Supfire A2. Supfire's cute little zoom 18650 side switch.

Thanks Tom.

Anyone know what’s the different between the 2015 and 2016?

Put in a XP-L HI V3 2B last night - it's from MtnE back when they had the V3's. Focus is a little out now, but expected. I compared the flood against a modded ZeusRay and actually the A2 is about as wide, but cleaner, more a perfect round. So it's actually quite wide - think the ZeusRay is at or near the widest flood I have.

Getting more amps now, about 2.60A - was hoping for more with a resistor mod (added an R300) and 28-> 24 AWG LED wires. Bypass added to the driver spring.

Lumens: 802 @start, 772 @30 secs, throw: 25.5 kcd taken at 5m (319 meters)

Realize now the circular pattern around the zoomed out dye image is from the white LED centering piece, outside of that, not much in artifacts.

I don't see any differences in 2015 vs 2016. Think the guy on DHGate even updated the listing to 2016. Looks like the factory lumens went up, but they are exaggerated anyway.

Upgraded mine to XP-L HD on Noctigon, and 24AWG plus spring bypass when I received last week. Driver was left un-touch at the moment. Mod time is considerably longer, due to the glued wire and loose transparent button part that would interrupt the assembly.

Despite for having lesser output and narrower zoom out flood when you compare it with Zuesray, this light has slight edge in built quality and useful functions (e.g LED status, microUSB charging, darken clip, etc). A8's design resemble S30, which is one of my favorite styling for 18650.

True - little tricky getting things assembled. I left the 24 AWG wires close to the same length as the originals, but probably could be shortened. What I did was first almost fully tighten the pill top down, aligned the wire holes to where they will come from the driver, then carefully inserted the driver from below, then only had to give the pill top a 1/2 turn or so to tighten it up, so very little twisting of the wires as a result, and not much extra wire length needed. For the button assembly, just made sure it was in the fully "out" position prior to inserting the driver, so that went ok for me.

Not sure, but suspect I got nothing from the resistor mod. Interesting you saw flood was narrower than the ZuesRay, because mine appeared about dead even, but my ZeusRay was an original thick pill shelf model, and modded with an XM-L2 neutral/Noctigon. Think there's been some ZuesRay variants. The ZuesRay flood beam is not a perfect circle with mine - slightly squared off but no big deal really - only notice it on a white wall.

Even at 2.6A, I could feel the body getting hot fairly quickly. Not as much metal for heat sinking as the ZuesRay has, but I do like the thinner profile.

Does this work with flat top 18650?

Just received my SupFire A2. Some preliminary observations:

  • It works with flat top 18650 (there is a spring-loaded post at each end).
  • Beam Pattern is very clean for an aspheric zoomie, with a fairly wide flood. No rings in flood mode and in the transition to spot. Spot mode has a very slight ring around the image of the emitter. This ring is the image of the white centering disk around the emitter.
  • Tint: Cool white. No hint of green.
  • Recharging: It works, but the little rubber cover over the USB port looks quite flimsy. Much flimsier than the rubber covers over the ports on my Niteye EC-R16 and EC-R26.
  • Overall Length: Definitely feels like they could have shortened it some. for instance, the tailcap adds at least a cm of unnecessary length when the only things in it are a contact plate and a covered spring with maybe half a cm of travel. Behind the cover plate is another 1 cm of light.
  • Hand feel: Light feels grippy in the hand and feels like it is well built. Hand feel is pretty good though the switch feels like it would accidentally turn on in the pocket.
  • Zoom mechanism: Butter smooth well lubed zoom mechanism. Maybe too well-lubed since lube can be seen when the light is cycled to spot mode. On the upside, the zoom feels great.
  • waterproofness: Not waterproof. Only thing I’ve done so far is remove the bezel, but the outer bezel and lens had no o-rings.
  • Modding potential: Haven’t looked into it yet. If I do, the goal would be to dramatically shorten the light, likely by replacing the driver, removing the charging mechanism, and then removing excess parts of the body and tailcap. I figure I might be able to take an inch off the light

Thanks Firelight2

Any thoughts about making the red/green led a locator light in the dark? Tom E / freeme could one of you measure the power usage of the red/green led to see how much power it’s using?

