First of all I would like to extend my gratitude to DX for donating this flashlight for a review.
Flashlights with double switch are popular more than ever so I thought why not check this one out :)
Manufacturer's specification |
|
LED type: |
3 x XM-L T6 (1600 lumens) |
Supported bat.: |
1 x 26650 |
Switch: |
Tailcap reverse clicky + Side - micro switch |
Modes: |
High->Medium->Low->Slowly strobe (actually SOS*) |
Reflector: |
Aluminum smooth |
Body: |
Aluminum+Stainless steel Color: black (mate*) |
Lense: |
Glass lenses |
Accessories: |
Spare English user manual, lanyard |
Overall dimensions: |
Diameter: 55.0mm (head), 36.5mm (tailcap), |
Supplier: |
|
Price: |
Review sample |
After usual, long anticipation, flashlight arrived nicely packaged in the box with foam even :) so no dents, scratches or similar surprises.
besides flashlight box also contained user manual, chinese -> english user manuals are always fun to read :P
This is my first flashlight with black matte anodisation, looks interesting, feels nice but it's not particularly grippier like I expected, I would also say that it's probably not HAIII but I am no expert on that subject.
They really did not spare aluminum on this flashlight, with 302 grams (without lanyard) this is also one of the heaviest light I own.
Everything is oversized, just take a look at the taicap, C8 tailcap look almost twice as smaller:
and it's a bit unnecessarily complicated with double retaining rings (one is made out of plastic and it's threaded, other one is just regular aluminum retaining ring).
Finally disassembled and here are all the parts (notice the nice omten switch, wouldn't you just wish 15A 25V ratings instead of 1.5A 250V :P)
Btw. tailcap has only one hole for lanyard so it can tail stand with lanyard inserted but it's a bit wobbly.
All threads are square cut, very easy to operate, no squeaking even without the lube, also, they are not anodised so no lockout function but with tailcap switch you wouldn't need it anyway...
At the front side we have a three first generation XM-L T6 emitters, perfectly centered (no wonder, they used centering rings). By size, I would say that reflector is comparable to SRK, 51mm in diameter, 20mm in hight. Btw, reflector is held by the screw that goes through the heatsink so, to get it out you have to get the driver out of the way first :/
Emitters are all in parallel configuration and I was pleasantly surprised with thermal compound under the emitters, not thermal adhesive :)
Heatsink is about average for this type of flashlights, 4 mm thick, wires were 28 AWG, I upgrade this to 20 AWG
Opposite side holds the driver and momentary "switch", once again double retaining rings:
Driver looks to have fairly simple design, there are 2 FET's with removed markings 
coil to smooth out the pwm I guess, but the most interesting part would be those resistors market with R6 and R7, I think I see some modding potential here :)
There are actually two resistors stacked under R6 but the top one is soldered bottom up so I can't see their value but I presume they are also 0.15 ohms (R150) like the one at R7 position!
As I mentioned, if you decide to mess around be careful with the switch cable and not to brake connection on a switch side because that was the only thing I could not remove from the flashlight.
I presume that they first inserted the switch pcb (also contains indicator leds) with ribbon cable soldered and then pressed in aluminum ring with rubber booth to hold the pcb in place, also, that ribbon cable is pretty stiff. Anyways, if you decide to do what I did and run separate wires to each emitter, space under the driver will be very crowded.
While I had the flashlight opened I did two more simple modification that everyone can easily do, I soldered braided wire and the brass contact pin to the driver, also did the same thing on a tailcap switch, it makes a noticeable difference.
Now let's talk a little bit about the user interface.
to turn on the flashlight you click the tailcap reverse switch and that's all that tailcap switch does, on and off. Flashlight always starts in HIGH mode but one short click on the side switch will get you to Mid, then to Low mode and after that SOS mode. After SOS mode there is a Standby regime, emitters are off but indicator led i on... If you don't like SOS there's a way to avoid it, just tap lightly tailcap switch to break the current flow and you will instantly jump to High mode, this will also skip the standby regime thou...
Every time you power on the flashlight with tailcap switch red indicating led in a side switch will blink twice while checking the battery voltage (which takes 2 seconds) and if there is a suficient juice it will switch to constant green indicating led. Voltage measurement is done under load because as soon as you turn on the flashlight it's in max mode.
(Red indicating led, green indicating led and GITD demo)
I used DC-DC converter to find out what is the threshold for this indicator and that would be about 3.7V for without load on battery or about 3.3V under load. When V drops under 3.0V red indicating light will start to flush slowly letting you know that you should prepare spare cell. Unfortunately this driver will NOT power off with future V drop. If your cell is under 2.5V flashlight will not turn on but if you forget the flashlight turned on with unprotected cell it will still produce the light even at 2.30V -> super low 3 x emitter moonlight mode :P
Anyways, as always, you can't expect much from stock drivers :/
Current draw table:
Cell |
Stock light |
After modification |
||||
MAX |
MID |
LOW |
MAX |
MID |
LOW |
|
Samsung ICR18650-26FU |
2.87 | 1.27 | 0.26 | 3.42 | 1.47 | 0.31 |
Panasonic NCR18650PF |
2.92 | 1.29 | 0.26 | 3.48 | 1.55 | 0.32 |
TrustFire 2400mAh |
2.77 | 1.23 | 0.26 | 3.28 | 1.45 | 0.30 |
Voltage supplied to led |
2.87 | 2.40 | 2.00 |
As you can see, using separate, thicker wires for each emitter and adding braided wire on driver and switch end did do some good :)
Beamshots:
MAX mode, 5s, 4s and 3s and then the same with 10X zoom
MID mode,
LOW mode, 5s would be representation of what you can really see, everything lower than that appears darker in photos than in reality:
Size comparison:
Two additional photos to show beam angle and "spot" size:
P.S. Most images are 1284x1024px, right mouse click and choose "View Image" (FireFox, ) to see them in full resolution...
