Uniquefire UF-1405 - A worthy zoomy?

Bibihang, not sure but I think that if the die size is the same (1x1mm), the projected image will be also the same size.
If the 90Âș is hitting more light, would’nt be brighter so throwing further?

Man forget about XRE emitters. We all tried that in various configurations with dome or without so why spend so much words on explaining. Try and you'll see that it is junk compering to new line of XP emitters.

Xp-l emitters are just the same as xm-l (die size), so I think that are no competitor throw wise. Maybe correct for xr-e but not for xp-e2.

:) I meant about XP-G2 and XP-E2 but even XP-L will out throw XRE when properly driven.

I have never compared the 90Âș emitter with the 110Âș emitter side by side, but based on my understanding the 90Âș emitter won’t throw any further given everything else the same.

Imagine this, if you put a pre-collimator lens in your aspherical flashlight the pre-collimator lens will help to gather more light emitted from your LED hitting the main aspherical lens, right? What you see as the result is the projected die image is bigger with pre-collimator lens, however the measured candela is actually still the same compare to removing the pre-collimator lens. I think this concept works the same on different LED emitting angle but I hope Dr. Jones or djozz can chime in and explain further on this.

I received mine in yesterday. I ordered it in Alibaba and apparently the seller is Uniquefire OEM. $38 shipped with UPS and arrived here in one week, quite good.

Now look at some photos of it.


Surprisingly it comes with XM-L2. :slight_smile: I thought it is first generation XM-L as we see in FT, BG and GB.


It has one o-ring at the tail, but with the additional groove maybe adding another o-ring in there is possible.


The switch is secured with retaining ring.


Tailcap disassembled.


I have seen other members posted their switch, but mine looks different. It is more like a “standard” switch with 20mm PCB board.


From the two photos above I think I can swap it with the Omten switch sold in IOS, or maybe I will even consider to buy the forward clicky switch .

One problem with the light though. Sometimes the light would turn off by itself especially when moving around. I suspect that there is poor contact somewhere, or maybe the tailcap spring is not long enough to give enough pressure, not sure about this. Other members said the switch is nothing but crap, however my switch is seemingly different so I am not sure what exactly is the rootcause, have to play around with it more to find out.

Other notes with my OEM unit:

  1. The seller gives me the option whether I want to have the “Uniquefire” wording on it, and I chose no.
  2. The bezel of my unit doesn’t have through-holes around as you can see in the photo above.
  3. The seller also offers me the LED options: Cool white, red or green; And the driver mode options: 1 mode, 3 modes or 5 modes. Mine comes with CW and 5 modes, gotta swap the driver into LD-40 later anyway.
  4. The stock lens is made of glass and pretty good. The diameter and focal point is exactly the same with my DX 66mm aspherical lens. I put my DX lens inside and the projected die shape and the “ring” around are exactly the same.

That’s all for my impressions. It is not perfect but fairly good for the price. I have not fully disassembled it yet and my multimeter is not with me at the moment so no current reading was taken. The seller is very responsive and they even have Skype account.

With a narrower emission angle, more of the light will hit the aspheric lens and the image of the die, and thus the throw, should be higher. I don’t think the die image changes in width.

To increase the width of the die image, use a shorter focal length lens (thicker lens).

wow that emitter is off center!
looks like an 18650 tube.is it that big headed?

I assume you are talking about my light?

Actually the LED is perfectly centered with the screw-in centering piece, which is a really good approach (JAX Z1 has this too). T20 doesn’t have the centering piece to ensure the LED is centered and holding the emitter down.

Nope, it is 26650 tube, but 18650 spacer is provided.

The lens is 66mm in diameter including the lip. This is seriously a budget big aspherical lens flashlight I have never seen before.

got mine today (from GB)
feels nice!

but the O-Ring was dry as hell - i could hardly zoom in/out
so i removed the Lens and pill (worked with 2 fingers since that parts where NOT tight)
put some silicone spray (medical grade :D) on the rubber -> works smooth now 8)

55k Kd on Stock is great - lets see how far i can improve it without buying new parts :wink:

Hello,

i have been following this thread for some time now.

i recently bought this light because i like the switch on the tube(like the crelant)
i is also one of the heavier budget lights with a really solid head.

ebay flashlight

the pill was hollow so i filled it with solid copper, changed the driver to 8x7135 and changed the led to xp-g2 dedomed on copper.
it throws like hell but i do not like the plastic lense.

my question: will the uf-1405 , when modded properly, throw a lot further because it has a bigger lense(66mm versus 30mm)?

the problem is i can not get any good glass lenses which are approx 38mm(30+ rim)
i bought some but they are very distorted

thanks and please note i do not want to hijack this thread but need some info to decide i need the uf-1405 or not.

Hi Bibihang, you are lucky, they changed the switch and the tailcap design for the better. With that big switch I might not be bothered changing it out for an Omten, it looks as if everything is fine already :-)

.....mod continued from post #189, It is almost finished now.

