Mine arrived today. I’d say it’s not bad for the money (as a cheap host)
Pros:
-Nice chunky body and love the plentiful heatsink fins. This could definitely be a nice little hotrod light.
-Reflector & lens nice and clean. Came with a protective plastic sheet over the glass which is nice.
-Decent external condition, some cloudy anodizing on the head and a few dings on the aluminium bezel.
-I like the red tailcap boot. Something a little different
Cons:
-Mushy crappy tailcap switch
-XM-L T6 on body and XML inside. Pretty blue, maybe a 1C. Might be ok once I’ve fixed that crappy centering ring and brought things into better focus.
-Very tight driver retainer. Tweezers where a complete no go here, had to break out the needle nose pliers to break the seal.
-Craptastic driver, seems to do Med, Med, Slightly-lower-Med, Flashy, SOS. So it’s really only fit for the bin.
-Fairly loose tailcap threads as others have said. But the anodized threads are pretty clean and the O-ring is correctly sized so it makes a better impression once you start to tighten it down. Should be ok if you are careful not to cross thread it.
Mine had an okay tint, but I don’t have many lights to compare it against. I’ll fix the centering ring and I’ll figure out if it has a green tint. Comparing it against a nichia 219A tells me that it is a CW LED with a bit of green from the GITD O ring. The surface of the light isn’t aggressive enough for my liking, it make it hard to push the tail cap switch.
Mine also arrived today, also with a gen 1 XM-L. However, I don’t care much about the emitter because the battery tube is going straight to my DST anyways. The giant “XML - T6” on the side is annoying though, is there any way to get that off?
Mmm, lottery… I ordered 2 and got both the old XM-L and an XM-L2. In my case, the XM-L2 is slightly warmer tint, but the older isn’t too awful.
As noted by others, there was absolutely no thermal compound under the emitter. Since I had it apart, I killed the ‘next mode memory’ by stacking a resistor on the capacitor, so less chance of blinky mode. The centering ring seemed to come up high around the emitter, so I swapped it for these: https://www.fasttech.com/products/0/10001923/1182004-insulation-gaskets-for-cree-xm-l-t6-led-emitters-1 and it seemed to take the hard edge off the hotspot. Another o-ring (~37mm) between the reflector and the glass tightened things up again.
I swapped wires to 22AWG ,braided springs , added thermal paste to star and moved LED output to alternate output, and after that it starts on high every time. I never tested while stock just wondering why mine now hasn’t got next mode memory?
I suppose what usually happens is that, as production goes on, the factory speeds up the line and reduces staff to cut costs. The XM-Ls instead of XM-L2s sounds like the store or factory sorted out the best ones to sell first.
I got mine 2 weeks ago, just got around to it. It has a nice bright beam, nice tint, not too ringy, but a horrible mushy clicky. I am not a “modder”, but am curious about the two below questions:
Is there a clicky switch I can simply swap out
There is a sleeve for 3 AA batteries, but none for the 18650. The battery rattles a bit with a single 18650. Any fixes to this?
1. Yes, but I’m not sure what size you’ll need for this particular light (maybe someone else can chime in)
2. Mine came with a nice 18650 sleeve, but lots of people use thin pvc, or cardboard, or any number of things.
Curious on the shipping time to the U.S. for those that have ordered. Mine shipped out on the 13th of this month so it hasn’t been quite two weeks yet. What are folks seeing for their orders?
I shouldn’t presume to speak for OL, but here goes:
- resistor removal brings the unit from 5 modes to 4
- positive move means more current (so brighter)
- capacitor mod means that the light starts on high every time, so you don’t end up accidentally blinking
- locating rings on stock are a little high around the emitter, so the hotspot had a hard cutoff (and maybe loss of light)
- noctigons are way better for heat transfer than stock stars
- 22g wires have less resistance (so brighter) than the stock wires
- copper braid on springs = brighter
grease good
On another note, I know for a fact that OL put thermal grease of some description under the star. If you did absolutely nothing else, this one mod is a must. Otherwise, you run the risk of cooking the emitter and experiencing premature led death.
People (including me) have gotten the old xm-l instead of the newer xm-l2 in these lights. If you have the old one, take it up with GB customer support. My case isn’t totally resolved yet, but signs point to positive.
Presume away, I didn’t even see that post. What you said is correct. Thermal paste is needed for all of them, as none of them have any. I use Arctic Alumina, but Fujik or others will work. Any paste for CPUs will work.
