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

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

Deepdawg,

We are leaving on March 27 and staying till April 10. We’re all staying withing walking distance of central Playa Del Carmen as we always use Steve the owner of Reef Quest Divers as our guide. Dudes got skill and he’s a great guy to dive with. I find it hard to put trust in most instructors but I have nothing to worry about with him.

All the reviews I’ve seen of this light in the past 6 months say its putting out 1300 to 1500 lumens… That Xtar D35 puts out 2300 lumens, unfortunately it runs on 18650s but If I find out I can take out the refector and use it for a video light I just might buy 2.
Thanx for the heads up Deepdawg! I will continue moding this when I get home tonight.

That X-Beam looks good but the exaggeration of lumens reminds me of this light lol. I have a feeling it will bring problems as well.
But it does take 26650s!!! Your right about both these lights needing to come down in price, thats a lot of money for cheap Chinese lights.

That sounds like a great trip. You’re lucky indeed to have the same person living down there that you can count on.

Yeah, I just list them because, for now, they are the only triple CREE hand-held dive lights with magnetic switching that I’m finding for reasonable pricing. Most reading this forum know the realities of output. But even in parallel, three CREE T6’s aren’t bad. And mark my words; whether it’s by the original manufacturers or not, the price on those designs will be dropping plus newer designs will start crowding the market to also help drive prices down.

And I agree on quality question for the X-BEAM since I think the same parent company (Shenzhen) makes Trustfire.

But even knowing how to fix our TuRDs I can’t in good conscience recommend that someone actually pay for a new one just to invest hours and more money into making it work. Life’s too short, our time is worth something.

It’s 2013, there is no excuse technologically or economically for producing such a crappy product. I’d like to see a detailed review on the X-BEAM U2X3 pulled apart to see how easy it will be to replace o-rings and such and also to get a reality reading on output. Every import dive light I’ve bought has benefited from resizing and/or improving the o-rings. Once that’s done, they’ve been great with our one obvious exception.

Dawg

Shaved head is done…

This is what I’m using for my “Bump Gun”…

Now before I go ahead and start cutting I need to know what size to start off with.
I am using the 26650 batteries that came with the light.
From the bottom of the tail cap to the top of the bump gun what size are they?
I’m guessing the total height of my bump gun should be 1/2?
Should I start at 3/4 and work my way down?
I am going to solder all the way the way around the brass… ah crap I can’t solder to aluminum.

Edit: With nothing in the tail cap and no material in the head coil my batteries don’t even move, not even when I bump it.
I cut the bolt and made it 5/16, I put it in the tail cap and I can screw it almost all the way down. It turns on and turns off by moving the tail cap the last 1/8 of an inch lol. I could make the bolt longer but that is putting more pressure on the head screw so how am I supposed to bump the light?

Hey 300winmag. As for the height on mine I hardly have 1/4”. Not too sure if toilet flange bolt will stay put without retainer. You could do like Dawg and put in a SS Circlip to hold it. Mine I set with a punch and it rings tight. Makes a nice ping sound so I know its happy. Another nice thing about my coin trick is if I need to re-adjust I just unscrew the screw out of the brass coin or just grind it in place.

So far your handle and head shaves look good.

I suggest that you clean that contact ring on that inner tail cap where it meets the handle ring when the tail is screwed tight. It’s a critical ground contact point so I sanded mine and keep it clean.

Making the battery contact (I think you’re calling it a bump gun) is the trickiest part of this mod and will take some time because of the limited thread range that is within O-ring seal.

It’s SO important to hear your batteries begin to rattle with the tail unscrewed two-rotations from tight. If it’s beyond two rotations to rattle, then you risk losing o-ring seal when cutting power under water. What that really means is you will not be able to cut power in water. If power cuts too soon, then your spring won’t be tight enough when powered on and it will constantly change modes with the slightest bump. Pick good batteries because they will be matched to the battery contact insert you will make unless all your batteries are EXACTLY the same length.

That toilet bolt sure is long! I like the big flat head on it but you will only need, say, a 1/4-inch of total bolt length from the back of the head when combined with that brass back-plate I see next to it that you will solder it to. And even then you will be grinding it down as you fine-tune it.

And remember, something has to hold it very tight against the inner aluminum.

You might want to cut the bolt off before soldering it to that plate. It might be easier that way. I only had to pull about 1/16 off of the 1/4-inch brass screw I started with so my TOTAL battery contact height was about 1/4 –inch.

