version, which is likely what you have. But the link below you can still get either version with excellent service.

http://www.novaeproducts.com/apps/webstore/products/show/1557267

I did perform the “lens spring” mod on both as discussed around the internet several years ago. This was done prior to them ever seeing water and work excellent. Without the spring mode, the lens will start taking in water quickly.

I do wish they had a click-type indexing on the magnetic switch, but if your new one has that, I’d consider purchasing another one, especially if it’s an XM-L.

The only thing that you need to be careful about is once you take them apart, the magnetic switch needs to be realigned properly so it turns on the correct mode when the switch ring is turned. In other words, you don’t want to move the ring to HIGH position and have it come on in LOW.

You replied too fast for me. I also added the observation that in your photo, it looks like you may want to be sure you’ve got a good bare metal surface for the ring at the base of the head since that is what I found to be the point of pressure contact when screwed tight to the handle.

It’s sad how little anodizing actually has to be removed for a good contact when I see how much you’ve removed but you really want to give that current a better place to go than the threads and I would just be sure the head ring is shaved bare where it torques against the handle.

I checked again and sure enough, my Magicshine MJ-810E clone is indeed an XML T6 and does have good indexing on the switch. The Ebay vendor I bought it from had a temporary “Sale” price on it for $25.99 shipped or best offer. I got them down to $25 even which you can see in the sale history. I was the Dec 23rd sale at $25. EDIT: I just noticed that to everyone else, it just shows “Accepted”. I offered $22 but they only dropped to $25 on a counter so I accepted.

I see it’s now back up to a whopping $39.99 shipped! Still a pretty darn good deal. Again, the sale history seems to indicate that no one’s bighting lately at $39.99.

It’s interesting to see a CREE T6 light advertised without a single claim of lumen output but their ad might be why it’s not selling. Now that I have it, I know it’s the real deal and even at $39.99 it’s a darn good light. Since all I own are T6 CREE lights now, it was immediate to see it was the real deal when I looked at it and fired it up next to my other lights.

I think before I would consider doing a spring mod on it, I would first just augment with a thin cross-sectioned o-ring under the lens or flat spacer ring on top of the lens to cause a better crush of the rubber lens seal that is supplied with the light. The problem with the lens seal design on that light is that there isn’t much thread travel on the lens retainer plus it’s an inverse thread design compared to the KEYGOS S3 design which I prefer.

I know many don’t like the S3 because of the single battery but I’ve dove the heck out it and never run down even with my crappy gold Ultrafire 4000mAh batteries. For multiple dives I would recommend having freshly charged 18650’s on hand to load between dives. But you DEFINITELY want to replace the lens o-ring on the S3 before diving it.

So this is what I’ve done. Now remember my threads were FULL of corrosion so this is what I was able to do with a mini wire wheel on a drill press.

While on the boat before the dive I would turn on my lights and make sure they are on high, after getting in the water and descending they would change to a different mode. Every other dive it would randomly pick a new mode to be in… Weird right? So this Head Mod will stop my lights from changing modes while in seawater? I don’t need to change the modes of my lights, always on high mode LoL

If I do not do the spring mods the LED’s will faintly glow when I bring them up from the water. Would several turns unscrewing the head and wiping it off with a dry towel make the lights shut off completely?

Since my lights are damaged so bad I am thinking of getting another pair before I leave to Mexico and do this mod to them. I would use these as spare parts for the new ones. But as my luck would have it something I missed or a new product will come out just after I purchase another set so I’m on the fence here.

FYI: Here is the light with reflectors, 6’ from the wall.

Here it is without the reflectors, 6’ from the wall. I will have 2 lights running, I’m hoping the shadows won’t be so noticeable.

Thanx for all your help with these lights!!!

Head shave done.
Removed spring and used a 25 mm brass car wash token. Highly polished with a 8/32x1/2” SS machine thread bolt with head cut off back of token and threaded through coin. Amazingly THE COIN FIT EXACT IN THE TAIL CAP. I have 4 coins left if anyone needs one. 24.99 mm exactly if you have stock. It was a 1/2”long bolt so I had some adjusting to do. I found I could use a punch to expand coin at edges, and it held it in tight because of close tolerances… Tested in tub and works great!!!
BUT I WANT TO GIVE DEEPDAWG A HUGE THANK YOU!!! for giving us all a heads up and all the lengthy details needed to do this. Kudos!!! :slight_smile: :slight_smile: :bigsmile:
Daniel

Winmag,

Good job on cleaning those once-seized forward threads and on prepping the handle for a shaved head ring mate. I haven’t seen what you’ve done to the head but I’ll assume it looks like nice flat bare shaved metal on the bottom contact ring.

