B&D Flex360 - **First XML Mod** Review - Fugly Beamshots - Link to pics

LED Flashlights – General Info Multiple AA / 14500 Flashlights
1

Black and Decker Flex360 Clamp/Magnetic Flashlight

Reviewer's Overall Rating: ★★★★☆

Summary:

Battery: Factory 3xAA -- Mod 4xAA
Switch: Factory Reverse Clicky -- Mod Fwd Clicky
Modes:

Factory Hi (1R5 resistor for 750ma)/Lo(too tiny to read resistor for 250ma)/Off -- Mod Low(60ma)/Mid(440ma)/Hi(1440ma) Driver
LED Type: Factory P4 -- Mod Cree XM-L T5 4B
Lens: Twist Zoomie
Tailstands: Yes - in fact, it points any direction you want, too
Price Payed: $15 + tax, available in July for $10 shipped, woot.com (missed )
From: Wal Mart, currently in store only (for $25 locally)
Date Ordered: June?

Mod summary: swap emitter and switch, remove battery spacer for 4xAA, see

PICS!

Pros:

  • AA convenience
  • Adjustable Flood (not a thrower)
  • Useful Modes and no strobe (this is no tactical light...)
  • STRONG clamp w/ rubber teeth
  • Strong magnet
  • Head rotates (~315 degrees) and tilts (~120 degrees)
  • Very sturdy body
  • Internal Aluminum heatsink
  • Lifetime warranty (not on the mod )
  • strong holes on tail for clip

Cons:

  • Limited throw (hardly a hotspot beyond 10 feet)
  • Plastic lens, plastic lens cover
  • aluminum pill encased in plastic w/ no outside exposure
  • Battery door latch hard to open w/ finger (easy w/ about anything else...)
  • Swivel has 21 position, tilt has 7 (finer tuning would be nice...meh)
  • No comfortable hand position for holding a long time
  • Weird beam pattern (factory)
  • ugly...well, not pretty, and not worth much w/ a bag over its head...
  • plastic body
  • not gitd clicky
  • feels a little bulky and heavy vs output (factory)
  • 3xAA (factory) - really? wtf? design a battery compartment to hold 4xAA, and put in a spacer?

Features / Value: ★★★★★

Factory/Modded:

The handiest light I own - you rarely need a hand to use it because you can stick it just about anywhere...clamp, magnet, lay it on whatever, then point it where you want light. It has enough throw to see what is going on about 50 yards away (zoomed) and can flood a pretty big work space without having to find a spot for it too far away. It 'shines' camping, boating and working. Not my first choice for a long walk...feels a bit odd in your hand.

XML Mod:

WHOA!!! that the beam so much better! It was blotchy and ringy, and square (on zoom) before, sooo nice and smooth now! No beam shots of before mod but I'll get some over thanksgiving (gifted one last father's day). Now low is nice and low...mid plenty useful and on hi you can tell B&D never made a like w/ that kind of output lol (on 1.4amps anyway;)

Design / Build Quality: ★★★

BIG HUGE credit to designers for such a useful light, but -2 stars for not making it comfortable to hold and not using more aluminum. The plastic body is very strong...BUT...I live in northern NY. I camp in the winter and I love to ice fish. Use this light at -10F and the swivel and tilt will break instantly like a cheap glass. I won't even consider using it below freezing (32F). Also, if at least the head was aluminum this light could be driven twice as hard and be an AWESOME all around light.

I don't want to focus too much on those negatives, so I'll say this - I bring pocket lights, flood lights, headlamps, spotlights and gas lanterns when I go camping. This is the light everybody asks to borrow (even though I pass out harbor freight cheapies, and hope they won't ask).

Battery Life: ★★★ Modded: ?

Factory (claimed): Hi, 12 hours, Low 150 hours. They used inefficient circuit (resistors) or this would be 4 stars. I've never changed the batteries on a weekend camping. We use a lantern at the table, but there's plenty of cavorting so it gets used a lot. Note, the light that I gifted I did the battery mod only (removed spacer, moved anode... 3xAA now 4xAA). Current jumped to 350ma (from memory) and 1000ma (for sure)...so..not sure how that affected life but it was brighter...

