Hi, I have just bought a Sofirn C8F 21700, and one of the LEDs is a little less bright than the other two. Most visible in moonlight mode. Is this normal, or did I get a lemon? Thanks in advance for any advice.
hard too see in photo any difference… u just got a bad led then… mine looks alright.
It shows up more in person than on camera. If they’re meant to be identical, I’ll return it. Thanks for your input.
they should be more or less identical, no reason for it not to be i mean… multi led light shall not compromise like that even if same triple leds….
The bottom right one looks a bit dimmer, but i reflowed 3 SST-20s onto a C8F board, and one of those is dimmer on moonlight even though it was next to one of the others on the reel.
I’ve also used a miltimeter to test more than one of the same LED already supplied on boards and noticed a brightness difference so it’s common to me.
I think it’s just forward voltage tolerance thing which would make most difference at the lowest brightness but it would be handy for someone who knows to confirm that.
Although another way too look at it is that the other two are brighter than standard… 
Led’s sometimes have different brightness due to the binning process. The tolerance for brightness bins is 7% or something like that. So if one led is at one end and the other two at the other end you will certainly notice it.
In my BLF Q8 one XPL is extra bright in moonlight, one is normal and the other two look a bit dim. In multi-emitter flashlights with very low moon mode it is easy to notice.
Does it show where the light lands?.
Or just to you when looking at it from the led end.?.
If it’s just you, I wouldn’t bother too much.
MOST Multi’s are too bright on moonlight.
YOU got a bonus.
Otherwise contact. They’ll probably change it for you.
OR Part value cash return credit.
I think it is a slightly different Vf between the LEDs. I don’t have measurements to back this up, but I think any difference will not be significant at higher current. I’ve observed this before, and when viewing the LEDs at high current through eclipse-viewing glasses (pretty handy for modding/diagnosing some LED issues) I see no difference.
It’s probably not a problem and I wouldn’t return it.