I miss the parasitic drains from the ‘find me’ blinking leds. I can’t find anywhere….

-d

Does anyone know if the red blinking light charges to green when it is done charging? And does it know to stop charging or does it trickle or restart if voltage drops?

-d

I did some resistor mod tests with the origional led. I have settled on one added R100 resistor. It now pulls 3.2Amps on high. I got the current all the way up to 3.6 but the driver shut down at the level. I don’t know what happened, but after a while it reset and started working again. So the R100 resistor is right on the edge of what the driver can handle. After, I get everything set, I will probably pot the driver.

Still not sure what led to put in it. I have some xpl hi’s but im hesitant to use one as I have some other builds worthy of the xpl. How well do dedomed xml2s work in these types of zoomies? I wonder if I dedome the stock blue tint emitter if it would turn green?

I should try resistor modding mine. Can you take a photo of the driver showing where to put the R100?

It changes to green when done.

Don’t know if it stops charging at that point.

Put the R100 over one of the R500's shown here (pic from earlier):

Nice. Thanks for the picture. :crown:

Be warned that I have not fully tested the drivers capability to handle this current.

I will have my light back together soon and i will test its ability to run down from a full charge. I semi-potted the driver, reflowed the emitter to a 16mm sinkpad, and removed the dome. Tomorrow, I just need to solder up the led leads and put it back together.

I also sanded off the anodizing where the pill lip touches the head when screwed down tight. This way I have electrical contact there so I feel better about putting some thermal paste on the pill threads. I did this to another zoomie and it worked well.

Completed modding this A2 today. I was afraid dedoming the led would make it green, but the result was PERFECT neutral white! I’m very satisfied with it. Also potting the driver has greatly reduced the hum that can be heard on the lower modes.

I just today got a light meter in the mail. I got it used in eBay and it seems nice. It has 400,000 lux range and four sensitivity settings. Anyway, I have absolutely no idea as to how to use it yet so I don’t know how relevant these readings will be?

On focus
High at 2meters is 130, 000 lux
Low at 2meters is 3,500 lux

Do those numbers sound possible? Dedomed xml2@ 3.2amps

Most throw measurements are reported at 1 meter. 130K lux at 2 meters = 530,000 lux at 1 meter.

For a dedomed XML2 at 3.2 amps and 20mm aspheric lens I’d expect throw to be 18-25K lux at 1 meter.

So yeah… I think you’re way off. Something clearly isn’t quite right in your measurements.

Ya ok thanks. I figured since I had the meter in hand that I would just point and shoot to see what would happen. I need to learn to use the thing :person_facepalming:

The difference from before and after this mod, is quite remarkable. These are two pics that don’t really do justice,but you can see the tighter beam profile. This is with an R100 resistor mod with potted driver and dedomed emitter. A side effect that is welcome but I don’t understand is the low mode is dimmer after the mod. Low is way too high so this is nice but I don’t know why.

These pics are taken with my iPhone pointed at the ceiling on the floor with the flashlight. I have a camera but I don’t know what settings to use for these kinds of pictures anyway. If someone can point me to a tutorial I can try to get better pics.

This one is al the way focused: to the eye it is night and day brighter. Bigger difference than can be seen in these photos.

This one is zoomed out in low mode till they appeared to be the same size. Maybe the dedomed version looks dimmer because it was zoomed out farther to match the size of the stock beam size?

Has anyone tried the supfire a5? I ordered a cheap one on eBay and it’s not the same quality as the a2. I’m wondering if these eBay offers are for fakes. Anyone order from a reputable seller?