Modded: will update...someday. did measure current to verify driver function (worked as advertised).

Light Output: Factory ★★★ Modded ★★★★

Factory (claimed): Hi 130lumen, Low 30 lumen

Modded: sorry, no meter, I'll do some comparisons w/ my android phone after google lets me sign in to the market again...

Summary:

I love this light - right before I submit this I'm going to buy another (just in case you guys try to snatch up the last ones out there!).

If you camp, fish, boat, etc.....and everything you own seems to be in constant need of repair...buy this light.

If you only like sexy lights you can show off, or only like lights you take for a walk or hike, you won't like this light.

If I've made mistakes, typos, left out info, you have questions, etc. lemme know. Or not...

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Hey,
After you recommended this one to me a little while ago I've been looking for one. Seems Walmart has discontinued carrying this; it's not even available on their website. I see it on Amazon though. I'm interested in seeing more details on this mod. How hard is it to get into this thing to mod? What did you do for heatsinking? Did the XM-L increase the flood? Increase throw at all? I am mainly looking at this for a general area light.

Garry

3

This light was 3 for 20$ a few months ago ...

https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/2904

4

Some local wal marts have the light on 'clearance' but reportedly not lower than amazon.

it is very easy to get into - four screws on top, under the head when you flip it up. pull rubber head cover off and four more screws to remove bezel retainer. bezel and lens pull off, lens is threaded into bezel (thats how it zooms).

There are two screws in the emitter cover and two in the aluminum pill. All screws are #0 or #1 Phillips.

No change to heatsinking. Original emitter had thermal grease under it, I added arctic silver under the xml. Before reassembling (but w/ emitter cover on) I ran the light for about 5 minutes. The pill got warm but not hot at all. I'll do a full drain on hi of 4 fresh energizers to see if it fails, and get run time, later this week. I'm not too worried about it or I would have measured temp w/ my meter before reassembling....but I've been wrong before

I Had to drill the emitter cover to allow for larger emitter dome diameter and grind the star of the xml down to almost nothing. Probably easier to just buy the emitter w/ no star since I had to solder to the emitter anyway. I could only get about a turn and a half on the cover screws due to the adding the thickness of the star (original emitter was on a very thin wafer).

There are links to the emitter and driver I used in the table in orig. post. You'll probably want a switch if you use a multi mode driver.

The emitter and driver upgrade didn't add much throw. Maybe a bit just due to sheer power. The original emitter had a much tighter angle on its beam. The mod gave me a more usable low (close up work). A mid that is about equal to the former hi, a much fuller hi, a neutral (rather than cool white) tint, and a much much much smoother beam.

The other light I linked in your request for suggestions is a better general area light - IF you have a place it will stay...a bumper, pole, etc...and you have readily available 12V power. It has an incredibly wide flood and a whole lot of lumens.

But, it sits in my boat, and on the picnic table camping, largely unused, because (even w/ a little portable 12V SLA) it is easier to grab the B&D...and that was before the mod

5

For me it's more of a lantern than a flashlight You're right about it beingheavy ...it's the first thing you notice , It gives an immediate bang for your buck reaction when opening the woot box -O-lights .Their bulk makes them much more stationary lights .. one attached to a 70 year old wood cook stove and the other clipped on top edge of a door in a cabin with no electricity . with correct diffusers attached they throw a great amount of useful light around .

Thanks for all the cool modding info .Mine are 600 miles north of me right now and hopefully someone was smart enough to pull the batteries :P

6

yeah, no tailcap lockout, I try to remember to slip a piece of paper in the tail and shut the battery door...which is a pita to open w/ just your finger.

If this light was aluminum it wouldn't have to be as bulky or heavy and I'd pay a whole lot more money for it....

7

Ok, my closest Walmart didn't have this light (and I swear I remember it being on the end of an isle on clearance not too long ago). I stopped by another Walmart near work and found tons of them! They had them in the hunting isle as well as the flashlight isle. They were $24.88. I haven't tried mine out yet.

What do you mean by "add a switch if used with a multi-mode driver"? What about the switch it has? Also, why the worry about pulling the batteries? Does it continuously drain the batteries even when it's switch is off?

