Thanks for the detail pics, can’t wait for it, ordered 2pcs since first day shown at Gearbest, and still in transit, plan to swap the contact board with 17DD FET sand down to fit the pill and swap the tail with omten clicky.
Ohhh - there's not a drop of thermal grease under the very thin MCPCB (~ 0.85 mm), so that explains the droppage.
I'm putting in an old XPL HI V3 2B I got on a 16mm SinkPAD, reflowing the MCPCB to the pill. Upgrading wires to 22 AWG and adding spring bypasses. I don't want to lose the really nice feel of the e-switch.
Thanks for the pictures, got one in the post - looking forward to modding it.
How do you deal with the altered focus caused by the thicker ledboard? (I remember sanding a Noctigon down to 1mm to solve this :weary: )
Sheesh, I gotta waste money on upgrade pills and custom machined pills for another 16 years?
Start preachin’. :money_mouth_face:
Ahh - sanded down a SinkPAD to ~1.28 mm - decent but not fully focused.
K, goofed up, so ended up going with a XM-L2 U4 1C on a SinkPAD, I'll eventually dedome, but left the dome on for now.
Was able to measure amps by wiring up the driver on the bench, so measured between the driver and host. Stock is about 0.86 A -- makes sense considering the output.
When re-assembled, the light didn't work - there's poor contact to the driver ground ring in the tail. I added couple solder blobs to the ground ring and problems went away.
Mod Summary:
- XM-L2 U4 1C on 16 mm SinkPAD, sanded MCPCB down to 1.28 mm, sanded smooth, sanded smooth the pill top, reflowed the SinkPAD to the pill
- 24 AWG bypass's on both springs
- resistor mod: traced the two 1R5's to be in parallel, and appear to be driving the output to the host body. So piggybacked a 0.5 ohm (R500) on to the inside 1R5 (1.5 ohm). Result was a boost of 0.86A to ~1.25A on the bench.
Results:
- Hi, lumens (flood): 551 @start, 508 @30 secs, Hi throw (spot): 8.6 kcd
- Lo, lumens (flood): 156
Nice bump: from 322 lumens to 508 lumens for flood, 6 Kcd to 8.6 kcd for throw
Reflowed SinkPAD, and shows the 2 marks I made with a metal punch to use a tool in for tightening:
Pill spring bypass:
After the resistor mod:
Assembled. Want to blackout trim, but will do after dedoming. For dedoming, I'll just de-solder the LED wires, remove the driver and o-rings, and put the entire pill in warm gas.
6 minute running on Hi after mod: mildly warm throughout the body, pretty evenly distributed.
Again, highly recommended. I'm think'n I need to order a couple more and configure with different LED's.
I didn't test it yet, but with all the SMD LED's, I figure it shows RED, not GREEN, when the battery gets low.
Time to order one of these! Looks like the most fun you can have for under ten bux. Thanks for the inspirations, Andy, and the gang.
Your welcome! This light looks like a steal at under $10,better grab them while you can at this price.
Tailcap e-switch zoomie with solid pill and looks modeled after a Nitecore EC-11 all for $10!
Sounds like a great deal. Can’t wait for mine to arrive! 
Questions:
- What is the user interface?
- The external styling appears to be a clone of the Nitecore EC11, an 18350 light. Does the U-F10 fit an 18350? If not, how thick is the battery tube? Does it look like it could be bored to fit 18350?
- does a Nitecore battery tube lego with this light? (I would be very surprised if this is the case)
- Anyone tried resistor-modding the light for more output? Where do I attach the resistor and where do I get the resistor to attach?
Sanding down the star is a pain. The easiest way I’ve found to deal with this problem in other zoom lights is the following:
- Place assembled pill in the body tube without the bezel on.
- Find a straight hand-file that has grooves only on one edge.
- Hold light in one hand by body tube. Place the file against the body tube just below the pill. The file’s grooves should be against the pill, while the smooth part is against the body tube.
- Gently file the back of the pill with the file. Rotate the tube to do a small section at a time. With a little practice it’s quite easy to do. You typically only need to take off 1mm of material or so from the back of the pill.
- Periodically reassemble and test. If done right, the bezel should extend an extra 1mm when fully extended and the LED on the thicker pill should be fully in focus.
The entire filing job should take less than 20 minutes.
UI is Hi/lo in that order, always comes on in hi. Tailcap is exotic - maybe 50% or so green flashes, then solid red - repeats... Dunno yet what the full pattern of flashing/colors is.
Ahh - post #39? Resistor mod - easy to do, not super results but improved. 18350's won't fit - dunno bout enough width to drill it out.
My ultimate mod would be to do a custom driver using same stock switch.
That is a good tip 
, just two days ago I did that to a UF-1405 pill and it worked very well!
Hhmm - gotta check that out, filing the pill like that. Anyone know will dedoming change the focal length?
It does a bit, the focus moves further forward towards the lens.
More filing! :partying_face:
Tom, is there any chance of figguring out what magic is going on in the pill part of the light? I haven’t seen momentary in tailcap without wires through the tube before.
Yes, there is a chance. Think it's doin a bleeder trick, like our lit tailcaps, so when the MCU drives LED output, it's output is on the driver ground ring, which is the body. Not sure how the MCU keeps power though in the OFF to ON transition - I do't think I understand the lit tailcap thing completely though either. Maybe a more EE guy could enlighten us on this, in reviewing the pics I have of both the pill and driver boards.
I hope so, we could have Narsil in any light then.
Mine just arrived today.
Here are my initial impressions:
- UI: Single-click turns it on. Rotation is high —> low —> off. Not sure what the output is on low. My guess: 15-30%. It’s noticeably lower, but nowhere near a moonlight or very low.
- tailcap e-switch: glows green when lit. interestingly, the green LED glows brighter when the light is on low mode. No idea if it glows or flashes when voltage gets low.
- Dimmer out-of-the box than my On the Road I3, which also arrived today.
- Size is the same as the Nitecore EC11 it is styled after. Body tube is one-piece. Will not lego with Nitecore parts.
- Emitter looks like a cool white XML2. Not sure if it’s authentic CREE or a Latticebright.
- Anodizing is a nice uniform matte black. Better than the anodizing on most cheap budget lights. Only defects in the anodizing are under the clip (expected) and some very tiny scratches where the tailcap screws in. Ultrafire lettering is very clear and sharp.
- Driver is in the tailcap I think. When I bypassed the tailcap with a paperclip, output doubled, but the light became single-mode.
- Entire light has some heft to it. It doesn’t feel like they skimped on the aluminum and brass.
- Lens appears to be 20mm. That’s wider than the 18mm lens found on most Sipik 68 clones or the 16mm lenses found on the CREE 3w. 20mm is the same width as on most of the narrower head 18650 zoomies.
- Tailcap has a magnet in it. It’s not the strongest magnet I’ve seen however.
Given how cheap it was, I’m pretty impressed.
It’s definitely possible to do.
Those cheapie aluminum Costco lights that typically sell in a pack of 3 for $20 all have tailcap e-switches and have been that way for years.
Hmm, I had no idea about those. I’d really like S2+ styled light with tailcap ramping, I don’t like side switches from ergonomics point of view. Tactical grip is much nicer, especialy for hand heat sinking hotrods.