UF-1504 led test with beamshots (with bonus: Brinyte B158)

Hey guys, this is my first write-up, so feel free to critique!

I’m building several UltraFire UF-1504 lights for some buddies, and I thought while I had all of the hosts sitting around that I would test out some different emitters in them to see how they perform. I also recently picked up a Brinyte B158, so I threw that into the mix as well.

What you won’t see here, unfortunately, are numbers. I’ve recently come to distrust my DMM. And I have no way of accurately measuring lumens or lux (yet!).

All of these lights, with the exception of the B158, are running the BLF A6 driver with my own custom firmware. The B158 is using RMM’s updated FET+1, since I’m keeping this light for myself. :smiley:

And without further ado, here’s the lineup of all 5 lights against a white wall, 1 yard away. As expected, the XP-G2 (dedomed) yields a tighter spot, but nothing crazy. The B158 has a slightly larger hotspot than the UF-1504 with the same emitter, but not significantly. And given the much smaller size of the B158, it’s definitely the light I’d choose to carry (and it seems to be much higher quality).

And here’s a pic that’s pitting the XP-L HI V2 3D against a dedomed XP-L V6 1A. The dedomed XP-L seems slightly warmer, and a bit more intense than it’s HI counterpart.

And the last wall-hunting pic, the B158 vs the UF-1504 with equivalent emitters. The UF-1504 is a slight bit tighter, but significantly more ringy than the B158.

And now for the good stuff: beam shots at a tool shed 504 yards away as measured by Google Maps. In hindsight, I probably should have used a slightly longer exposure time. Oh well, live and learn!

Map of the target:

B158 with XP-L HI

UF-1504 with XP-L HI

UF-1504 with XP-L dedomed

UF-1504 with XP-G2 (new) dedomed

UF-1504 with XM-L2 dedomed

Now that I’ve completed my testing, I think I’m going to put that dedomed XP-L into the B158, keep it for myself, and sell the rest. Thanks for tuning in!

thank you for sharing the shots. I still haven’t figured out how to use my Android properly to do good beam shots.

Most phones don’t have enough manual controls to be able to take proper beamshots. Starting with Android M (6.0, Marshmallow), Google exposed a new camera API that enabled low-level control of the camera, including the ability to shoot RAW. But very few have taken advantage of that.

For mine, I used an old point & shoot camera, the Canon SD1000. Normally that wouldn’t be good enough (not enough manual control), but by using custom firmware, the sky’s the limit (well, almost)! If anyone has a Canon P&S sitting around, I highly recommend checking out CHDK. It’ll even do motion detect good enough to catch lightning. I only thought to do it once last year, but here’s a pic I captured:

Thanks for the pictures. You answered my question with your final paragraph.

Your B158 has such a clean beam. Mine isn’t so artifact free. :weary: Great shots!

Love my B158
Just wish there would be extension for it or 2nd tube to run it in 2 cell configuration

Nice photos.

Even on your photo we can see how bad new XP-G2 really is…

You don’t have numbers but I do have… Difference between old and new XP-G2 S4 2B (de domed) are 340kcd vs 220kcd in B158 host or 250kcd vs 170kcd in 1503 host or 500kcd vs 350kcd in 1504 host.