Either way, if you look at my third photo in post 223, you can see how far my batteries extend beyond the tail ring without compression. You can also see that it’s different for each of my lights!! So each light ended up with a different contact height. One battery contact is 0.26-inch and the other is 0.31-inch.

Since you know the end of the handle has to meet that bare metal inner tail cap ring. That will give you a starting point for total contact height. You just have to push on the batteries to see how far they’ll press into the handle and use that to figure how much room you have.

Or, you can practice by stacking more and more pennies in the tail cap until you finally can’t screw it down with batteries loaded. Then remove about three-pennies worth and the remaining stack of pennies should be pretty close to the contact height you want. PLEASE, PLEASE REMEMBER: TWO ROTATIONS OUT TO POWER OFF or two rotations to battery rattle.

If you have zero room as you suggest, it makes no sense since you’ve had batteries in there with a spring already. Even if you have odd-ball batteries, I don’t see how you ever loaded batteries when the spring was in if you can’t load them now. I edited it so it might help to re-read the tail cap mod section. Remember, total height of the battery contact will only be about 1/4 –inch with most 26650’s

Greetings fellow TuRD owners.

I’ve made another discovery and I’ve made a few more EDITS to my mod post (number 223) and sorry but they include a disclaimer that I should have put up originally and that most will laugh at but will understand nonetheless. As before I will leave the edits bold for a while.

I finally solved yet another P.I.T.A. mystery of our TR-DF003’s. I just discovered that the logic chip can make bump mode-changes tricky sometimes particularly when going from mode 5 (SOS) to mode 1 (HIGH).

Bumps work great going from mode 1 to 2 to 3 to 4. But I was noticing that when I got to mode 5, about half the time I would bump it and it would just stay in SOS mode, which has a strobe sequence with some very long OFF PHASES and makes you think your light is toast or something.

Well good news! If you are also noticing this, it is not a malfunction of the light nor a result of poor mod work.

What was happening is that half the time I was bumping it BETWEEN DOTS and DASHES of the “SOS” sequence (during OFF phases) and half the time I was bumping it DURING DOTS AND DASHES (during ON phases).

You can bump the heck out of it during an off phase of a slow strobe like SOS and it won’t change modes because to change modes, the logic chip needs the power cut for a duration that runs at least partly into an ON-PHASE. The original design assumed you would unscrew the tail and then re-screw it to change modes. That was a long power cut.

The power cut from a bump is quite short, so for the rapid strobe, a bump is usually a long enough power cut. But for the slow SOS mode, there are many long pauses between the letters and at the end of the SOS sequence. You can either try timing your bumps to catch it ON, or just keep bumping until you catch it on by accident. Obviously, it will be easiest to catch it during one of the 3 dashes of the “O”.

So again, if you’re also seeing this, it’s “normal” not a malfunction.

I cut the bolt down just after posting the pics yesterday and im not worried about holding it in place just yet. I want to get that contact the right size first. I will get rid of the anodizing on the tail and cap today too. Should be done today!!

Oh I went on fleabay and did a “make me an offer” on the Xrar D35. I offered him 425 for 2 big sets and he came back with 650 lol
650 for 2 cheap Chinese lights lol. Ah well dont hurt to ask.

Nice job on the bolt and nice try on the offer. Don’t give in.

I agree with you, that is WAY too much money for an internet purchase from a vendor overseas. These vendors need to realize they will never move much volume at those prices given the HUGE risk buyers are taking buying from some anonymous vendor in China. Case in point with our Trustfire TuRD’s.

Trustfire owes you AT LEAST one free light and they probably owe me that plus a royalty gratis for my fixes – LOL.

It looks like you’ve done a good job of getting at least one of your TR-DF003’s back on the road with my mods.

Is your other one really completely shot?

Can you team the rescued one with something reliable like this?

I’ve got one with a lens o-ring system I modded that I would now swear-by to 200 FSW, I LOVE the magnetic switching and amazingly, the HIGH mode feels like an honest 1000lm (not the 1600 claimed). It’s yours with batteries and a charger as modded for $55 if you want it. If you promised not to mess with the lens bezel, I’d even put a 30-day warranty on it and you’d probably have it in four business days. I’ve been seriously impressed with its performance and run-time. For a single 18650 T6, it just keeps running and running and it’s T6 has got a beam from heaven and it is SOOO compact and has plenty of low modes if you want to conserve battery until you’re ready to shoot.

