mhanlen, it seems like you're trying to apologize for gearbest's delays. There's really no need at all for that! 8) I'm sure almost everybody knows what's going on with gb's shippment-deliveries lately...
Anyway, I was reassured (last Monday 2015-12-02) that my B158 would be shipped (with 2 more FLs in the same order) by the end of the previous week. I was just answering to Cula's question. I know that lately a lot of patience (maybe even luck) is needed for orders from gearbest to be delivered...
Mhanlen, you “only” organised us a good deal with mfg and GB, so no need to apologise for what is not your responsibility, you did a great review and organised this GB as a nice bonus to us ;)!
Okie dokie, got it! No offense taken. They are slow to ship sometimes, but I guess the discounts make up for it. When I order from them, I usually order and forget it. Hope it ships soon for you.
I have tried my best in my communications with GB and Brinyte to make sure this goes well… I even sent an email to Brinyte about what BLF expects out of lights. I feel like they’ll send us quality lights, as they seem like a nice company. At least the customer service rep Archer who I have dealt with over the past month or two. Xtar and Brinyte both seem to have great people working for them. I have dealt with quite a few customer service reps over the past year or two, and a lot of them are nowhere near as communicative or friendly. I won’t name any of them, but… just giving my two cents.
3XAAA carriers won't fit in this - it's an 18650 only light. The brand and the pricing? Funny - I got exactly the opposite impression - quality and performance for a bargain.
Krono said here, post #3: "I reviewed some of their lights, and was impressed overall. Interesting design on this light as well. Brinyte makes good quality stuff."
Thanks Tom for the reply. Your info and photos were very helpful. Since the pill is easy to swap on these I’d like to build several different “drop-ins” to use. For the color LED’s I’ll get the XPE2’s from MTN as you suggested.
So between the red and the amber there’s not a very noticeable color difference when shining the beams outdoors, but I’m a little confused on the specs between the red and the amber. I see the red has average 625nm and the Amber 595nm and just a few (3.6) lumens more for the amber.
I don’t really understand about the wavelengths and nanometers pertaining to these, so is the slightly lower nm rating what makes the amber specs much better?
Specs for RED:
CREE XP-E2 Red (wavelength range: 620-630nm, average 625nm)
Also I need to know if what driver to use for the red/amber XP-E2? Would either of the B158 stock drivers in the red or white versions be good? If neither are close to 1.9A would this driver(with 5x7135 chips) be the one I’d want to use?:
I went with 2.48A (6*350 7135's and 1 380) on these RED/GREEN's based on djozz's tests here. I posted details in post #17 there. Not sure why RMM is recommending only 1.9A max.
Guys are you aware of performance drop if you use remote switches?Please measure and try... Expect almost 40% light drop.
So 300 kcd in this fella will drop to about 180kcd.
Mhanlen you can try to test this. It is pretty common with every single cell flashlight no matter budget or premium one. Performance drops if remote switch is used.
I'd suggest that the lower the current to the led the less performance drop there will be. So if you loose 40% at say 4-5 amps the losses at 2 amps would be a lot less. The colored leds will only be driven at around 2 amps.
FYI anybody… I am completely OK, with someone else making a mod thread for this light. I have a lot on my plate right now, so it’ll be hard for me to keep up with the thread. I mean I don’t mind starting it, but I won’t have time to keep up with the mods and linking them in the first post.