But I have to say I’m rather underwhelmed. While it puts out what you think is a throwy beam, it actually doesn’t throw all that far when you start to measure it against other lights.
The beam is also waaay to white-blue. And the next mode memory sucks big time!
I’ve tried opening it up and the reflector and pill seem to a complete module. I didn’t want to try opening up further until I had some idea of what to actually do with it.
I just sold my WF-008. I too was underwhelmed but I couldn’t do any mods because the LED couldn’t take any more current because of the poor heatsinking.
But seriously be very very careful, there isnt much you can do (maybe make it direct drive) and the mirror is GLASS, it will break easily (ask me how I know). I ended up building mine into a light that had a fixed focus (zoomed in) 35mm fresnel lens in it. it’s very dissapointing and was a huge waist of my time and money!
I’d either leave it stock or make it DD, make sure yo wrap the “drop in” with foil.
I think it is already somewhat direct drive at stock state (in high mode, but wires are soooo thin…and components in the driver induce resistance). I ended up putting a neutral XP-G in mine, focus is ok only but now the beam is less ugly.
I also think this light is a waste of time, not worth it.
Would you mind sharing the process for the emitter swap? What did you have to do to the pillar to fit the XP center pad on the XR-E’s pedistal and how did you wire it? with the wires directly to the bottom of the emitter like stock or did you use some sort of mcpcb?
Hum, I’d rather not. I’m ashame of the mess I did…
I used an old 8mm XP-G board (with an old XP-G on it, decided the light wasn’t worth more than this unknown XP-G emitter I had laying around). I cut/trimmed the board the more I could, glued (fujik) the central (ridiculous) brass pillar to the back of the trimmed star (it was smaller than the original XR-E). After it was dry and the star soldered to the (ridiculous) white thin thin thin wires (I decided to keep them, limiting current appeared safe to me considering the driver), I glued (fujik + thermal paste) the pillar in the hole, in the best “focused” position I could. Erk, complete waste of time !
Needless to say that the thermal path is awful at best, but it works, and I find it more useful than with the stock XR-E. Anyway, it is more of a “showing” light for fun than a really useful light.
I was given two dead ones by a mate - one with a fried LED and one with a dead driver. I fixed one just by swapping the driver from the burned out one. I now have one with no driver and no emitter and was considering my next move.
I have had one of my own for a few years, an older single mode one. Works OK as a mid range rifle mounted kill light but is rarely used now.
You can use an XP-G2 or XP-E2 on a small mpcb…or a MT-G2 direct on the pillar…with 2 18350 on direct drive it may do a nice light for very very short bursts!
