Toykeeper;
I have a zoomy very similar to yours which was DOA. I really like the body style (mine can take 18650 as well as AAA) but I never got to enjoy it. At least I only paid about $5 for it shipped.
I plan on modifying it. I am thinking a 4 mode driver and 4C or 5B tint XM-L2. Both of which will cost way more than the light itself. 
From top to bottom:
Maglite Solitaire: I used to carry one of these before I knew anything about flashlights. The output is just… terrible, even by incan standards.
Ultrafire C3: One of my first forays into LED flashlights. It constantly flickers (I tested the switch, it works fine), and sucks up about 2A on high while still being dimmer than an olight i3.
Eagletac D25A2 clicky: My very first “premium” light. It has two mode groups that can be selected by twisting the head; tighten the head and you’ll get turbo and strobe, loosen the head and you’ll get L/M/H and some hidden blinkys. The only problem is, if you accidentally bump the head while in group 2, the light will cycle to the next mode, which is VERY irritating if you’re working in a cramped, confined space and end up blinding yourself.
Shadow GF1: Doesn’t accept protected 18650 cells, and requires a button top because of it’s mechanical polarity protection. On top of that, the side switch is way too easy to activate, and the light doesn’t have electronic lockout |(
not bright, super flimsy, flicker Ostart zoomy
gitira6, I have one which looks exactly like that.
I got it from ebay a while back though, and had been feeling too lazy to find a pic for this thread… so I’m using the one you found. 
The narrow zoom is okay-ish for a XM-L zoomie, which is to say… not so great. A SK-68 throws better. The wide mode is okay too, but not great. The tint is terrible (~8000K?) and it has next-mode memory and bad PWM and the zoom mechanism sticks and although the gold bezel looks kind of nice, it’s generally just a bit bleh all around. It’s currently in my give-away box since it can at least accept 3xAAA, so maybe one of my muggle friends can use it. It’s still fairly nice compared to the junk they sell in retail stores around here.
One thing I can say for these cheap zoomies though… they sure do make it easy to take pictures of the emitter. I pulled out my gold-bezel light to take a look, ended up holding it up to my eye while zoomed, and decided to try it with my camera (ELPH 110 HS). Here was the result:
Tank007 TK-703 (above). I don’t like the throwy beam profile, and the intermittent tailcap connection persists >.< (I was hoping to breathe new life into it with an IMR 10440). I prefer my E09s.
Fenix E01 Got it from Wallbuys on a second kill deal and it was like $5 not worth $2 if you ask me. Horrible purple beam. The beam isn’t even round and it’s terribly dim even for a little light. Absolute junk.
Well… that would include all the “cool whites” I’ve bought over the years - many of which I’ve given away already.
Everything just looks so flat and insipid compared to the warmer tints.
My worst (because of the $95 price) buy has to be my SC600 (that’s the one on the right 
)
The problem with the switch/not being able to select the needed mode means that it’s never used.
In fact I’d be willing to give it away if someone would just pay the postage.
That’s a very generous offer. Are the original SC600 heads glued? I’d be happy to swap the emitter to a warmer tint if that’s a concern for you.
I totally agree with you. To me, most of the cool tints are very unattractive !
PM sent.
post deleted due to above ahead post. Thanks.
I really liked my sf fury, bored it myself for 18650’s but after I got a zl I realized how ugly the tint/beam was on the sf. I didnt realize how green and not round the beam is. But the sf looks and feels good.
17 people line up with stamps in their hands.
High postal rates are
TerraLux Lightstar 100. Beam’s too narrow, and the tint was terrible. Gave it away to a co-worker…
My apologies if it appears I’ve hijicked this thread (it wasn’t my intention).
Four BLF’ers have pm’ed me asking about postage rates but 18sixfifty is the first one.
So I’ll let him have first crack at it. I will also respond to the others who pm’ed me.
Cheers
I have the TK-703. There’s two things you need to do to fix the flickering issue. First is ensure the pill contacts the bottom of the main body. I do this with a twisted circular piece of bare copper wire. It basically makes a sort of “crush” washer between the pill ground and flashlight ground.
The next part is a little harder. You have to pop the switch out and take it completely apart. Clean all the metal parts really well and also clean the plastic parts with alcohol. Then reassemble them and this ought to get the flickering out.
Me personally I went a step further I soldered the spring into the metal contact cup and soldered that to the battery negative contact strap so that the only non-soldered point of contact was the switch cup to the flashlight body contact.
Mine hasn’t flickered for years and has actually been my favorite ultra portable light.
If you’re not up to it you can PM me and I have several modded switches I made specifically to fix some friends lights that flickered. I can always send you one of them.
Supposedly it is possible to emitter swap the SC600. The original SC600 (not the Mark II version), uses a rectangular-shaped star. If you can managed to desolder the star you can pull it out and emitter swap or even swap a new star in. The star is screwed in, and there may be solder on one of the screws in addition to the solder on the leadwires.
The problem: The SC600 has fantastic heatsinking. Supposedly, the SC600 is quite hard to do an emitter swap because the heatsinking sucks the life out of most soldering irons making it impossible to desolder the leadwires and screw. You’re probably going to need a VERY powerful and expensive soldering iron or a soldering gun to have any chance at emitter swapping the SC600.
The SC600 Mark II is probably MUCH harder to emitter swap. To make the light shorter than the previous version, my guess is they switched to an integrated board with both the driver and LED on the same board like they did with the SC52. So there’s probably no conventional star. Cooking the board to remove the LED runs the risk that the other components will fall off destroying the driver.
Fenix PD20
I was a good light for it’s time, fenix quality but with fenix price.
I think that back then I wanted a compact light that was powerful and CR123A battery would help me. But I was wrong, I couldn’t find quality rechargable CR123A.
If it was a cheap light, I wouldn’t care but it’s a fenix.
some series are easier to swap, but be carefull not to apply too much heat or the switch will melt...
How did you get your switch out? Mine has two tiny screws on the inside, but I’m afraid of stripping threads. A small square foil spacer at tailcap end used to work with eneloops.