I have new springs now, so I modded the modded switch with a new (phosfor-bronze ) spring and even copper-braided it so as to make the use of phosfor-bronze totally unneccessary :

I am out of cool white XM-L2's (FTM,never had many), let go the best bins, so I wanted to dedome the stock XM-L2 of the UF-1405, but I ruined it by running it direct drive on its stock alu board :-( . I ordered some new ones (T6 bins from Fasttech) but in the meantime I really wanted to see what this modded light does. I had a dedomed XM-L2 T6 3C that was used in a number of tests already and has a darker spot in the die. I reflowed it on a 16mm Noctigon and went ahead with that, heavy stiff wiring and a NANJG92 DD board (derived from Qlite, 3mode l-m-h, I didn't bother with the Kapton tape masking this time). I used a brass pillar on the driver to adjust for the ideal battery space (could have chopped that few mm extra off the battery tube ;-) ). Messy soldering to the pill but I don't care. Mod done for now!

I tested it next to my Uniquefire UF-1406 mod (dedomed XP-G2, direct drive with NANJG92 driver). Oh yes, it is clearly brighter! (picture well underexposed to show the brightness difference).Notice the darker spot, it is clearer in reality :-)

It so happens that the hotspot of a dedomed XP-G2 in the UF-1406 is almost exactly the size of the hotspot of a dedomed XM-L2 in the UF-1405.

I could not easily measure the total light output of the light because the head is a fair bit wider than the opening of my integrating sphere, but theoretically I'd say 800 lumen or so zoomed out, 500 zoomed in. The tail current (bypassing the switch) was measured at 5.4A on a Keeppower IMR 4200mAh. That should have been a bit more, one reason could be that of the banana-busses of my DMM is a bit wacky (I did use massive copper leads btw). Or else something else is wrong .

I did measure the throw at high, at 5.00 meter, after 30 seconds, with a Mobilux class A luxmeter, the light does 380kcd. Mind this is with a beaten-up 3C tinted led. So I guess it will be well over 400kcd with a good emitter, as I hoped this flashlight would be capable of with a dedomed XM-L2 . With a dedomed XP-G2, throw will likely go over 500kcd. I will swap the led when the new XM-L2's arrive and measure the throw again.

So is this a nice handy flashlight or just a freak mod? It is way heavier than the UF-1406, and I think I like that smaller light (with still an admirable 235kcd throw) better, this UF-1405, even when made a shorty, is a bit too hefty for my taste. But I may totally change my mind when I take it out of the city for the first time and do some 1+ km search-beaming in the countryside .

^ Sweet mod. Looking foward to hearing you thoughts once you have your emitter of preference for this light in this light.

Djozz: Not only is he a talented modder and measurer/killer of emitters far and wide, he is also an accomplished snake charmer.

Great output you got there djozz. 380kcd is already impressive considering you are using XM-L2 T6 3C, not even the highest output bin among the XM-L2. I can’t wait for the result when you swap it into dedomed XP-G2, as you said it might be able to break the 500kcd barrier!

My plan was to end up with a dedomed XM-L2 (preferrably a U2 or U3 bin, but there are problems with those at high currents ), but you are right, I should try the dedomed XP-G2 too. Moreover, I do have a XP-G2 at the moment and no XM-L2. Perhaps tonight...

:bigsmile:

Actually I made an effort to make the coil very neat so that upon compressing the spring the coils fold neatly inside each other, to prevent breakage of the copperbraid over time.

Impressive results from a budget light. If I can notice clarity of the glass is very good with clear die projection. This flashlights are obviously meant to be main rivals for Xsearcher and Nightmaster. They are bit longer and fatter but it looks like they share same lenses.

I really hate Uniquefire company but copy-paste method they use in their builds sometimes even outperforms original copied lights.

So I really hope this will compel brand light manufacturers on more work and more innovative creations that will not be copied easily if they want to stay alive among all budget lights on the market :)

Who will ever buy Wolf Eyes, Tiablo, Crelant or Dereelight if they can buy "Uniquefire ultra far 1000m beam" zoomie. :)

So if any of this manufacturers reads this thread they should be worried... Worried a lot...

The problem for high end manufacturers is that thrower flashlight building is no rocket science. The main ingredients are a big aspheric lens and a convenient housing, and that is what Uniquefire delivers for cheap (they now even improved the main drawback of this light: the switch, see bibihang's post). All other parts (improved driver/switch/led) are readily available for modders. And what the high end manufacturers fail to do is deliver their thrower flashlight with full capacity in stock form, you need to mod your Wolf Eyes as well to get the best out of it: lower the resistance, hotrod the driver, dedome the led, perhaps even add a wavien collar.

Yes I agree,

What is the point of factory brand light worth 200$ when some kid in garage can make light with better performance for 30$ :)

Maybe this competition among them will led to some new inventions (new focusing system or better lens, factory de-domed emitter specially made for them, their versions of collars, maybe they will even start to pot drivers etc.).

I think Uniquefire will take biggest part of cake in this field of flashlights and other sellers should not just easily watch that. They should sit to their drawing boards and find a way to protect themselves.

I have been also thinking recently about lenses. AR coating which would be in/or on the lenses. AR coating that would allow reflecting and light passing function with wavien collar effect. I think it is not impossible.