Supfire A6-T6, nano-review

Supfire A6-T6, purchased from farfarled (DHgate store, no Paypal!), payed $17.92. type: 1x18650 battery, XM-L led, smooth reflector, tail clicky.

It is of similar quality as the Convoys and Eagle Eye's, but this model is a bit different, a bit wider head and tail compared to the tube-style lights. The finish is great, everything fits well and comes apart easily, there's no unpleasant surprises like hollow pills and such, there's a good heat path from led to pill to body, the body has enough meat in the right places that the heat can spread well, without the head being too fat the reflector throws noticably better than the tube style lights, with a distinct hotspot, the switch is not too tiny (unbranded), the driver is 17mm, modes:high,mid,low,strobe,SOS (a familiar driver, same as in the Eagle Eye flashlights: high PWM, good mode spacing), led is on 16mm board, fujik-glued to the pill (there's room for a 19mm board, but the wire-holes are too far towards the middle, you need to drill new ones), stock the OTF-output is 600 lumens.

I'd say it has everything to easily make a fine pocket rocket of it, and that is my plan with one of them. I am considering to make a quad light of another one, it fits the 4x XP Carclo optic nicely

Exploded view:

other arrangement of the parts:

some dimensions:

standard C8-pill does not fit

Thanks for posting the innards…
Until now I thought this light was dark grey, just checked the dhgate offer and it looks different for me.

Thanks for the review/teardown. :)

Looks excellent, ordered, along with this zoomie (dhgate-zoomable-XM-L2) and the C8(dhgate-supfire-c8). The zoomie looks like a deal for $12 with an XM-L2, and hopefully SupFire quality.

The pill in this A6 looks like the L6 pill - wonder if it is. The L6 pill is ~26.9 mm wide at the top, ~22.6 mm on the threads, ~18.4 mm height. If it does match, then it should be the so-called standard C8 pill.

Thats a substantial opening in that reflector?

Thanks for the review djozz.

Edit: Deleted

It is dark grey, my phone camera apparently finds grey boring and makes it brown (at any white balance setting).

I will post a list of dimensions tonight as well.

added some dimensions in the OP, standard C8 pill does not fit, for who cares: MT-G2-dome fits very nicely in the reflector hole :-) (but i would not count on a nice beam)

Very nice! Give us a update you drop in the quad star and Carclo, how much current does the stock driver push, could you bump it up with a mod?

Nice threaded reflector too…good review…thanks!

I will give an update on the quad mod, it will have to wait though, another project comes first. The current, wait, a couple of minutes....

there you go, tail current bypassing switch, on high, on a semi-loaded NCR18650PF:

I measured lumens a bit more thorough, now it is 568 on high, 318 on med, 43 on low. Hmm, not that great mode spacing after all...

There's the two r120 resistors that are in series with the two FETS, those can be lowered. But too low, or shorting them will cause the modes go funny or when shorted vanish: just high at 4.5 A. (ledsmoke and I did some attempts on EagleEye lights)

I like the look of this light cause it reminds me of my old quark, would it be possible to get a shot standing next to a tube style light (like the convoy S series) so I can get an idea how much wider it is at the head & tail?

Does the light fit in a standard holster for an S series?

I do not own any Convoy holsters, but here it is next to a Convoy S5 and a Eagle Eye X2 (the S5 is the slimmest Convoy tubestyle light).

I did a one-evening-mod on my Supfire A6-T6 because I want to take it out camping the day after tomorrow (the quad mod I will do on my second unit, it will take more than one evening)

The fastest way to make a FET-driver for it was to turn a qlite into a 'NANJG92', comfy-style ! I followed The Great Tutorial to the letter and it did of course not come out as neat as comfychair's , but it works like a charm:

I changed the led to a XM-L2 6A1 80CRI on a 16mm Noctigon. I put a thick stiff o-ring between the reflector and the ledboard-retaining-piece-of-plastic to have the reflector push the board onto the pill (the original board was not clamped down but glued to the pill, this one only has arctic silver 5). I braided the tailspring. Now I have 4 amps (tail measurement without tailcap/switch), and 37-55-320-970 lumen in beautiful 3700K high CRI ! (on a NCR18650PF battery).

Man I want one of these, I was PM’ing with that seller that posted the video of the light in the 18650 section, he’s got them for $17 and I want one so bad but I just ordered my GAW lights and don’t have money for another light right now. :frowning:

I would need to find a driver (most likely MAKE a driver) but it’s be awesome as a RGBW light with a quad in it.

The UniqueFire C108S I have match's up to this pretty well in size - head diam is an exact match and the Carlco quad optic with the quad board fits. I've been taking some measurements. The C108S is maybe not as robust as the A6 - pill is smaller, takes a 16mm star, but does have a brass ring in the alum pill for soldering the driver while the A6 has the brass screw-in retaining ring. The brass solder ring seems like it's a thing of the past - I only see it in my older lights.

Missed this post. Yes it is the exact same form factor, nice that there's another one around. I like the looks of the Supfire best, but there will be some who will prefer the Uniquefire :-)

I have put yet another driver into the Supfire A6-T6. I had done a bench test of led4power's new driver, and I have put it into this Supfire now. It has cost me a bit of the maximum output, but the lower modes are better and more efficient. On a NCR18650PF, current is now 0.02 0.07 1.07 3.9 ampere, output is now 5 20 290 760 lumen. efficiency at max (3.9A) is 52 lm/W, on med (1.07A) it is 67lm/W, on low 70lm/W. I like that!

Now, there was some discussion, I think it was in the X6-thread, on low modes being useless in a thrower; well, this flashlight is not a real thrower, but has a fairly 'throwy' hotspot, and I can state here that the lowest 20mA/5lumen mode works extremely well for pathfinding, enough light in the spot for looking ahead where you are going, without destroying night vision much. And 140+ hours of runtime of course .

djozz - so do you think your 2nd A6-T6 is a replica or fake? Heard from a China source there might be replica A6-T6's around...

Here's your thread on it: https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/27907

Mine appears to be different so maybe…

My pill has two round divots to twist it out while djozzs has a two cavities that you can see extend down the sides of the pill. Mine do not.

Driver (excuse the phone pic …and shake)

It appears black, its not, its very bronzey grey. Almost a shade of desert camo if that makes sense. The o rings are brownish, not red, same as found on my XinTD X3 purchased from the recent GB.