Review: Warsun X60 XM-L2 LED 5-Mode 26650 Flashlight

Warsun X60 XM-L2 LED 5-Mode 26650 REVIEW

[Updated: 8/8/2014]

Overview

Brand: Warsun, 沃尔森 www.warsun.net
Model: X60
Price: USD $24.99 (NON-AFF)
Battery Type: 1x 26650
Emitter: 1x XM-L2 CREE LED
Brightness:

1198 lumens*

Throw:

350m*

Features:

Double switches with low voltage LED indicator

Delivery:

Ordered: 20/6/2014 | Sent: 21/6/2014 | Arrived: 17/7/2014

Sponsored by:

Banggood.com

Produced for:

BLF & FreeDailyDeals

* Manufacturer's specifications

Arrival of Warsun X60


Sample arrived in plain white rectangular box. X60 was wrapped with bubble bag inside the box. Entire box was later wrapped with blue plastic and protected by foam sheet (as shown).

At First Glance

Warsun X60 inverted

X60 resting on its anodized 3.8mm aluminum crown bezel.

WARSUN Side by Side Comparison

X60 (left) and FX900 (right)

Detail Views

Main modules

Head comprises of bezel, o-ring, deep reflector / LED+eSwitch+driver / tube (26650, 34mm) / tailcap+mechanical switch

Exploded View

All the joints are not glued! Nice thick bright orange, double o-rings to keep water from entering the interior. All screw threads are well lubricated.

Driver Emitter Section (Stock)

Driver: Reasonably sized old plated spring with rubber insulation surrounding it.

Emitter: Neatly packed XM-L2 LED on 20mm Alu mcpcb.

Tube: 1.5mm thick wall!

Tailcap: spongy rubber feel switch with START/ STOP and WARSUN sun logo emboss on it.

Serial number can also be found printed on tailcap.

Charging Port

It is located at the opposite face from side switch. Unfortunately, neither direct charger nor USB cable were supplied for this review. External charging capability will be covered if devices are provided later.

CREE XM-L2 emitter on 20mm Aluminium star beside WARSUN driver's retaining ring.

Front View

Driver is approximately 22.85mm in overall diameter with widest edge at 24.12mm. Well-layout custom driver design. Low voltage LED can be seen underneath.

Rear view

Board has WARSUN KZ01 marking on it, instead of X60A version in A10 (shown by Tom E). Or it could be some random code number as well.

User Interface

5 modes: High > Medium (30%) > Low (10%) > Strobe > SOS

Modes can be cycled through using both buttons. X60 will go directly to Turbo mode when double-click on side switch. Approximately 8-10% brighter than High. Press and hold side switch for 2.5 sec will put X60 into standby mode. Lock out is possible as threads are all anodized. There is memory mode.

Design

There is some controversy regarding WARSUN's mounting surface design. As you can see from the picture above. There is an area about 14mm dia and 0.4mm deep being removed from the surface after anodizing process. Black dimple in the center measured at 1mm dia. No one has an idea why it is being removed and manufacturer claimed that it does not have much effect on X60 performance.

A smooth and larger mounting surfaces will ensure maximum efficiency for heat transfer from the emitter to body itself. Easier fixing method would be filling up the removed area with Cu/Alu shim or thin Alu foil cut to shape. If you have excess to lathe, you may want to take a step further to smoothen out the entire surface.

Beam profile

Coming soon

Measurements

Unfortunately, the unit that I have received is not in "perfect" working condition. Values taken might not representative for the stock model itself. Still waiting for supplier for updates.

Side by Side Comparsion

Warsun F900X, Small Sun ZY-T08, Warsun X60, UltraFire 949 and SolarForce L2N



WARSUN X60 - Pros and Cons

Pros:
  • Excellent machining and anodize finishing.
  • Feel good in hands due to thickness of the tube.
  • Extra grippy body, all thanks to WARSUN textured diamond shaped knurling patterns.
  • Thick body tube coupled with 5mm fins really helps to dissipate nasty heat away from LED.
  • Relatively inexpensive for its build quailty.
Cons:
  • Side switch is rather stiff.
  • Protruding ON/OFF power button makes tail standing unstable.
  • Black LED centering ring absorbed too much light away from the LED, but it can be easily fix with replacement parts.
  • Poor alignment for one set of lanyard hole.
  • WARSUN logo and model number print alignment was 1o or 2o off for my copy.

Conclusion

Coming soon

Reserved for updates.

Looks interesting! I’m looking forward to the full review!

Included some images. Will finish up with the rest by next week.

Double O-rings everywhere…could this be used for diving?? What is the IPX rating?
Thanks for the review, great work mate.

Please show us pill surface under the MCPCB.

It's pretty bad, like all Warsun's unfortunately... The owner/boss of Warsun refuses to acknowledge the poor machining of the pill shelf as a problem, at least with my communication with him.

