3 different drivers?
It would be awesome to see a picture of your three DRYs' beams side-by-side.
I'm intrigued with this light. Judging from the Vinz's post it is compact and seems well built. Apart from the usual questions about 4-mode driver current, I have a more general question: How does one manage 3 batteries? I mean vast majority of chargers take 2 batteries. Would I need a special charger that could charge three batteries at the same time?
Note that Vinz custom-built his light starting from an empty Dry host. The complete-unit Dry lights will be slightly different (not saying worse--just different).
There is this charger: https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/3250
and also this one that I'm considering buying: https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/2520
But on the other hand, I happen to have two Ultrafire WF-139s, one of which was given to me by a friend who no longer uses li-ion batteries. I'll probably start with those two, and monitor the batteries to see how well they stay matched. I have enough li-ion batteries now that I will probably eventually get that Xtar WP6 II though.
Ok i will add more to this post as i go along (having my dinner as well as playing with my flashlights, WTF I think my son is more mature than I!!!) LOL! :D
Same Solarforce V2 2400mAh batts, approx 4.0amps (i believe atbglenn's measured 3 amps on his fluke while i measured 2.7 amps, don't know what was it but just bear in mind + and - )
DRY CW 3-mode 4amps direct drive = 308 initial but drops rapidly to stabilise at 266 lux after seconds. Slowly drops after that at about 0.1-0.2 lux per second.
After that i measured the Sky Ray SR3800 rev 0 Direct Drive aka no driver, initial 297 but drops rapidly to 278 and stabilises after 10 seconds. Could be different tints/efficiencies, heatsinking handiwork etc.
2 ice cubes to cool the DRY, initial lux 325. (WOW!) Drops to 308 in 5 seconds. Ending lux at 60 seconds 299 lux. (WOW!) So what this means is that the drop is probably somewhat cell related, as the cell voltage slowly drops. You know that 4.12 - 3.95V from cell discharge graphs it is straight down. Not surprising.
CONFIRMED - if you are in the mountains or a country which snows, this is one cool light to blast. As PROVEN BEYOND DOUBT many times, you do not need a huge chunk of aluminum and it might be detrimental, but you need low temps with excellent host to air dissipation to wick the heat. In this case, i did not even get the back plate of the MCPCB below zero centigrade, maybe 5 deg C? A good thing to note, though the latent heat of fusion of ice is really good, i am actually cooling only that part of the head. It'd be good if someone has a IR thermometer and switch on this thingy and get the host temperature at - 10 deg C ambient.
Same place, TK70 is 240 lux (2200L OTF). Cooled DRY DD CW is 308 lux stable. 2981 lumens OTF initial and 2824 lumens OTF/Out The Front ending @ 60 seconds mark for the cooled DRY. (WOW!) Starting voltage 4.12V Solarforce 2400mAh cells, nothing too special and indicative of reality.
PS. What the, you are in Vancouver Canada Peteybaby! UGghhh....
Neutral White is approx 13% lower in luminous flux than Cold White. Eg CW 265 lux, NW 230 lux. Using Direct Drive 3-mode 4A driver. I am pulling 3.9A from XTAR 2600 cells. I hereby crown the DRY triple XM-L as the brighest neutral white light available as a commercial item that is instantly available, and also below $100.
The new revised 3A driver worked out to be 2.25A on high, i am getting 162 lux. Compare this to Trustfire 3T6 cold white at 124 lux. (just measured at the same place)
Seriously if you are after max intensity, get the 3-mode 4 amps direct drive. If you have a hobby charger just charge to 4.0V instead of 4.2V. In fact 3.95V is also ok, from 3.9-4.2V actually the amp-hour capacity is very little. ie you can do a 3 min full dump and it drops from 4.2V to 4.0V or so. After that it would be about 3.5 amps or so and slowly coast down where the real capacity kicks in. (ie it drops slowly). Don't worry about what "oh...the light dims down". Absolutely no such thing, still bright like crazy from my Sky Ray SR3800 DD experience. At that kind of !@# levels, bright means bright, no such thing as dim.
https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/2325
Get Ric's Sanyo 2600 from cnqualitygoods, you get this kind of performance. Only $5.50 per cell!
2100 just say: the NW 4-mode is crazy bright as well :p
still not getting 3A, should i bother?
TY for your measurements!
No problem, actually i did not say NW 4-mode is crazy bright. I said NW 3-mode is still going to be crazy bright, because after 10 mins of use the amps is gonna drop to about 3-3.5A due to falling voltage (that's direct-drive for ya) from what I experienced in the DDed SR3800. It won't get hot as fast, definitely there is a difference. The only thing is that it is missing one mode, and for some that is a make-or-break deal because the low mode of about 200 lumens matters to them (plus the PWM, seriously you aren't thinking this is iTP 2kHz PWM right?)
It'd be interesting to note that converted to cold-white speak (13% more), this NW 4-mode driver @ 2.25A would be 182 lux. Compare with Trustfire 3T6's 124-130 lux. If you want a low mode just get that $11 neutral white XR-E drop-in from DX. The new Solarforce L2P hosts are real sexy!
