Uniquefire UF-1405 - A worthy zoomy?

LED Flashlights – General Info 26650 Flashlights
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.....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 .

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^ 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.

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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!

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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...

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: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.

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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...

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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.

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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.

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This Uniquefire 1405 can be acquired at $38, and with all the additional modding parts like LED, Noctigon and driver you will have a 1km+ thrower at under $50.

I don’t know why it took those budget light manufacturers so many years to finally come out a big aspherical lens flashlight like this.

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Just measured my stock 1405 lux number a moment ago, it is 58kcd measured at 4.5m.

Measured current draw at tail is 0.90A, didn’t measure the LED current though.

481m of throw for a $38 stock light, I think it is not too bad even if you don’t want to mod it.

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Went through an unpleasant modding process last night. :frowning:

Killed four LEDs including my one and only XP-E2 R4 1C when attempted to mod this light. Ended up with stock driver + dedomed XM-L2 U2 1A. Throw = 145kcd.

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What went wrong?

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When I took out my dedomed XP-E2 from gasoline and clean it with distilled water it didn’t light up. When I inspected it I found its bond wires were broken.

The stock XM-L2 was destroyed when I tried to take out the stock aluminium board, which adhered super-tight on the pill. A lot of heat and brute force was used and the aluminium board finally came out but the XM-L2 was damaged.

As for the other two emitters they were killed by the LD-40 driver by excessive voltage. I am not sure if it is really the LD-40 or it was something shorted inside the pill when assembled. Have to risk another XM-L to do the test again when I go home later.

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thanks!

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That is a bad streak you are having there. I too killed many leds lately while before I was very lucky with that for a long time.

The ledboard of my UF-1405 was also very tight glued, I got it out (without heat) approaching it via the driver cavity, I stuck a small screwdriver (as tilted as the cavity allowed) through the wire hole and used it as a lever. and even that required quite some brute force. BTW, I had managed to kill the stock XM-L2 already by that time by trying out the DD-FET driver on it while still on the alu-board (they do not like that for long...)

I'm jealous of your dedomed U2 1A though, that is what I want to end up with in this light.

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And I am jealous of your shorty 1405. :smiley: I can access to my university workshop equipments to cut down the tube but I don’t know how to connect them back later.

Yeah, and the strangest part to me is how could I fail to dedome the XP-E2? I never had a single problem by dedoming a lot of XM-L2, is XP-E2 really that fragile? :expressionless:

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The XP-E2 is not more fragile than XP-G2 or XM-L2. They all share the same size bond wires and the lay-out of the emitter is the same. I have dedomed several XP-E2's without problem (I use the hot method, but that should not matter).

I'm think you are being a bit unlucky here.

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I did not test the LD-40 tonight, because some ideas came into my mind.

I used a 26650 spacer and modified it into a “dummy cell”, then using a 12*7135 Nanjg 105C in my 1405. Now it is a single 18650 flashlight and it draws 4.10A with freshly charged INR 20R and I got 250kcd. It still does look like a 2 x 18650 light though. :bigsmile:

It is begging for dedomed XP-G2 S2, heavy gauge wires and direct-drive. :stuck_out_tongue:

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how far can i go with stock LED on ALU ?

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I tortured the stock board+led in place (so with the original thick layer of white stuff thermal glue) with a NANJG92 DD driver for short bursts at a time, I did not measure the current but later with a XM-L2 on a Noctigon it was 5.5A. When I dedomed the stock led it showed burnt silicon around the bond wires, that is when I decided not to use it. It did light up alright with my led-tester (50mA).