Thinking it would be a fairly descent flooder, I bought a SkyRay XY-600 during the Wallbuys Christmas sale.
First, the condensed version. THIS LIGHT SUCKS IN A HUGE WAY! The small deep poorly polished reflectors are worthless and the light is extremely under driven. I would like to change that. I was hoping that some of you could offer some suggestions to help make this light worth modding, rather than throwing it into the river (where it belongs in its present form)… it really is that bad, especially when compared to an SRK with 3 terroid driver.
The long version:
Out of the box, this light is a total fail – but might make for an excellent mod host.
The SRK (the good one with the original 3 terroid driver) blows away my SR XY-600, both in brightness, spot and spill. The problem with the XY-600 is that it doesnt know what it wants to be when it grows up. Combined with an anemic driver, the tiny reflectors are far to small and deep to be efficient, so they throw a small (but not distant) concentrated hotspot, all while wasting a huge amount of lumens in potential spill that may have been realized with shallow reflectors. Also the reflective coating isnt as shinny as it should be, which absorbs even more lumens. The tint is the coolest white that I have yet to see in any XML… absolutely horrible.
Tests taken @4.18V
SR XY-600 high mode before losses – 0.76A per emitter
H – 4.60A
M – 2.30A
L – 1.37A
For comparison
SRK high mode before losses – 2.1A per emitter
H – 6.20A
L – 0.55A
On the bright side (uh, well it isnt that bright at all… lol) my example is very well constructed and free of any obvious imperfections. If driven to 3A per emitter with 3 or 4 XM-L’s, the large heavy head should probably be able to wick away heat about as efficiently as the SRK (which is driven @2A per emitter x 3). The switch is a clicky contact type, not electronic. Since this light is 4 x 18650’s in parallel (4.2V), a 7135 based driver solution seems like the easiest choice.
Goals:
- Mod for a wide angle flood light with minimal beam artifacts.
- Not exceed 12A total draw. 9A max would be preferred.
- Attempt to maintain a balance in efficiencies (lumens per watt, driver efficiencies, reflector, battery life, heat sinking)
Considerations:
- Im thinking about removing all the components from the stock driver and using it as a contact plate. Then attaching 1 x 3.04A 7135 driver per emitter. Would this be a good one? Im considering the 3rd Star option : Low (5) - Medium (30) - High (100%). Can I ground the memory on the drivers to prevent synchronization problems between the drivers? (so it would always come on in low first and have no memory). That, or is there a way to sync the drivers modes and maintain memory without having to go to a master/slave configuration (as described by Hill in post 32)
- I want to get rid of the stock reflectors and mod for 3 or 4 much larger ones. Preferably 3 if I can find the correct sizes.
- I would consider 6 replacement reflectors (and drive each emitter @1.5A - 2 emitters per driver) if they would produce a better flood beam (more on that below).
- I could probably remove the emitters and put a round aluminum plate under them to shim them closer to the lens and swap in larger diameter/shallower reflectors.
- Can anyone recommend some quality small shallow reflectors that play well with XM-L? (prefer to avoid TIR because they arent very efficient, unless you know of some that are)
Possible emitter configurations:
- 3 x XM-L U3 at 3A each = 3120 lumens nominal - I prefer this option.
- 4 x XM-L U3 at 3A each = 4160 lumens nominal
- 6 x XM-L U3 at 1.5A each = 3744 lumens nominal
- 6 x XM-L T6 at 1.5A each = 3276 lumens nominal
- 6 x XP-G2 R5 at 1.5A each = 3108 lumens nominal
I will add photos and parts measurements to post #1.
Thanks to all that stayed with me so far.