Uniquefire UF-1405 - A worthy zoomy?

Is your modified 1405 using the stock driver?

Your 1405 situation sounds like a short-circuit to me - a short-circuit which involves two batteries in series, definitely not fun at all. My advice to you is make sure your batteries are still healthy before you use them again, check if they still can be charged without overheating, and see if the batteries still can hold the charge for more then 24 hours without significant drop of resting voltage.

I stacked one R100 resistor on the stock driver and it has killed two of my emitters in a split second due to excessive output voltage - something is not right after the resistor was added. Now I label the stock driver as scrapped part so that I won’t forget and reuse it again. Everyone should be reminded that the stock driver of 1405 is not good for high current application. ohaya and wight have done some test and analysis this thread and it is found not suitable for current boosting. I know some members may have good result with the stock driver anyway but I think there is still certain risk associated with it. And I don’t think LD-4B is good for current boosting either.

To put it simple, we don’t have a reliable and high-current capable 17mm buck driver yet.

26650 has the same voltage as the 18650 (neglect the different chemistry), so yeah you can use two 26650’s with the LD-4B driver without any issue, given that your LD-4B is functioning properly of course. By adding another extension does that mean you will use three batteries? So the input voltage will be 12.6V? If that is the case I believe this is still falling within the specification of the LD-4B thus acceptable, but I have not tried and confirmed this yet so just take my words as a grain of salt.

Messing with lithium batteries especially in series could be a dangerous thing, please be careful with everything you do.

I think it is the stock driver, its the flashlight from here: [SOLD] UniqueFire UF-1405 >400kcd

Ran it less then a minute when it started smoking. Batteries used were 2 almost brand new 18650 EBL 2600 Mah.

Here’s more pictures, maybe someone can tell me what happened from these:

I tested the batteries, one is fine at 4.19 volts, the other one that was in the front is showing 0.0 volts.

Beware of that front battery at .00Volts CK for a Short from battery case battery Tube.

:open_mouth: I haven’t got a clue of how that happened but I assure you that the light was tested before and after the mods.

After a minute it did get hot and I’m guessing that the solder could have reflowed and bridged.

lawenforcementguy, are the batteries protected or unprotected? If the one showing 0.0V is protected battery then maybe it is just the protection circuit failed, or need to be reset; But if it is unprotected battery then I’m afraid 0.0V means the battery is gone.

Chazzy, wow you have boosted it to 3.6A! that’s too high for this driver and I guess this is exactly what causes this to happen? My stock driver already failed at 2.20A measured at tail (only one extra R100 was addded).

Yeah they were unprotected, but for sure the next ones will be protected! Taught me a lesson for sure. Chazzy, no worries I knew it was a gamble anytime to buy modified stuff I sure ain’t blaming you. I am looking forward to doing the new driver myself and learning more.

Since you want to keep it running with two batteries I think LD-4B is the only choice at the moment. If you don’t stack resistor on the LD-4B the output current is about 2.2-2.4A to the LED (particularly from IOS). If you use dedomed XP-G2 you will still see fairly good throw running it at 2.4A, probably around 250kcd and you have the good High-Med-Lo modes.

And again stacking resistors on the LD-4B is not advisable. We just got to be a bit conservative with this driver for better reliability especially you will use it on your duty.

I have tried to fix the Driver

as long as i do big numbers of laptop pulls and i was keeping those battery circuit boards for something like that

i have tried 3 components that have the same shape of the fried one on my driver

the 1st one worked but i was getting only one mod and it was very low

the second one gave me the whole five mods but the high mod was only 600ma

With the third one i have decided to replace the working component on the left to replace the damaged one on the right, and used the new one from the battery circuit on the left just in case and then hooolaaaa the driver back in line and working as nothing happened to it H)

ofc i was just lucky iam not an electronics expert or anything it is just luck 8)

Any way I have Fixed the driver :smiley:

You're a true component magician!, who knows how many types components come in that package?.... and you found one that does the job!