My numbers:

"Tested my stock Warsun X60, using a freshly charged KingKong 4200 cell (from CNQ). Here's what I get:

2.57A at the tail, lumens: 510 @start, 462 @30secs, 28 kcd throw"

From this thread on the Warsun's: https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/26123

It's pathetic performance stock, considering the amps and reflector size, due to the blocking emitter alignment piece mainly, but the roughly 10% drop off in the first 30 secs is probably due to the poor pill shelf design.

freeme - excellent photos and really nice write up so far! The operating mode description is excellent! Hope you can confirm what I'm seeing. Didn't have time to post a review on this light, but kind of disappointed with it, and the comm. with Warsun. Also - some of the O-rings got chunks missing. They are nice O-rings but over sized. You really have to lube them up asap, before even re-assemblying I've found, and still, tighten things up slowly to avoid pinching or tearing them.

Here's pics of the pill top of my X60. The machined out area is 14 mm wide and about 0.5 mm deep. This was machined out after anodizing, but the center dimple is apparently a little deeper, so the anodizing still shows in the hole. It's almost like they wanted to fix the dimple issue by cutting out material, but they made it worse by making the cut 14 mm wide - too narrow for a MCPCB. The stock MCPCB is a 20 mm standard one, so only makes contact on the outer black lip where the wire holes are.

I really don't know how to go about fixing this. Copper sheet metal is too thin and the copper heat sinks I have are too thick, thinnest is about 1 mm. Once you get rid of the blocking LED centering piece, you probably need to make up vertical space for the reflector to fit tight, so maybe a copper disc can be used, but still have the 0.5 mm gap problem...

This should help to repair.

I will do that after I am finished with the stock test. Meanwhile, you may read up Tom E’s thread regrading his findings.

Thanks Tom. This is my first “formal” review in BLF. Hope they are useful for people who is interested with this model. If you noticed, I have been following your X60 thread since.

Unfortunately, my copy is not functioning well out from the box. Power delivery is below them what I expected. Therefore, I am unable to provide measurements at the moment, as they may not be representative for this model.

What are you going to do with 14mm milled off area? How about thin metal sheet?

I agreed that the o-rings a slightly oversize, minus 0.2mm will be perfect. Mine got chewed up by the threads at certain point, if you did not line up the thread properly. I will lube them once more later.

I’m guessing the bezel isn’t stainless and there is noticeable pwm in med and low?

Bezel: anodized aluminum.
PWM: yes, it appears on my DSLR live view even at 1/30s. But I have to say that my eyes are not sensitive to PWM. I can only see it when I deliberately shake from one direction to another at fast speed.

Thanks! Weird - actually I bought this a while back: ebay-45pcs-Laptop-GPU-CPU-Heatsink-Copper-Shim-20mmx20mm and it does include 0.5 mm shims -- Ooops. Hhmm, thinking I looked at these in the past for the A10 and thought they were too thick... I gotta re-check, because if my measurements are good, this should work, just cut to size.

I do really like these Warsun's - nice design and quality, but it's so frustrating when they make a pretty good light, and mess up on some basic things done better in cheaper lights... Frown

Would these work better?

Or these, a little thinner (22ga = .644mm) [actually 24ga at .511mm would be perfect]

And yes for a $25~ light, it looks quite a decent light…sux that thermal management would be crap due to that milled portion

Instead of adding another layer: how about milling down the complete pill section, at least to the level of the bare aluminum?
Question is whether the reflector will still sit tightly on the star then. Perhaps if a Noctigon is thicker than the stock MCPCB, it can compensate for the loss in height.

I’m awaiting a Warsun MX900. I fell for the design and the 2-switch-concept to start playing with the Star momentary firmware. It seems these Warsun lights need some heavy preparation first…

Yes - would love to mill it down, but need a mill and knowledge how to use it Smile. We do actually have one at work here but it's an old one, and I'd have to recruit help. What I really want is a nice setup comfy has with a drill press, jigs, some mill bits, etc... But again, he sure has the knowledge and experience...

Once it's milled down though, then it would be easy for me to build up the MCPCB level from there using copper discs or shims I got.

Milling seem to be a good method as it will remove the anodizing surfaces. However, since the led is sitting further back, there will be bigger gap between LED and reflector.

Yes, that’s what I meant. Might produce a ringy beam. Perhaps a Noctigon, that is 1.55mm in height, can compensate that. Or at least it will be easier to fill the gap with copper, when the MCPCB is copper and the base in the light is flat. Even better might be if reflector or head can be screwed in deeper. But I stop speculating until my light arrives.

It’s quite strange, they seem to have made a lot of things right with their lights, but this design flaw is a hoot.

Did you see RaceR86's experience with a Warsun (https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/27904)? Yikes!

Actually I just saw last night a milled out pill top very similar to how this one looks. It's on a SupFire F3 zoomie, but it's milled to 16 mm in width, so the 16 mm MCPCB fits in there perfectly. This makes some sense - it keeps the MCPCB in the perfect center position, can't move around. The 14 mm milled out cut on this one looks so intentional, like they meant to do the same thing to fit a 14 mm MCPCB, maybe, or just made the cut the wrong size.

It is IPX-7, according to BG and WB.

I think filling up the void area with copper or alu shim is the simplest and cheapest method to rectify the design for all.

I doubt… It might be a process or equipment limitation for machining. Only CNC experts will have the real answer.