Comparison Review of the Three HD2010 lights from Tmart

Off-topic Chatter
1

I finally got the three HD2010 lights from Tmart today. I made a video review of them. Look at it and then let's discuss the options.

My vote would be to just buy the cheapest one and plan on a mod. If no mod is desired, then it's a crap shoot, with some people getting good ones and some getting not so good, since they are all made at the same place.

EDIT:

Remember I said in the video, that the spring might be the low draw on the Tfire light?

Well, I did a very simple mod on it and then I did it on the other two. I just soldered the spring back on and added Copper desolder braid to them. Here's a couple photos.

Just a piece of braid soldered top and bottom.

Here's the results:

Tangsfire was 3.25 amps, now it's 4.95 amps

Fandyfire was 4.25 amps, now it's 5.35 amps

No Name was 3.93 amps, now it's 5.05 amps

Remember, I am reading off the back of the battery, to the body, so you would also have to do the copper braid mod to the tail cap spring as well, to get close to those amps, but hell, why even mod the light. Just braid the stock light and run it till the led fries and then mod it.

2

Thanks for your work on this , Justin .

3

Thanks Justin, very informative.
Sounds good to me, glad that Ryan’s pills fit em fine, I’ve got one on standby so it’s nice to know it’ll fit.
Tack em down on the price and if possible emitter, we’ll run with it.

4

Thanks OL for the effort.

5

See the OP again. I did the copper braid mod to each light.

Tangsfire was 3.25 amps, now it's 4.95 amps

Fandyfire was 4.25 amps, now it's 5.35 amps

No Name was 3.93 amps, now it's 5.05 amps

6

Is the generic/unlabeled one the least expensive?

And I forgot, were these going to have the BLF logo or is this just a straight-up group buy?

7

Would a weakly performing component on the driver be partially to blame or is it all on the LED for the current differences?

Also, thanks for taking the time to rip these suckers apart and give more than ample detail on the extreme similarities.

8

Links.

http://www.tmart.com/TangsFire-HD-2010-CREE-XML-T6-6W-1200LM-5-Mode-Waterproof-Flashlight-Black_p144456.html

http://www.tmart.com/UItraFire-CREE-XM-LT6-8W-1300-Lumen-5-Mode-LED-Flashlight-Black_p135768.html

http://www.tmart.com/UItraFire-CREE-XM-LT6-8W-1300-Lumen-5-Mode-LED-Flashlight-Gray_p135765.html

http://www.tmart.com/TangsFire-HD-2010-CREE-XML-T6-6W-1200LM-5-Mode-Waterproof-Flashlight-Gray_p144455.html

Hmm. Two grey ones and no black generic. Maybe I had a guys look.

9

I do not know which one will be least expensive till I get an answer from tmart on that. I should know in a day or two, well, probably not till Monday night. I think from doing the mod on all three, the low amperage on the tfire light was due to the spring not being soldered correctly, causing a lot of resistance. The rest is now just from the different leds in the three lights.

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http://www.tmart.com/FandyFire-HD2010-Cree-XM-L-T6-600LM-5-Mode-White-LED-Flashlight_p194141.html

http://www.tmart.com/TangsFire-HD-2010-CREE-XML-T6-6W-1200LM-5-Mode-Waterproof-Flashlight-Black_p144456.html

http://www.tmart.com/UItraFire-CREE-XM-LT6-8W-1300-Lumen-5-Mode-LED-Flashlight-Black_p135768.html

These three are what I am talking about and what I got in the mail.

11

Not planning on any BLF logo. Tmart does not advertise logo service and it would just raise the price, since they would have to find a source for it.

12

Good to hear that the copper pills fit!

Thanks for the comparison OL!

13

Damn it, i was hoping for Missfire. :wink:

I went to watch the review but it froze part way, YT must be busy. Will try gain later. Thanks OL. Nice to know I can use the pill with which ever is chosen. And I too prefer the blank one to either of the xxxfire. I think I prefer the blank look.

14

Thanks, O-L, for all your work on this. I’m liking the no-name, and even with the “lottery” chances, I’ll bet performance is super nice.

With the copper spring trick, what kind of output are you getting from the torches over the original way they arrived? I’m thinking, even with different current draws, you may not be seeing too much brightness difference (except for the one with the loose spring issue).

15

Nice video and it’s like i thought: There might be just one or two factories in China who is manufacturing all different C8, C10, HD201 and whatsoever flashlights. In the end there is some “labelling” and off you go!

16

thanks for the review - the FF looks like a winner

any idea on final price?

17

I got several brands of HD 2010's as well, and always found the same thing with the tailcap spring. It makes a lot of sense though at that level of amps (low resistance cell, direct drive). It's pretty much the golden rule - tailcap spring is priority #1 for direct drive lights, if you really want more amps. But of course it's a bad combo at those 5A+ levels on an aluminum star that's not so well mounted. I've twisted LED's right off the star from loosened solder because of very high temps there.

The Yezl Y3 (single cell) is the only light to come along that I'd recommend now over the HD 2010, basically same size, same price, and single 26650 driven. The Yezl Y3 is true regulated at 2.5A, uni-pill, but still throws at 62 kcd I measured, and 874 OTF lumens. For a stock HD 2010, you don't really gain much output going to much higher amps because of significant heat sag on the stock XML on aluminum.

Just issues to keep in mind going high amps with XML's on poor aluminum stars...

Also as an fyi, from many experiences doing copper wiring of tailcap springs, I've found in the light box that most of the time, you get back nearly 100% of the tailcap loss's from copper braiding the spring. Sometimes as low as 75% (poor design grounds in tailcaps), other times it actually measures higher than 100%. This is comparing taking a heavy 12 gauge wire and grounding the battery to the tube, vs. the assembled light with the spring copper braided, both tests done in the light box. With the HD 2010's, I believe it's 90-100% from what I recall.

18

Very interesting.
Thanks for the video.

19

Right on. Thanks for the video and effort OL! Gotta get me one of those and I gotta have one of those copper pills. Nice.

20

For the people that are not going to do modification I would say FandyFire is the way to go.
I personally would take NoName version (pity they don’t offer logo engraving, would be nice to have BLFire HD2010 :bigsmile: ).

P.S. where did you find that copper pill? Quick search on tmart website didn’t find anything, how much $ would that be?

Thanks