Great modding!

Well I got the LD-4B driver for mine and put it in the De-domed one.

This pic doesnt do it justice, its noticeably brighter in the circle then the stock one.

LD-4b on right dedomed, stock 1405 on left.

Cant wait to test the throw out tonight at work when im doing the perimeter security. Thanks for the heads on up on this driver.

Nice. What LED are you using now?

hi, could you suggest me a new driver to mod my unit? i would push higher amps and lumens from the original xm-l2 led.

but… i only find driver that does require 1lithium battery. i need one that can push over 4amps and accept 2s battery configuration

AFAIK there is no any good 17mm buck driver that can handle high current (>4A) at the moment.

I use the LD-4B in my 1405 with an added R120, I did not measure the output current but I got 2.4A at tail. Its light output is good but I personally won’t recommend anyone to go high current with this LD-4B because high current is really pushing its limit. After the resistor-mod the driver mode changing behaves strangely and and the light cannot be operated for more than 3 minutes on high mode otherwise the driver will be overheated. In short it is not really a good setup but I can’t find anything else better right now.

The focal length looks very short from the pictures, I thought longer focal lengths are better for throw. Anyone knows what is the focal length of the lens?

I’ve never measured the focal length of it, but focal length has nothing to do with throw. The lens diameter is what matters.

I found on this spanish speaking thread that the difference in length between flood and zoom is 2.5cm, so I assume the focal length must be around 25mm.

Diameter definitely plays a role but I thought that the focal length affects the divergence angle which would affect throw.

No, the focal length will not influence the throw at all. The difference in focal length only determines the amount of lumens loss.

Let’s assume there are two pieces of aspherical lens, both having the same diameter (say 50mm), same build quality but come with different focal length:
The one with shorter focal length will ‘collect’ more light emitted from the LED, hence lower lumens loss and the projected die shape will be bigger;
The one with longer focal length will ‘collect’ less light emitted from the LED, therefore higher lumens loss and the projected die shape will be smaller.

But if you measure the candela (throw) of both cases they will be the same.

The idea of pre-collimation lens is also the same.

You are right about the example. The only way to benefit from a longer focal length is to also increase the lens diameter so that you are collecting the same amount of light but with a reduced projected die shape which would give more throw. I never heard about pre-collimation lenses, is there a good website with more information that you would recommend reading?

Hmm… I can’t think of any good source to read about the collimation things at the moment. My very limited knowledge was gained from reading different threads and discussions here in BLF and playing around with different sizes of lens.

This thread has some photos and illustrations constructed by the OP. Maybe you can visualize something from there?
Dr. Jones’s thread is less related to your question but more about the dedome phenomenon. Anyway it is still a good read though. It is very informative.

Maybe other members can chime in and help. :slight_smile:

Hi friend,

I will give an example of different 50mm lenses (left tablo A9 right Dereelight Nightmaster) and my observations on them:

- They both have same die projection, but left lenses has cleaner die image

- Right lenses have about 15% more throw but they also have much less flood when zoomed out than left lens

Left lenses: clear die projection, and very good flood mode

Right lenses: fuzzier die projection but more throw, and very weak flood mode

Mystery to solve why left lenses have less throw than Right one?

Same thing happens with goread a2 50mm lenses which are even lower profile than left(tiablo) lenses on picture, and goread lenses give excellent die projection, even better flood mode but still much less throw then right lenses on picture, and now less throw than left(tiablo)lenses.

So conclusion here from my redneck testing method(all lenses tested in same host but I had to use different distances from emitter) is that lenses with lower profile, or lower height will have less throw but clearer die projection and the better flood mode than the one with longer profile.

Dereelight lenses beat all mention lenses of same diameter but with terrible flood mode comparing to other ones.

I want to say Bibihang that candela difference of right lenses is 15% more throw on left(tiablo) lenses and 25% more throw on goread a2 lenses(short profile 50mm lens) so candela difference is very visible and they don't have same measurements as they supposed to have by your theory