Looks like your X got there first, again! 
I don’t think any boxes have shipped empty, not supposed to have, those weren’t reported to be ready til after Chinese New Year.
This is the first time anyone reported anything like that. I’d suggest checking your account to see if there are any other packages on the way, or tracking numbers assigned… and then likely contact Neal to let him know you got an empty bun with no meat inside.
Blows the doors off the latest BLF D80? In throw or total light output ... inquiring minds need to know. 
What did you do to get the improvement from 1449 lumens to 1814.7 lumens?
And what took about 4 minutes?
Thanks, TK!
Now, to hear how Dale got 1800 lumens… inquiring minds want to know. :nerd_face:
That’s likely more about hardware than software, but one of these threads might be relevant:
The driver has a small capacitor to measure off-time, but it’s not enough power to keep the MCU running. The MCU itself also has some SRAM which decays slowly so it can hold values from one boot to the next if the off-time is fairly short. Both of these methods are used.
As for eeprom, it uses wear levelling. One byte is written per boot, levelling across 64 cells. The spec claims 100,000 write cycles, though independent tests suggest it usually gets over a million before seeing actual failures. So, in order to wear out the eeprom, you’d have to press the button 175 times per day for 100 years before it’d fall out of spec, and likely more like 2000 times per day in order to see an actual failure within one human life span.
Config data doesn’t use wear levelling, but it also doesn’t get written unless you enter config mode. The fastest way to wear out the eeprom would be if you left it in mode-group-select mode for about 3 years.
It took about 4 minutes to re-flow a bare XM-L2 U4 1C onto a 20mm Noctigon and swap it into the SS/Cu X6. Bingo, 400 lumens. Nice tint, bigger hot spot, MO POWAH! 
Edit: I had already done spring bypasses to protect the tail spring and just because on the driver. For this, I only removed the bezel and swapped out the mcpcb. Same wires, same FET.
Edit II: I just set the thermal step down on this light. It took 2 minutes and 40 seconds to warm up, even at this crazy power level! So now it’s set to take care of that in the future, I can forget about it. 
Finished up with the 3000mAh cell down to 4.0V. Works for me! 
Thank you for the reply and clarity. Generally, I don’t mind even slow and very detectible PWM for any purpose that is a few minutes or less. My concern is not whether I can visually detect the PWM, but how it makes me feel after sitting in it for extended periods, hours, with battery swaps, and hours more. I won’t know until I try, but I suspect it is possible even very fast and undetectable PWM can contribute to eyes becoming weary and tired and worse symptoms compared to a constant current. I hung a lot of my hopes on that one lower level using 100% current on the 7135 channel. At least successful reflashing has been proven possible. But I really need to try it for a while before I’ll know.
That’s awesome Dale…I didn’t know the XM-L2 U4 were that much more powerful! Is the LED de-domed? I thought these reflectors were optimized for XP-L Hi emitters. Did you have to use a spacer to adjust focus?
Just sent a Zip file link that holds the Gerber and Eagle files OSHPark uses to make these driver boards. That should have what you’re looking for.
R1 is 22K
R2 is 4.7K
C1 is 10uF
C2 or Offtime is 1uF
D1 is a Schottkey Diode SD0805S020S1R0 Schottky Diodes & Rectifiers20volts 1A SIZE 0805
MOSFET that I like to use is a Vishay SIR800DP
ATTiny25 MCU for these
350mA 7135 chip
Edit: There is also a bleeder resistor added due to the lighted tail cap, I’m not familiar with that one.
Tristan, all I did was swap the mcpcb with the new emitter on it, screw the reflector back on and screw the bezel back on. I will say that I had previously put Kapton tape on the bottom of the reflector to prevent shorts, so that’s still there. The LED is domed.
I really like the larger hot spot, makes for an intense flashlight for general purpose use.
Sharpie, I would think you can just run the mcu’s power through a larger cap that can keep it powered for a couple seconds, then run batt+ through a resistor to Pin2 so the mcu can sense when power is actually applied and how long it has been gone.
Is that what you’re thinking?
I doubt you’ll be able to tell the difference.
If it helps you feel any better, CPF selfbuilt reviewed a light (SL2) using a similar but less-advanced driver, and he wrote that it “appears to be current-controlled. I saw no sign of PWM in my testing, on any level. There was a high frequency circuit pattern detectable on my oscilloscope, but this was not visible to the eye. … I can assure you that the above patterns produce no visible effect even when shining on a fan. … was ”flicker-free” at all levels in my testing.”
That was for a light which uses “fast” PWM at ~15.6 kHz with only a FET. The X6v2/X5 produces a cleaner “phase-correct” signal with 90% smaller amplitude and three levels instead of two. So, at worst, it might be 10% as bad as the light which selfbuilt said had no PWM.
Pbtbtbt. The schematic was on the first page of the first link in my previous reply. 
Yes the blf D80. And as far as blowing doors off, it throws quite a bit further than the D80. Don’t get me wrong, I still like the D80. I just like the x6 more now!
If that would work it will only require adding 1 extra component and re-running a couple traces. I would think we would have much more reliable timing by doing that way.
Banggood advertises the flashlights as “BLF X6-SE V2 + X5”.
I don’t see much difference whether the X6 is called:
- BLF SE V2 X6,
- BLF SE X6 V2, or
- BLF X6 SE V2.
Although my preference would be BLF SE X6 V2 to distinguish it from the prior group buy BLF SE X6.
However, what should the X5 be called?
As it stands now, it looks like the name is BLF X5 and that can’t be right. Or is it? :quest:
I suppose we could just call it the “Kronos X5” to avoid any confusion over nomenclature.
Worthy of note, I just compared the beam between my sample SS X6 with XP-L HI and this SS X6 with the XM-L2 U4 1C. Notably, the HI has a nicer more neutral white beam color while the U4 1C looks greenish beside it... you don't really see the green hue if using the light by itself but compared to the nicer HI tint it shows.
This is our gameroom with the XM-L2 U4 1C showing to the left on the fireplace, the HI showing on the right, both lights on level 7.
And here are both lights shining across the entire room, on an angle, at about 25'... XM-L2 U4 1C first then the tighter, whiter, HI on mouseover...
And tail standing from a card table on the 8'6" ceiling of white styrofoam ceiling tiles, getting a room lighting going on for comparison of overall brightness... HI on mouseover again...
So, ultimately, while the swap to XM-L2 U4 1C gains a substantial lumens amount, the color and overall effect is sort of a wash. In actual use the wider hot spot seems nice, but the tight intense HI hotspot is pretty remarkable in it's own right, lumens loss or no.
We'll call this one a wash, personal preferences on the small differences.
By the way, the SS sample has my own build of driver, pulling 5.92A for 1435.2 lumens, as compared to the 5.26A and 1814.7 lumens of the XM-L2 U4 1C.
Reminds me of the war between the People’s Front of Judea and the Judean People’s Front. The only thing the JPF and PFJ hated more than the Romans was each other. And the JPPF / Judean Popular People’s Front, which they could both agree to hate. And the PLFD, People’s Liberation Front of Judea.
Technically, these are the BLF X6 LE and BLF X5 LE by KRONOS.
These are Limited Edition lights where the X6 that came before was a Special Edition. ;)
Edit: Since I'm speaking technically, whether you call them KRONOS or late-to-supper, they're made by Manker. All this branding and stuff, get's so confusing... what we don't know is who actually makes some of our favorite lights. The manufacturer's over there tend to make a Billion lights and stamp whatever brand is buying them on the lights in the end. Who makes it? Anybody's guess in many cases.