Review: UV light shootout, seven lights tested

There is a new Tank007 365nm UV light on HKE. It uses an 18650. 3W version so 2x1.5W UV emitters under the dome I think like the 3W AA one. Same Japan UV as the other Tanks. Asking price is a bit high

Is there a BLF coupon for HKE?

ya i noticed that new one at a few other places too. until i found the older AA version for a good price at focalprice.com
http://www.focalprice.com/LFD45B/TANK007_TK566UV_1Mode_1W_Purple_WaterResistant_LED_Flashlight_Torch_Black.html

there was also a 10% coupon online too. so i only paid $33 shipped

I haven’t tried a Tank007 TK566UV, but a L2m + KD drop-in works pretty well and comes out to a little less than $30. With two cells, it runs at around 5W.

I found this thread too late. I bought a Ultrafire WF-501B (on the body it also says HWA/WYS). I claims to be 365nm and uses and 18650.

Does anyone have any experience/comparison relative to the Tank?

First time poster, long time reader! You all have a lot of great information on this site.

I thought I’d share my limited UV experience. Several years ago I bought my first UV light. It’s a Pentagon Lights 2 watt UV that’s labeled as being 390nm. It really didn’t fluoresce that much as I had hoped. It mostly seemed like a deep purple light. A couple years ago I got an Inova X5, the newer version with the dual output and both 365 and I think 380nm LED’s. It worked much better for things like currency. That’s when I found out that the stripe on the $100 bill would actually fluoresce red and it won’t at 390nm. The problem with the X5 is that it’s not very powerful at all. I’ve visited this thread a few times looking for information on a higher power REAL 365nm light.

Anyway, a couple weeks ago I was looking at the CustomLites site and noticed Dave was selling a 365nm drop in with an LEDEngin LED and I kind of bought it on impulse. Oops :slight_smile: I’ve got it in a L2p running on 2x 18350 IMR’s and it’s just crazy to me how much light it puts out! It will easily fluoresce things at least 50 feet away. That’s the farthest I’ve tried so far. It was a little pricey but I was a little sick of messing around. Even so, it was still less than I payed for the Pentagon Lights one several years ago that I didn’t ever like and that includes an L2n host I had in the order. I’m very happy with it!

I would try it with a $100 bill but I don’t see many of those.

Welcome to BLF Ladp!

If it is the Ledengin LZ1 365nm led in that Customlites drop-in, that is the one I used for my small zoomie mod (I linked the build thread somewhere above in this thread), it is indeed impressive! The bare led alone costed me more than 30 dollars (twice as much as the host)

Thanks!

All the tube the drop in came in says is:

Ledengin
365nm
1level regulated
4.2-12 volts

It doesn’t say if it’s an LZ1 but, just looking at the data sheets from Ledengin, it seems like that would be the best match. I actually started by putting a 18650 in there and was impressed already but then I saw the 4.2-12v I initially missed so I popped in the 2 18350’s I had and was wowed! It’s powerful enough that I’m actually a little spooked in using it before I get some protective glasses. I don’t know if that’s too cautious or not but that’s what Dave recommended to me in an email and he seems to know what he’s talking about.

I might have a 380nm light soonish. It’s not as short a wavelength as I’d like, but it’ll be very compact and should be interesting to compare against my 365nm drop-in. Great to have around when I don’t feel like carrying the bulk of my nicer UV light. It’s the size of an Olight S10, which is like a third as large as the L2m I use for full-power UV purposes.

Can you describe the amount of visible blue light compared with your others?
How well would you say it works with 1 × 18650?
Thanks

My SF L2m w/ KD 365nm drop-in is by far the best UV light I’ve tried. It has only a small amount of visible light and it makes pretty much everything glow if it’s capable of glowing at all. However, it’s significantly dimmer on 1x18650 than it is on 2x18350. On one cell it’s still better than my others, but not by such a wide margin.

The new 380nm light has been a bit disappointing. It’ll light up bleached paper but not much else.

In any case, I don’t have any good retail blacklights to test against, like the Nitecore CU6. So, I don’t know how those compare.

Hmm, the CUXP2 from Int'l Outdoor has a UV option that could be interesting.

Anyone planning to try it out?

specs say 400nm

Anyone splurged on this Ultrafire C3 version from KD yet?
http://kaidomain.com/product/details.S023295

If it is as a good as the P60, that would be great as it runs 14500’s.

How much visible light? Purple or white-ish?

The visible light is more white-ish, and there’s a fair amount of it. I’ll have to get pictures later though.

Any one compared the Kaidomain P60 (Approx $16), the Custom Lites P60 (LED Engin LED used, $68) and the Nitecore CU6 (Approx $100) as far as how they do for UV use? All claim to be 365nm UV output lights.

The Custom Lites P60 is 4.2V to 8.4v single mode, the Kaidomain is 3 to 18V claimed and I presume single mode while the Nitecore CU6 is UV, White and low level Red, green and blue outputs with multiple output levels for the white and UV lights.

I have read a lot of this thread but not all so sorry if i missed any comparisons. I note lots of favorable posts about the Kaidomain drop in and some positives about the Nitecore. One positive report on the Custom Lites P60 too. Are these the best 365nm LED UV options out there?

This UV LED is supposed to be one of the best.

Richwouldnt, I don’t think they’ve been directly compared, but I did at least volunteer to review the CU6 and compare it to other lights a while back. I didn’t get approved though.

As for the KD drop-in vs CU6, the CU6 is spec’d at 3W of power in UV mode, while the KD drop-in runs either lower or higher depending on the number of cells used. I got it running as high as 5W or as low as 1.5W, from what I recall. 600mA at 8.4V is what mine does on two cells.

From the sound of things, either of the LEDs djozz reviewed recently would probably out-perform both the CU6 and the KD drop-in:

I’m kind of tempted to make a 1x16340 UV light with a really nice Ledengin XP-G sized emitter… but it’s a very very low priority since this P60 works more than well enough for my purposes.

Just an FYI LEDENGIN doesn’t have any XP size emitters. LZ1’s are 4.4x4.4mm (arond XM size) but they do NOT use XM pad’s and can’t be used in XM MCPCB’s except for a modded xml color sinkpad.

http://www.ledengin.com/files/products/LZ1/LZ1-00UV00.pdf

They dont have any DTP boards available for LZ1 or LZ4’s and the LZC’s there are sinkPAD’s for arnt really usable in flashlight’s.

Side note on the LEGENGIN emitters, I’ve got a deep red LZ4 on order and a nice host and driver for it (~10vF), just have to find a reflector, I’ve been very impressed with their emitters since first hearing about them a few months ago from Mattaus.

Oh, okay. I skimmed quickly and must have gotten two bits of info mixed up. I’ll be sure to check in more detail if I ever decide to do the project.