Received this light on Friday; I think itās worth $4.99, but it did not fail to meet my expectationsā¦ Iāve never had a SK98 before, so:
(Iām at a site thatās blocking photo-sharing sites today, so no pics)
Hollow Pill? Check! (Only itās not bad; it still has a wide/thick base for the emitter to rest on. No thermal compound though.)
LB-tastic cool blue emitter? CHECK! (Different than the other LB emitters Iāve seen; this was an obvious XM-L clone, but obviously not original Cree. All the hallmarks: white substrate, smooth green surface, smaller die size, but unlike my other LB XM-clones, this had phosphor āoversprayā extending off the sides of the die under the dome.)
Light also had dry threads (easily fixed) and a stiff negative-contact on the tailcap that needed attention. The light has a threaded in switch retaining ring, so the switch can be removed/cleaned/adjusted/replaced if needed. It uses a 20mm PCB and 20mm driver. Retaining ring is the standard aluminum bronze-colored plate Iāve seen on other cheap zoomies. I like this light more than the smaller SK-68. The light is larger, but still compact. The scaled-up size makes the tailcap easier to remove as well. Iām still not a fan of the design, as the aggressive cut-out in the body combined with the pocket clip lessens the viability for pocket carry. I prefer a pocket-sized EDC to have a smoother profileā¦
Needless to say, this light didnāt stay default for long. After I checked the awful tint of the emitter, I immediately stripped the pill of the offending counterfeit LED and the factory driver. The emitter was quickly replaced with a surplus XP-L HI, and the driver replaced with a Nanjg 105d 105e I had in my parts box. I then filled the pill with JB-Weld to help improve heatsinking due to the cutout in the pill. Finally, I was able to modify the large OD XM-sized centering ring to fit the XP-sized emitter (and am fairly proud of how that turned outā¦ :bigsmile: )
I started with the original centering ring and bored it out with rotary tool until I could press-fit the OD of a FT-purchased XP-to-XM centering ring into the center. I then sanded the base of the inner ring down until it was nearly flush with the outer ring. Finally, I used the rotary tool to bore out the ID of the inner ring until it was the right diameter to fit around the XP-sized die.
(Iāll need to take some pictures of this process to post; it worked out very well and Iāll probably use this technique again on a couple of my other lights.)
As a last step; I spray painted both the aluminum retaining plate and the centering ring flat black to eliminate rings in the output.
Now itās a much more viable light; 2.8A high from the de-domed emitters gives a nice W-I-D-E flood that lights up an entire room, while zooming into throw turns it into a fair lightsaber.
Look for more about the fate of this light soonā¦