Or can get the new Sky Ray triple XM-L 850 model, that uses a wee bit bigger reflectors and slightly higher drive levels than the original. So may be able to match the DRY CW in throw. $67 + $2 (registered mail) though. It's the drop-in design with teeny threads (much like 3X less than the trustfire) which i don't like. As amply demonstrated this DRY host when cooled immediately boosts output.
I'll do a team beamshot soon, soldering the WW.
WB 5880k, tuned it this way instead of 3000-4000 because i guess most would want to see CW and still tell something about NW. The WW does not look this way in real life, btw.
Left to right, Trustfire 3T6, DRY Cold White, Neutral White, Warm White The warm white is at 3.1-3.2 amps.
Soshine, Trustfire have got chargers which handle 4 cells. Also you can get a hobby charger, charge as many as you want and as fast as you want. (you'd need some knowledge about batteries and DIY skills if you are going to use hobby chargers)
what i meant: just say to me it's crazy bright. Not that you said so :). Sorry for the misunderstanding
I use the XTAR WP6 II for charging my multi-cell setups....great unit for under $40USD, and charges 6 18650s at once.
Ok, well the DRY neutral white 4-mode would be bright, it's already a wee bit brighter than the Sky Ray rev 0 (the best one). 
If you want super bright you'd need the 3-mode DD, it could be as much as 260 lux (reflected) for the neutral white under cold conditions, or 35% brighter. It's a bit "wierd" seeing everything so "clear" from houses to my skygarden to buildings due to the CRI, its like my HID installed with 5000k bulbs. (I have quite a lot of different colour temp bulbs). The 6000k CW lights up the buildings 200m away but it looks pale and dull.
As usual, if anyone is looking for the perfect light for < $100, then sorry, because none exists. There could be one 12-18 months later. BTW as you probably can see, manafont can't get this one (not surprising). Can wait though.... 
Next on the list, going to run down the cells and see how much it does at 3 amps thereabouts.
Hey what's wrong with Vancouver?? I love it here, especially North Vancouver, which is practically in the mountains. It's a little bit cooler here than in Vancouver, and we get more snow.
Thanks very much, 2100, for all the information and the beamshot. It's much appreciated.
Peteybaby, Northern Vancouver is the perfect place for all these overdriven hotrods! Lets the 4A driven XM-Ls stride their legs! You will definitely get nearly 300 reflected lux there, instead of my 260. What i meant is that it is hot here and you are enjoying the cold there esp during winter and able to maximise any lights which are driven really hard.
Eg, During winter in snowy conditions probably you don't even have to wrap a XM-L P60 light and get brighter output than me over here wrapping it real tight.
Oh I understand now. :)
Anyway, despite the tempting numbers of the Dry 3-mode, I think I'm going for a 4-mode, because I do need the lower Low. If I get the 3-mode, I'll always need two lights, but if I get the 4-mode, I'll be able to carry just one.
I'm still a bit disappointed that the 4-mode isn't as bright as the 3-mode; what would be perfect is the existing 4-mode driver, with the High mode changed to be the same as the 3-mode's High. As you said, I could probably have run the light at 4A for longer than 5 minutes here in the winter.
Even more perfect (for me) would be a 5-mode. Maybe the factory will update the driver some day, and then I can upgrade it and get the huge output that you 3-mode owners get. Ric if you're reading this, I would love a 5-mode driver with outputs like this: 50 lm, 200, 800, OMG-2500 lm+, and strobe. No memory!
for Tasmania. Up here in the hills (Night temps 3-10 C) , after ~10min on high the light is just warm enough to be comfortable (probably 30c)....and yes it's crazy bright.
Well peteybaby, I guess just get the 4-mode and also put into the delivery a spare 3-mode DD driver.
I am eventually going to get the 4-mode, but I'll pass on the 3-mode driver for now. For my purposes, the 3-mode driver isn't very useful.
I might be too late though. I went to the CNQG website to place my order, and the NW and WW are sold out. :( Then I went to SBflashlight's order page on cpfmp, and his price seems to have increased but I'm not sure... maybe the form isn't working correctly.
2100, Ric told me on msn that they tested the 4-mode with unprotected sanyo 2600 batteries and that's the reason why u measure 2,25A and they measure 2,8A. I don't know if that's right but that's what i was told. I looked them up and they are only 5,5$ a piece compared to 6,5$ of the protected xtar 2600's i was going to buy. Old4570 told me that his charger (trustfire tr003p4) charges unprotected ones the same as protected ones.
So now my question is: should i buy these unprotected ones, would i benefit from them, or should i avoid them as a novice?
I'll try with the unprotected cells then. I purchased 3 of his Sanyos. Actually I have pretty powerful cells....the Panasonic 2900 and 3100s which are very low in internal resistance and capable of pretty high currents, but I don't have a set of 3 (I got a pair of 2 each).