Actually I should have got it friday, but sadly nowbody was at home that day.
Well I didn't have time yet to play around with it.
Just some observations. The lens is not an aspheric and it seems to be glass. Unlike other zoomies that extend for just some millimeters, the body of this one extends to about 30 mm longer in the zoom position (wow!). It makes a funny hissing sound when I zoom fast. It draws 1,45 amps at 4,1 V, but it is still quite bright. It's a bit brighter than the R5 Skyray and clearly less bright than the Manafont 3-mode XM-L dropin (cieling bounce test). Well, I didn't expect more than that, at 1,4 amps only.
The square of the beam in zoom is slightly smaller than the one of the Sipik, but in flood mode the beam is nearly twice as big. The zoom and the threads are smooth and lubed. I have found one sharp edge on the body, but other than that the machining is fine. Sorry I will probably not have time for a full review before the weekend.
It might well be aspheric, but from that picture it seems not to be a very strong (i.e. short focal length, high-NA, low f#) lens. Too bad, that'll result in a smaller spot (and more lost light) than I hoped for. I'll see when it arrives.
This is pretty much what I was trying to say with my post. When only 25% of the light actually hits the lens, don't expect 800 Lumen OTF in throw-position. So an XR-E driven with 1250 mA might be as bright as a XM-L driven with 2500 mA. This is very simplified, because my "simple" model assumes an perfectly even distribution of the light from the emitter, but you get the idea. In general you want every single beam to hit the lens. Remember that I never talked about actual throw, but overall output in throw-position.... big difference! ;-)
Yeah, I know, but look at the scaling. Stretch the x-axis with a factor of 2. Or look at page 7 HERE and cut off at ~ +- 40° (assuming 40mm distance from emitter to lens and lens diameter of under 38 mm because of the head diameter)
any chance for simplifying what you are talking about for us newbies? So if you were to change the led for an XR-E and drive it harder in this light we might be able to get better throw? Total light output is important to me, but so is throw.
Oldenia, did you get a lemon, or your 18650 cannot provide enough juice (what brand 18650?). Revolver got 2A on his Yezl T9 and i mentioned that was low, he should try another cell. True enough it got close to 2.5A.
It can't be 1.45A, or did you get it stuck in medium?
Anyway i'll do a long range 30m lux measurement when it arrives next week. (I have quite a few long arcs to measure and focus , damn it i only got 700k for my 75W light, it's supposed to be close to 2 million)
Recently I've got involved into trouble measuuring higher currents with my multimeter. Find out the cables had to much resistance and got stuck at currents around 2A. Made my own thick&short cables and now I can read up to 4.1A, at least. Maybe this is the case with Oldenia.
Everyone who is measuring current should check if one has good low resistance cables. Look video at http://www.dealextreme.com/feedbacks/browseVideos.dx/sku.33451~id.8639
While you are waiting for slow DX shippment take a pair of thick coper wire bent at the end to fill the hole in multimeter. That would do for some readings. I made them by myself very easy, no need to buy new ones.
Without having tested this particular light, but experience with 3 flood-to-thow lights (RC-29, C78 and PowerStyle W109) the flood-position is where flood-to-throw lights really shine and deliver excellent even wide-angle beam and make a perfect work light for close-up tasks. However in throw-position even medium sized reflector lights like the SKY RAY 1JC8 outperform the mentioned lights by a landslide. All those lights use an XR-E BTW. The Yezl will be a very good flooder (if not even superb), but only have a mediocre overall output in throw-position by design. Too much light will hit the internal walls of the aluminium tube and is lost forever. But all this is only theoretical without having the light in front of me. It is possible that it is still the perfect light for you. It's a 2in1 light, so sacrifices have to be made somewhere... in this case the throw-position....
The XM-L can be driven three times as hard as the XR-E (3A vs. 1A), when the heat transfer is good (cooling), so maybe the XM-L will make up for having a sub-optimal beam angle by just putting out a larger amount of lumens. Looking forward to the first reviews of this light....
Agree. Actually I posted that in the first few posts as well. Get this for (1) Big head Darth Vader shelf queen looks, ok so it may be missing the extreme quaility when held up close... (2) flood, and also ability to throw a bit. Tailstand for a real wide-area flood. Hey its XM-L its supposed to pump lumens. Check out the TMA-73 which is a 73mm aspheric, and how it does with XR-E and reflectored lights.
My Yezl M7X came, but i missed the delivery so I'd need to pick it up from the post office tomorrow. T9 should be coming next Monday or Tuesday.
I must say from first impressions that I am pretty happy with this torch. I can not wait for tonight and it to get dark. Just was out on a hunt last night for 3-4 hours and would have loved to have taken this with me.
Certainly pretty bright and one hell of the flooder. Spot seems pretty good but can not really tell until I take it out to test.
I ordered 4 of these lights and they arrived today. Build quality appears good and consistent across all the lights, The slider and threads are lubricated and the XTAR 2600 18700 cells fit no problems . Hopefully I will get to give one of them a go tonight and compare it to my KD C8.
I am getting 2.3 amps off the battery with my old multimeter with poor leads, the kd c8 (xml ) reads 2.5 so i think it is .2 or. 3 off as i have measured the c8 at 2.8 with a better borrowed multimeter on the same batteries. After tightening up the pill the image of the cree die at zoom was clearer but became clearer still when i created a spacer with a paper clip to raise the lens further from the cree and the bezel was still able to screw down to secure it. The hotspot is a similar size to the sipik 68 at 3 meters and appears brighter than the sipik running a 14500 however the kd c8 with a smooth reflector outshines it. I think i will need to have a go at doing some beam shots
I just received my T9 today. I'm still on edge about it but I can say this much, it needs a better lens. I removed the stock lens and held a 52mm aspheric headlight projector lens over the end and it did MUCH better. I have a fog light at work that takes a smaller lens, I will grab it and see if it fits.
). It makes a funny hissing sound when I zoom fast. It draws 1,45 amps at 4,1 V, but it is still quite bright. It's a bit brighter than the R5 Skyray and clearly less bright than the Manafont 3-mode XM-L dropin (cieling bounce test). Well, I didn't expect more than that, at 1,4 amps only.