One of my co-workers that I’ve converted loves zoomies. He’s looking to step up his game and get a more powerful zoomie. Currently has Sipik SK68 and SK98. What should be the next one for him to get and is there an ultimate zoomie?
Update with summary from posts below and some other searching:
Very high output, compact and small enough to fit in your pocket. Nicely made, even has good tint.
Worth noting, larger LED’s (XM-L or XM-L2) won’t throw as well as smaller LED’s, but offer more lumens. This means on flood they are brighter, but won’t light things up as well at a distance.
The SK68’s tend to use an old XR-E emitter, it’s tiny and not many lumens, but throws light very well.
Out of my zoomy collection, this is along with the Zeusray linked above, is my favourite:
The best zoomie in terms of throw may be the Uniquefire UF1405, but I doubt that you want to go that big. The Jax Z1 is very polular and of awesome build quality and a bit smaller. But any XM-L(2) zoomie improves tremendously when a dedomed XP-G2 on a DTP copper board is swapped in and the driver upgraded to 3.5A. So you need to specify things here, must it be a small one etc.
I think for me the best overall zoomie is still the Uniquefire UF-T20, provided that it is modded with a dedomed XP-G2 at 3-3.5A.
If the zoomie has to be smaller, I like the Cofly KX-A036 the best: good quality, cheap, very moddable and nicer than the Zeusray a lot of people are raving about.
For an AA zoomie I was very pleased with the Cofly KX-H10, better performance and quality than the other AA zoomies around (and I like the coloured plastic window :-) ).
From what I hear, the expensive zoomies do not perform much better than the cheap ones.
Good point. I intended to leave the criteria vague as I just don’t see many zoomies past the $20 range, other than the LEDLensers. I’m personally a lumen whore, so I don’t see many multi emitter zoomies other than the $500+ LedLenser ones, like the X21R.2.
Are there other multi-emitter zoomies?
Barring multi emitters, are some zoomies significantly better throwers than others? I know the onestopthrowshop has a SmallSun ZY-C10 that they sometimes sell rated at 107Kcd. Has any one put together a table of aspherics and their lux values?
Trouble is modded lights can be vastly different to stick lights.
A good zoomy can have the ability to throw similar to a reflector of equal size. But without the spill beam.
Throw really comes down to the emitter size and its surface brightness. This means lower lumen less like the xp-e often work well for throw. But you won’t get the same level of output in foods compared to an xm-l.
I have a few values that give an idea. These are the maximum lux-values that I have obtained, with dedomed XP-G2 on copper at 3-3.5A (the sk68clone a dedomed XP-E2 at 2.2A):
As you can see the lux-values go up quite lineair with the surface area of the lens, as predicted by theory. You can do fancy expensive things with wavien collars to get more, I do not have those.
The driver has a second ouput (but not marked in this) which has a good output, the main down side is a hollow pill, trying to get a mate to make me a middle for the pill
I just moved output over and swapped in a XP-L on noctigon (21mm) and it easily has more output and a smaller hotspot square than the Zuesray I would say at least 25-30% more lumens.
It also takes a 26650 battery and only costs £5.22
Yeah, he only uses protected 18650s from reputable vendors and charges them on his desk while he’s working so he can keep an eye on them. Never drains them to cut off.
Of large ones, I like the insides of the Uniquefire UF-T20 and the outside of the Yezl t9. The Uniquefire UF-T20 is well made with a nice short focal length glass lens, XM-L2, etc. but it is pug ugly. I like lights made by soldering together pieces of copper pipe, but I don’t like an NC machined shape to look like it was patched together from plumbing surplus. It feels bad in the hand too.
The Yezl is my most beautiful light, with a smooth elegant unusual shape and fine detail, but both the fancy drivers quit the first week, and the thin long focal lens is only good at extreme throw and extreme flood. With replaced drivers and lenses they are my best lights.
In a smaller size, it is the SK-58, though most others have their niches. The TrustFire Z8 has lovely stainless steel threads and enough aluminum for cooling. I like an UltraOK SK-68 for more than two amps, because of the cooling. The Coast HP1 and others of its type have high optical efficiency even in throw mode, unlike simple converging lens zoomies.
I agree about the Zeusray for intermediate size. But there are other good lights in its class, such as the SK-73.
The JAX Z1 looks good, except for price and what looks like a thin long focal length lens that will give an unnecessarily small spot with little improvement in throw.
The UniqueFire UF-1405 looks like it would work well, but is ugly and sharp cornered, like the UF T20.