How about sticking with the existing "driver" with an XM-L upgrade? is that feasible? Will the current "driver" handle the 4th battery? I think that 1.4 amps would be a little more than I'd like to have (ie. I'd rather have more runtime.). I think I'd want 1 amp for high.

Garry

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$24.88 is a little high but at least you can return it if you're not pleased.

The original switch has 3 positions, ie Lo-Hi-Off. It only changes mode with a complete press and release (the switch is what makes the modes change...current passes through different contacts).

So, if you were to change to a 3 mode driver (lo-mid-hi, mode changes when power to driver is removed and restored) like I did, it would do something weird, like lo-mid-off-hi-lo-off-mid-hi-off etc. - with a full press and release for each change ...no soft press to change modes - and that's if you wired power to both the (original) lo and hi positions. Hope that makes sense...it sounds confusing as hell to me lol

I haven't measured parasitic drain, but it probably has a very small one. I don't worry about it much since it costs me like $.50 to put fresh alkalines in it...I buy them on black friday from lowes - utilitechs approach energizer performance. But, the other nice thing about tailcap lockout is you can jam the light in a backpack and know it can't get turned on...

I think using the original circuit, including the switch, and an xml upgrade is a great idea. Much easier, and less risk of failure later (only resoldering 2 connections, right at the emitter).

If you go that route, hold off on the battery mod because you might find that the xml will draw closer to 1A than the factory emitter (w/ no other change). I 'think' you'll also get better efficiency from 3xAA than 4xAA, especially through the factory circuit (less heat lost in resistors).

You might be happy with it stock but when you compare it to the beamshots I took you'll see what I meant about the xml filling and smoothing out the beam.

9

With no measurements to go by and just looking at the appearance in the pics, does the heat sink in this fit into a D sized Maglite? It looks just like the custom heatsinks for D-mags that enables you to keep the focusing feature.

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Probably a bit small but I'll measure w/ calipers later...

11

pill dimensions - outside diameter, not including vertical splines 1.250", inside depth .450"

temp testing

craftsman 82170

bezel and lens off, probe on bottom of pill

pill surface temp 74F

ran light on Hi (1.4a) for 13 minutes, pill surface temp 165...not sure what max temp is but it was uncomfortable to touch for more than about 1 second so I shut it off...

5 minutes off, pill surface temp dropped to 125F

11 minutes off, dropped to 99F

>20 minutes on Med and temp is stable at 114F

12

Ok, finally opened and tested this light out. I'd say it's more than just an "area light". When focused for spot on high I can light up a treeline about 200' away in my backyard. When focused for flood on high it will light up an area about 25 to 30 feet wide about 30 feet out in front of the light. The beam spreads fairly evenly too. It doesn't give much "area lighting" up close in front of you, but then again that's always been the problem with LED's. This is one thing I was hoping for - clipping it to a tripod and lighting up the area around it.

Overall I am impressed with it, even as stock. 12 hours on high on 3 AA alkalines isn't bad either. Oh, the way it "clicks" as you rotate and bend the head doesn't seem like it will hold up to a whole lot of abuse though.

My 2 cents,
Garry

13

yeah, i think I estimated about how far away it has to be to light an area in the other thread - like 20 ft for setting up a backpacking tent.

or maybe you feel it lacks output, rather than flood angle?

swap in an xml and you'll double the output, even if it doesn't draw more current.

http://club.dealextreme.com/forums/Forums.dx/Forum.-209~threadid.530221

I ordered another. I think I'm going to replace basically the whole head except the backside so I can still use the tilt feature.

edit: reread your post...'upfront', yes I'd agree. too bad you can't pull the lens w/o a screwdriver...it sure would do that in 'mule mode'

14

Yeah, I'd be interested in replacing the emitter with an XM-L. I'd be fine with the same modes- high & low (although this low is a bit too low) and the same battery draw (would like to keep the runtime good). Won't be anytime too soon though.

Garry

15

funny how much opinions vary - i feel sorry for the folks that do market research on us lol - i find the stock low is too high for me but it is great now...