Too late for any videos for me. Put in a brand-new Fasttech U3. Driver stopped working. Huh? What? All I did was resolder two wires. Tried everything to revive it, but she is gone.
Put in a new fasrtech driver. So now I have the world’s most expensive C12.
Much brighter, but there’s still weird artifacts around the center spot. Will play with it later. Maybe switch out the reflector, but that’s it for me with lightmalls. Had a bad previous experience with another order, so stick a fork in me, I’m done with ’em. They ripped me twice. Won’t happen a third time.
Also this fasttech driver and emitter combo heats the C12’s fins right up. With the original driver and emitter — although the emitter read 3.5 at the tailcap — the fins didn’t even get warm after 5 minutes. Now they start warming up after 45 seconds. Something wasn’t right with the original driver and emitter.
And then I used their 16mm u3 emitter. I have had very good luck with this emitter/driver combo. It took serious fiddling to get the reflector lined up with the emitter enough to get the artifact to mostly disappear. There is no little plastic ring guide on the emitter to center the reflector.
BUT, you might want to try the existing driver. It seemed to work just fine with a new u3 and then poof it didn’t work at all. The reason for the dim light SEEMED to be a funky emitter.
As I said to Gary in a PM:
This budget light had GREAT potential. Someone just didn’t implement it correctly.
With the fasttech parts, I have a light that kicks butt the way the original Lightmalls c12 u3 should have. In fact in some desert tests last night, I’d say the revamped c12 is now as bright as the xin c8 or maybe even a hair brighter. The xin c8 is pretty much my consistently brightest c8-style light. (except for maybe the ke-5.) So it’s too bad they messed it up, it could have been a KILLER light.
I don’t know what the heck they used for an emitter. My original lightmalls driver worked for a few minutes when I first intsalled the replacement U3 —- and that emitter with the original driver also BRIEFLY kicked butt. It was severely bright. Was the original emitter a toasted T6 or U3? What the heck was it? I had to really mess it up to get it out of the pill. It was really glued in, so I won’t be able to play with it and see its real output.
reporting back….my lightmalls c8 xml2 and c12 arrived today…finally, took about a month.
as i stated earlier, i dont have a lux meter or any kinda meter. but by judging with my eyes, comparing to some flashlights that i have with confirmed lumens, id say they are both around the 1000-1200 max mark.
both lights have almost identical beam pattern. the c8 has more of a cooler tint but nowhere close to being purple or anything. while the c12 is a bit more warm. they both have a outer ring around the beam.
the flood and spill is very big. its one of the floodiest c8’s out there in fact without having a orange peel reflector.
let me tell you guys, i have a thing with c8’s and i have had quite a few, and this light malls c8 is the bomb! its not completely dark here yet, but it looks as though its outhrowing my c8 champ, the kdc8!