Review: Kaidomain 5-mode XM-L U2

thats it!

Went to take a picture of mine, but it must have grown legs & can't be found. Last time used it (& made it) was last summer when my home AC compressor wasn't working - compressor was drawing 25A & popping breakers due to a corroded wire lug.

Not to discourage u, but you'll hit 1 bump in the road. Your brand new soldering iron is probably a low wattage pencil type with a fine point - perfect for flashlight mods & other delicate work. Not for soldering 10g wire to banana clips. This is where you'd use one of those monster high wattage gun style soldering irons. That 10 gauge will suck all the heat from your pencil soldering iron & take a long long time to get hot enough for solder to flow. Put a heat clamp, like a small aligator clamp, next to your soldering point - this may help the heat being disappated down the wire.

Not an impossibility, just a challenge requiring patience.

Oh, & the 'thingy' I used to attach the dvm leads to the shunt was a few inches of wire soldered to the 10 gauge, other end soldered to aligator clips to clamp on to the DVM leads. Not pretty, but functional and ghetto-licious.

And my keyboard thanks you Piers. It was time for a spilt coffee bath.

It is one of those little soldering guns so, I'm certain to make a mess of it I'm sure. I'll post pics; you may want cover your keyboard with something for the upcoming spilt-coffee-bath redux.

bananaplugFoy

Problem ya got Foy .... is your macro photography is just way way too good, & your soldering skills are, well, virgin!

Thanx 4 the heads up, I'll cover the keys with plastic :-) Solder it when women & children aren't around, their ears will start bleeding from the constant stream of profanity coming from your lips. And get yourself 1 of those bulb type solder suckers at Rat Shack while you're there, makes the worst soldering job look a whole lot better! That & electrical or duct tape hides all my messes.

Okay Flash, got a DMM that measures amps. This guy is pulling 2.7.

Foy

LightQuest - Thank you for the help. I went to Fry's to get banana plugs, etc. and walked down the DMM aisle. Saw an Extech MN36 for $30 and . . .

Seems to work okay. Don't know how accurate.

thankyouFoy

Excellent Foy! & I bet you're measuring amps on all your lights today

Guy called me tonight and said his light, L2P/KD U2, would only run on high and would not change modes. This is the dropin reviewed here with this http://www.manafont.com/product_info.php/265mm-aluminum-smooth-reflector-for-r5q5t6-flashlight-led-emitters-p-5505 SMO reflector. I put the smooth reflector on there for him because I thought the original was wrong and pressed on the solder connections. See photos of isolator disk above. Interface/mode switching problems are discussed above starting around post 16. It seems these problems happened after a different reflector was put on.
I told this guy to turn the reflector back off the pill about 1/8th of a turn. This fixed the problem. I have not seen the light yet. Does anyone else have reports of interface problems with this dropin? Any ideas why backing off the reflector fixes the problem?
Maybe I’ll put the original reflector on there, just seems the smooth one with the tighter ring on the bottom would be better than the one that seems to press on the solder connections.

I think I might have it. I happen to have one of these dropins on me at work tonight. Looking at it, I think that the inner ring on the bottom of that smooth reflector might be touching one or more corners of the LED. the impression it makes is right on the inner cutout of the isolator disk and the corners of the LED board are exposed.

I used this dropin tonight at work because I wanted to see if, with more use, this dropin would give me any problems. I’m searching an area and the light went out. I wasn’t in a position where I could screw around with my light so I opened it quick to adjust the reflector. Didn’t do anything so I just pulled out a backup and kept going. Later I took the dropin out and adjusted the reflector a little and reinstalled. Nothing. Looked at the dropin again and the emitter was gone! Came right off the star. I had opened it quickly when it first failed and the again outside. One of those times it fell out. Couldn’t find it. I think the stress of the smooth reflector caused the emitter to break loose.
I’m going to say, don’t use that SMO reflector on this dropin.YMMV

Does the OP reflector from this drop-in fit/work well on the MF xml and vice versa? I tried to put an OP reflector from a different dropin and the threading was too small to screw on.

I tried the same thing. The SMO reflector from the UF manafont dropin will fit on the KD U2 but then the OP from the KD U2 will not go onto the UF manafont dropin

I haven't had any problems and, I've grown to really like the OP reflector. I have it in an L2P.

Foy

I’m going to go back to the OP. I wish I still had the emitter that came off. I would
Love to try to learn how to reflow solder it

Really? The OP from your U2 fits on the MF xml? I can't get any other reflector onto the Ultrafire, it's like some other size (bigger) or something.

No. The OP from the U2 does not fit on the UF T6. It works the other way though. The SMO from the UF T6 will fit on the KD U2. It causes problems on there though

Sorry I was replying to Foy just above. He said it works for him (?) but maybe it's a miscommunication or something.

No miscommunication here - I thought we were talking about the U2, I didn't say anything about the MF drop-in - simply said I liked the OP on the U2, the one it came with . . . .

Ohhhhh . . .okay, you thought I meant I didn't have any problems screwing the other reflector on . . . . (sigh) Yeah, I don't know, I'll have to try it.

tiredFoy

If this is the same drop-in (looks like it), then it's suddenly a huge bargain:

http://www.kaidomain.com/product/details.S009990

$11.84

I've been trying to decide between this and the KD warm drop-in that's been frying people's switches. If the U2 really is that much more powerful, then it seems the best solution is to order it and use a Lee filter to alter the color. (I've been doing that with the Manafont 3-mode -- it's now quite nice. The Soft Amber Key 1, Lee #774, is lovely. 71% transmission -- so if the U2 offers 29% more light, it's a wash.)