A surprising MECO side e-switch light!

So, I was looking to buy a cheap zoomie to mod for a friend. I wanted it to have a side switch so that I could put a good, strong neodymium magnet in the tailcap. I know they sell ring magnets that will fit around tail clickies, but those are generally pretty weak. There aren’t very many cheap 18650 side-switch lights that look half-way decent. But, I ran across this MECO (link below) and bought a couple of them from a guy on eBay. I thought it was just a cheapo side clicky flashlight. Well, the quality definitely isn’t Convoy grade, but it did surprise me a bit. And, it comes with both a 3xAAA carrier and a sleeve for 18650. The tube isn’t wide enough for anything bigger than 18650 (except maybe the 20700 that Panasonic developed for Tesla :wink: ).

Tonight, I was playing around with one of the lights, checking it out, and the switch clicks so loudly, it took me a little while to realize that it wasn’t going off when I clicked it but instead it was changing modes. So, I decided to investigate and sure enough - it’s an e-switch driver! What? You can get this light for less than $10USD and it has an e-switch? Not only that, but it also has a power jack, presumably for built-in charging. I don’t know if I’ll trust that or not, but hey, it’s there. And, also, the zoom function is a twist ring with a threaded ‘floating pill’ that holds the LED only and moves up and down on the inside to change the focus, instead of moving the lens on the outside like most cheap zoomies. The zoom function will go past perfect focus, so you can either focus it at a longer range and/or just so you won’t have to see that ugly Latticebright die in perfect focus! :confounded: The little ‘floating pill’ is gonna make it hard to get heat away from the emitter, but it’s still a neat trick for such a cheap light.

This isn’t where I bought the two I got, but this is actually a better price than I paid. MECO light at banggood Funny, in this listing, it says it has a ‘clicky’ switch. Well, it definitely makes a clicky sound, but it’s a momentary switch, with an e-switch driver. :wink: Have any of you seen this light before? Better yet, has anybody modded it? I’d like some ideas for how much current this driver can be bumped up to, so maybe I don’t have to replace it. I did see what looked like a bank of resistors that might be sense resistors. I didn’t look at the values. But, I could take a picture of the driver and post it here if anybody is interested.

“Floating pill” twisting mechanism, reminds me of that Saik SA-9 I modded with a Nichia 219B long ago. Is there space inside for a fan?

The lens looks to be SK-98 class size, isn't it?

Pics! Yeah! Disembowel it and at least post some pics of the inside mechanism and the driver…
A warm white decent CRI XP-G3 mod perhaps?

Cheers ^:)

I got two of these from a couple years ago. One I did mod - got e-switch firmware in it, XM-L2 on a Noctigon, springs bypassed. Look'n at it now. I recall that zoom mechanism was tricky, and very poor heat sinking because of that floating pill. It's a chunky light because designed for a 3 AAA carrier. Of course my mod is for 18650 only. Can't find pics for some reason - think I took them. Mine was under the UltraFire name at the time. These things are heavily advertised by BangGood, at least to me - targeted ads, etc. I get a lot of flashlight ads for some reason ??

Nice feel though - like the switch. My ZY-T11 clones are still my favorite budget e-switch light. Used to be UltraFire, then shortly MECO and other brands at GearBest - got them for $9 at best, $12 at most - great pocket 18650 EDC w/throw. No longer available though. Bought a bunch, still got a couple unmodded. This was the ZY-T11 clone: http://www.gearbest.com/led-flashlights/pp_71296.html, probably the last ones I bought.

please tell me about the tint, and size of it, in the flood mode?

thanks.

pat

K, found my orders for them, bought from BangGood. First one I ordered in Nov 2014, looks like $12. Next one was in Dec 2014. Can't find any notes or pics - strange, but I recall deciding it wasn't worth the effort to do the other. Don't think I ever got the zoom operations working as good as it did stock.

Are you talking about the MECO or the zy-t11 clone that TomE mentioned?

The MECO I have includes a XML size LatticeBright (or some other cheapie) LED with the visible lines across the focused die image. It has a bluish tint to the image that is kinda large even when zoomed in (XML size :wink: ). But, alas, it doesn’t zoom out to much of a flood, since the lens can’t get close enough to the die. I’d say (guessing) that the beam looks like about 15 feet wide at 20 feet away. For any of you metric guys that may be reading, estimate it’s around 5 meters diameter at a distance around 6 meters… ish. :smiley:

By the way, it has a very ringy beam in both flood and zoom. :confounded:

Yea, I'd say the same bout the beam in my modded one - narrow-ish flood, lots of artifacts outside the flood area or zoom spot, but I didn't do anything specific to eliminate it. I would not recommend this light in stock form. Think the zoom mechanism is pretty unique though - body doesn't extend to zoom to spot, just turning the dial changes the focus, but you pay the price for that in the overall size of the light, and limited flood width.

Looks like this:
http://www.gearbest.com/led-flashlights/pp_187781.html

I actually ordered one of those meco lights during the banggood sale a few days ago for $6.59 so I would have an E-swtich light to play with narsil on.

Ohhh - I'd not recommend this light for driver fiddling - recall the zoom mechanism is tricky. The SupFire L5 is bout perfect for a 26mm driver - simple switch wires, like an SRK, or the SupFire M2-Z for an 22 mm driver, again, simple switch wires. Both don't have driver mounted switches so no piggybacking needed, both have driver retaining rings, both on MtnE.

Just make the stock wires long so you can pull out the driver to re-program.

The M2-Z is not a bad price, I will have to see about getting one next time I make an order from MTN.

0K fellows, current summary of the virtues of this flashlight:

  • CrappiceBlight emitter (horrible colour rendering).
  • Twist zoom mechanism with inadequate heat-exchanging characteristics (pill/tube pics?). :FACEPALM:
  • Crippled-narrow flood mode (output loss).
  • Artifact-full beam.
  • …

Seriously?

Cheers ^:)

I know, right? It doesn’t get ANY better than this! I wanna buy a few more, now that these guys have shown me where to get a better price! :money_mouth_face:

David - seriously? Yikes! Though it is hard to find a cheap e-switch light in general, yet alone a zoomie. I've tried a couple cheap reflector e-switch lights though, mostly more work to mod, then you have nice innards, so-so to poor quality body... It's a tuff call.

if it has the zoom setup i am thinking of you cant push it.its already at the edge.i greased the slug and threads with heatsink compound to give it a fighting chance.

Tom, I was just kidding… sorta. :stuck_out_tongue:

With the mods I’m doing, the zoom function doesn’t matter, the pill doesn’t matter, the driver doesn’t matter, the emitter doesn’t matter. I’m changing all of that anyway, so the cheaper the better, as long as the host is half-way decent. I could also use a tube style non-zoomie light, but they’re going to have less space in the head than zoomies. I was thinking of keeping the driver in this one, because it is e-switch AND has on-board charging. But, it doesn’t have an ATtiny, so it can’t be re-programmed. It’ll have to go, and I’ll have to replace it with something ~26mm with decent modes, that can be regulated to ~3A or so.

I pushed a zoomy, not that one, once and melted all the press in plastic parts.

Yeah, no press-fit plastic parts here! It’s not quite THAT cheap. :wink:

i bought one once

and i do not recommend to buy it - really bad quality ;)

I think this may the same light on GB under UF name. $6

UltraFire Cree XML T6 889LM Zooming LED Flashlight - SMOKY GRAY

I got one on ebay for $2 or less. received a SkyWolfEye branded one. Died after 5sec on high, burned out emitter. Swapped another LB pull and same thing.

Hope you have better luck.