No. The head shave mod will stop it from happening AGAIN when you attain depth. It’s pressure that helps those head-threads fail as a ground contact. But the pressure only helps them fail. The fact that they are threads, they are aluminum and they are oxidized are the real culprits.

Changing modes in the shallows is a result of aquatic grounding from tail to head. Also very bad for the drivers and probably what killed yours.

Sorry your lights self-destructed before I could post these mods. And I’m also sorry to tell you this, but the Tail Spring Mod is actually the most important one because the tail threads WILL LOSE THEIR ANODIZING. I’m sure yours already have. And once they do, your light will try to come on as long as that spring is touching your battery chain. It won’t even matter if it’s in the water. The only way to stop it will be to remove the tail cap so the spring can’t touch the batteries.

If I could finger the single biggest design flaw of this light, it would have to be its dependence on the black anodizing on the tail threads to insulate the tail cap from the handle when the tail is slightly unscrewed. Yep, that is the number one dumbest thing I’ve seen in at least a month.

Imagine the stupidity of a design engineer thinking that they could completely and forever insulate one side of a frequent-use threaded metal union from the other by simply anodizing it.

Look at the picture of the tail threads on my used light. They’re now completely bare of even any residue from the original anodizing. I didn’t strip them, I just used the light and as the designers intended, I had to screw down and unscrew the tail-cap at least five times for each dive:

1-Once off to load batteries in it.
2-Once on (a bit) to drive to the dive site.
3-Once all the way down before the light can get anywhere near water. Then do your dive.
4-Once off (at least partly) when out of the water to rinse
5-Once off again to unload the batteries

So for one dive, that’s at least five times of screwing the tail cap threads. And with those original o-rings, they would be mincemeat after one dive.

That anodizing never stood a chance of staying on those threads.

A close second on the dumbest engineering I’ve ever seen is the design assumption that the light would NEVER GET BUMPED and therefore never see a breach in the body’s anodizing thus never short from external sources.

And if Trustfire has a Q.C. department (doubtful) it’s amazingly reckless to go to market when you have not tested in seawater a FREAKING DIVE LIGHT!!!

It looks from your beam shots like you still have function in all three emitters of at least one light.

For you to buy two more of these lights would be to encourage such poor designers and executives. We have plenty of idiots and crooks without rewarding the hiring of more, even overseas. What if you buying two more of these means they will actually manufacture two more of these boat anchors?

The lights you really want are something like the X-Beam U2X3 or the XTAR D35 and they will likely keep dropping in price. We just need to wait for even better pricing.

Hang in there buddy, I think you’ll have at least one of these working right for Mexico.

When is your trip and where do you dive out of?

Dawg

Yeah I got to admit the workmanship and engineering of this light is TERRIBLE.!!! I would think they would of at least tested it. Fortunately we have a fix for some, maybe not all, whom can actually enjoy it for a while before it blows up.

Bravo Daniel and you’re very welcome!

I’d like to see a picture because I also tried a contact with a threaded union in it and still had ground loss troubles. But come to think of it, that was before I did the head shave mod so it may have been that instead an intermittent break within my battery contact and my contact has never been all that tight against the inner tail.

And as I’ve mentioned, I’m not super happy with my plastic retainer and it sounds like your hammered token fits much tighter against the bare aluminum inner cap. I may well just size a stainless circlip to fit in the grove that once held the spring. Then I could create serious pressure to hold the contact base against the inner tail. I’ll post pics if I do.

For sure what I originally tried to make, was a battery contact that was height adjustable with threading but I am fairly sure depending on conduction through yet another threaded union within the battery contact is too risky with these currents. That’s why my current contact components are all soldered together.

MAYBE copper threading with my copper conductive grease would be a safe bet if combined with a high pressure fit against the inner tail cap using a circlip. As I said, I’ll post pics if I do it.

I have been so surprised at how different things go 12 minutes into a dive than they do on the surface.

Good luck with your fix and I hope all goes well!

Looking good Daniel!

Everything looks held tight. Perhaps not too removable but it looks like a good fit.

Screw is about 1/2-inch so I’m guessing you’re using 18650’s.

And I trust it is bumping to the next mode for you while the tail is screwed down tight and also cutting power within o-ring seal range (unscrewed about two rotations out)?

Thanks for sharing and show us underwater pics and video!! 8)

Actually I needed to cut it way down for the 26650’s Rotations and cutting power all working PRIMO! And I love the BUMP!! :bigsmile: :wink:
And I DO KNOW WHAT THE B MEANS BY NOW!!

That’s excellent news. Great work!

Ah yes, the cry of the frequent BLF poster!

It looks like I got an “L” this time. :bigsmile:

Dawg