the black one is even cheaper.
Received this light on Friday; I think it’s worth $4.99, but it did not fail to meet my expectations… I’ve never had a SK98 before, so:
(I’m at a site that’s blocking photo-sharing sites today, so no pics)
Hollow Pill? Check! (Only it’s 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 I’ve 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 “overspray” 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 I’ve 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. I’m 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 profile…
Needless to say, this light didn’t 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 out… :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.
(I’ll need to take some pictures of this process to post; it worked out very well and I’ll 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 it’s 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 soon… 
Interesting and thanks for providing the details.
Is your 105D 17mm? How do you fit it in the 20mm pill? (Sorry if you already said and I missed.:laughing:
Also, at 2.8A, will it get too hot?
Sorry about that… I meant to say the 105E; that’s the 20mm variant.
http://www.kaidomain.com/product/details.S023811
Thanks. Any overheat problem?
None that I can tell. I’ve left it running while tailstanding for several minutes on high with the lens removed specifically to let it heat up to help flash any remaining volatiles left from the spray paint. It gets nicely warm and doesn’t seem to overheat the emitter.
Thanks. That’s nice to know. I have one here also just waiting for a 17mm to 20mm adapter so I can use my existing 105c driver.
Sounds good, been wondering, can you just put a new emitter on the LB star, or do you have to replace the star, too? Looking forward to hearing more.
I cut out a circle from many layers of tinfoil and used that as a heat sink. Not sure how much it helps, but I think it helps some. Really like these.
I think you have to replace it. There’s no way you can put the new LED star on top of the old one.
You can re-use the LB star if you wish, but it’s just a cheap and thin aluminum PCB. No need to reflow onto this board unless you don’t have a spare on hand. The LB emitters have the same base sizes as the emitters they copy, so they are just standard Cree-sized PCBs.
In the case of my SK98, I had to replace the PCB as I was going from an XM-sized emitter to the smaller XP-sized platform.
Here are some pics to go along with my SK98 mini-review above…
And finally, my nested LargeDiameter-to-XML-to-XP centering ring:
That hollow pill doesn’t look too bad, most of the area is on the outside of the circle anyway, I’d think.
Got my $2.94 Skywolfeye the other day, not too bad. Purpleish XP-E (?) knockoff. Got up to 0.84 A on a laptop pull.
Looks different, but the screw out pill and zoom remind me of SK68. Not a bad little light so far, if it holds up.
17mm driver, not sure about star, maybe 16-17mm. Doesn’t look like it has any heat control. I posted some photos on 18650 lights .
One of my $5 C8’s has arrived. Unknown emitter but throws like a XP-E. Bluer than I’d like but not purple. Body says Q5. Not bad, seems solid pill but haven’t taken apart.
Does your “C8” take 17mm driver and what size of LED it takes? 16mm, 18mm or 20mm? Is the pill solid?
This is a light that I haven’t seen before. This one any good?
I’m measuring 17mm on the driver and 19mm on the thing that screws in on top of the star, to hold it in place. So I’m guessing it would take 18mm star
If I pull that part off, I’m afraid that it won’t work, so I’m not sure if it has solid pill or not. It looks like it has one of those plastic circles that will get torn up if I pull off the thing holding the led. If you can tell me what to do, I am curious, though, if it has a solid pill.
Really need to see a photo.
The dark thing that screws over the star was about 19mm
Link doesn’t work.
Sorry, I checked it repeatedly, not sure if it’sthe site or me. If it doesn’t work later, I might have to retry later.
Basically you have the led+star in the pill. Then there is a piece that screws in and holds the star, and has a hole for the led. That piece is about 19mm, so I think you should be able to use 18mm star.
The easiest thing to do is to unscrew the cover out. I don’t see anything can go wrong.
BTW if the photo site works, you should be able to attach the photos to your post, not just the link.