The UK Light Cannon HID still retails at $300 each and during the holidays, I saw the Light Cannon eLED drop to $150 during a whopping sale event. At 800+ lumens, the eLED is nearly twice as bright as the HID and about half as bright as our TR-DF003 (when in HIGH and working.) I just think you can get so much more lumen these days with much smaller lights and I’ve never been a big fan of the eLED’s heat sink poking through the lens like that.

The D35 probably has the same output as the TuRD and the X-BEAM might be slightly brighter from what I’ve read about the U2’s. I prefer the X-BEAM only by design since it uses 26650’s and U2 emitters. But neither is an Underwater Kinetics product with the UK lifetime warranty, neither is made in the USA and neither is sold from a US vendor so I will need to see MUCH lower pricing on those before I’m willing to risk ending up with another TuRD.

UK is great, I’ve owned six of their models over the years and only once did I have a Light Cannon flood. I sent it too them with a letter and they sent it back with all new internals. What’s remarkable about every UK light I’ve owned, is that the batteries are loaded through the head using a SINGLE O-ring seal and when used properly, they very rarely flood. I’ve owned 2 Q40’s, 2 C8’s and 2 Cannon HID’s. People love them and for that reason I’ve been able sell every one of them except my last remaining HID Cannon (which I still Love).

I even considered mounting this triple CREE head from the TuRD into a customized UK C8 Sunlight chassis but I was too concerned about mounting that much heat potential into a plastic light housing because I would have powered it with the UK 12V rechargeable pack; too dangerous for my taste.

Another SAFE option is the TUSA TUL-1000 but at nearly $600, I must admit I’d rather have 2 D35’s or three X-BEAMS. Why? Because if you leave the TUSA TUL-1000 on high, your run-time is pretty short. They claim 60-minutes but it’s not holding full output for that much time. But if you leave it on a low mode until you’re ready to record, then that high setting is FANTASTIC even though it’s only 1000 lumen. But, like UK, I also love the TUSA warranty and support. I just don’t want to spend almost $600 on a 1,000 lumen light.

I have done everything and cant get the light to switch modes while bumping it. 2 rotations back and I get a rattle from the batteries so thats good. I tried putting 2 small pieces of vinyl in the head spring and using less or more. After bumping it the battery contact comes loose from the piece of plastic holding it down… grrrrr lol

Thinking about gluing the battery contact down by gluing the sides….

Sounds like my trial and error stage-LOL

Sorry for your frustration. I also spent quite a lot of time trimming the contact length to power off at precisely two rotations out.

Daniel’s is working because he worked with his contact height and then punched his contact into place to ensure a very tight press against the aluminum in the tail cap for excellent conductivity.

Winmag, I cannot adequately emphasize how important it is to get the exact height right on your contact. And also how important all of this ground contact conduction stuff is. With the currents used in these lights and the fact that you’re asking aluminum to pass current through pressed contact joints, you must keep every move you make very conductive.

I know it’s a long write-up and so it’s asking a lot, but if you really do everything as I lay it out, you will turn this P.O.S. into a good working light. I believe those toilet bolts are just coated steel.

Remember, I used only solid brass and copper components for my battery contact and even those are soldered together as one. And on top of that, I used the copper conductive grease where it meets the aluminum tail cap. You won’t need to do that if you can create a tight enough pressure when fixing your contact to the tail.

Keep on it and you’ll get it right.

No the bolts are brass all the way through.

I can get it to where when I bump it the light goes out for a split second but won’t switch modes.

Why the material in the head spring though?

I got my other light to work by replacing the driver so thats all good there just need to do these mods to it.

I though about putting this head into my UK D8 light but just as you though the plastic is worrisome.

I am going to send that retailer a reply to his $650 quote and explain to him our views lol.

Glad to hear it, that will help. You still have to solder any pieces as one and get good contact with the tail.

It’s either the recent discovery I just posted or your driver may have issues.

With my battery contact sized for two rotations out to cut power, my head spring was too soft and I still got too many accidental bumps. Anything to stiffen the head-spring and/or reduce its compression range will reduce accidental mode changes. It worked well for me.

Glad to hear. That’s how I did it. I perfected the first light and then it was smooth sailing to mod the brand new one as well. I must admit that having two of these working well is a formidable underwater light force.

True dat!

I wouldn’t bother. Once you get the second TuRD back on the road, you’ll be fine. Meanwhile, let the natural market forces drop prices. I promise they’ll fall.

I just got a great question from another member via PM.

Hello DeepDawg,

I am also a fellow diver, from, and in need of a really bright torch to fit in my BCD, preferably something that runs on 18650 batteries.
As it seems you are both experienced with torches and diving, I thought I’d ask for your recommendations.
I saw your modded TF003, and it looks like a beast! Unfortunately I don’t have the time or experience to mod a torch, I’d just like to buy one, throw my 18650’s in it and away I go. Would be happy to spend anywhere up to $100 on a really good torch.

Thanks for your time!


My response:

Hello .

I put a link in post 265 to one of these and mine is now fine.

But you want something ready to go. The problem is I only know of economical CREE T6 lights coming from China and I have had to “FIX” every one of them with better o-rings, sorry.

The safest bet for under $100 that you may not have to mod is one of these.

They’re not pretty but bright as heck! They’re also super cheap without batteries.

It would be best to replace the o-rings but you probably won’t need to immediately. I have 2 and LOVE them. They have no magnetic switching but they shut off just like my modded TR-DF003.

I hope that helps. Best of luck.

Edit: As for fitting in a BC pocket, the first link would be better but having two vs. one 18650 does give the second one a longer run-time.

I started by cutting my bolt down to 1/2, then slowly taking off a 32 of an inch I would test it with material in the head spring and without. I got down to 1/4 and it still would not work…. So I decided to unscrew the LED module to loosen the spring a bit. Guess what?
After 4 complete turns the bump would change modes!!! Unfortunately I can’t leave the head unscrewed like that because mine has no reflectors so it will be loose.
Now getting all excited I grind off another 32 of an inch, put it in the light with the head screwed all the way down and sure enough the bolt is too short, I can hear it sliding around the tail cap. DAMN IT! Off to Homedepot to find something that will fit perfectly in the tailcap.

I got this response:

First link didn’t work, and that second torch is massive! No where close to fitting in a BCD pocket!

I’m currently using this crappy one:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/LED-Light-Underwater-Diving-Shallow-Flashlight-T…

It’s about the right size I want (16cm, 6 inches), but I need something MUCH brighter that runs on 18650’s.
————————————————————

Okay folks. Here are the CREE minature DIVE lights I have experience with:

1) - I have two of these but, of course, I replaced the o-rings. Please look carefully at which model this is. It takes a single 18650 and has NO SWITCH. You just screw down the head like a UK Q40.

While they are WAY brighter than my UK Light Cannon (no, I am NOT MAKING THAT UP), the single 18650 only gives me about 20 minutes of run-time. Personally, I think given its size and price, it’s a little rock-star.

2) - I also have one of these. It works well as it arrives and it is a CREE but it’s not a T6 so believe it or not, the little yellow lass is brighter. Its strength is its size, price and magnetic switching. It also has one of the narrowest beams I’ve ever seen, like a white lazer beam. Great for cutting seawater but not broad enough for me. Because it has lower output, it’s run-time is longer.

Hope that helps for super bright BC pocket lights.

Dawg

Funny, I had a similar start by over trimming my first contact. So I just soldered a penny to what I had and that worked great. SOLDERED. Maybe you can do the same.

Good luck

I be thinking here. The only mode my lights are going to be on is high mode.
I have ground down all contact points, here is the body and tail cap.

If I turn the tail cap twice it shuts the lights down.
I dont need to have bump modes because anything less then high without reflectors is useless underwater.
But my question is will the light continue to corrode again before my eyes? and will it switch modes on me when I hit the water?

My other option is to unscrew the head 4 times and thread lock it… not the permanent kind though.
What if I tie strap the original tail spring down to lower the pressure…huh…

Thanx for the help Mr. Dawg!

1) The original design for tail contact when the tail is screwed tight works fine so no need for a head-shave mod at the tail.
The tail cap makes contact with the handle on that bare aluminum ring up inside the tail cap so there is no need to remove any anodizing from the tail cap or the handle on the tail end.

2) Just keep those contact ring surfaces clean at the tail and you’ll have a good tail cap connection when it’s screwed tight.

3) You should NOT dive with the head unscrewed at all from the handle or you will
-negate any benefit of the head shave mod
-lose conduction at the head thread
-risk flooding your light.

Your battery contact is still too long. Fix it and you’ll be right.

TWO ROTATIONS OUT of the tail cap to battery rattle but with the head screwed on TIGHT.

That should be about 6 to 9mm total length. Very short.

Once you do my mods, turning it on high and leaving there for the dive will not result in any anode corrosion.

If you unscrew the head AT ALL you will certainly have anode corrosion in seawater.

And forget the tail spring. Just put it in a closet and forget it exists.