To some extent, although in many most cases they would still not match the performance of these modded versions. I am not remotely effected by brand names, I care about performance and specs.
That said I had no intention of getting this many lights when I started this. I had planned on collecting a dozen or so for myself and then building the rest to sell. That turned out to not be a viable option as I was simply not making anything for my time and I had all these left over lights.
I will most likely sell them at some point when I forget how much time is involved or just give them away as gifts.
Plus the biggest reason I did this was that by building them myself and building a bunch of them I now know what works, what doesn’t and what I like. In the case of most brand name lights they only offer cool white emitters and / or semi-neutral tint. I simply can not buy a cool white light unless it will be used as a host. If I have to mod an expensive light to make it usable, I might as well start off with a cheap one I figure.
Well, personally I prefer the higher build quality of a more expensive light, even if you mod it anyway…
Better machining and anodizing makes a pretty big difference, and that’s not something you can just “mod’ and fix.
I like having a few nice lights but I also like not having to be worried about it getting scratch, dropped or broken. I like to use them and not worry about what happens to them.
I find that with expensive things they end up just spending all of their time on the shelf due to be worried about messing them up lol.
I avoid lights that can’t be opened and can’t be repaired, lights with proprietary driver boards and use proprietary cells or any light I may have second thought about taking anywhere and using it.
Nothing modded on that table I would not own and many I already do in similar modded states.
Plans for the Courui?
I gutted the driver on one and piggybacked a FET, added a tail clicky, doubled the rear springs and XM-L2 U4 1A was what I had at the time sitting on a Manker 35mm hunk of MCPCB. Flipped the shelf… Think thats one of the first lights in the Mod thread by PD. It’s an oldie but goodie.
I agree, most of those over priced “brand name” lights can not even be modded easily or well. I mean when I can build a better light for $50 better then a $150 “brand name” light, why spend more?
The D01 is modded with an XP-L HI V2 3C properly focused and using a TA driver with narsil. Makes around 1300 lumens IIRC and 250kcd for 1000m of throw. Basically exactly the same as the XHP35 1504 but with a much prettier beam. I really like the D01.
The L2 with xhp35 is quite fun as well, more lumens and a larger hotspot but not quite as much throw obviously.
Good question actually. Some quick math shows the following:
Around 65,000 lumens in the skyrays alone (not including the ones I have for sale that are not on the table, with those around 75,000).
Roughly adding up the rest should be something around 140,000 lumens.
Hmm, I thought I was doing a lot better then that, Looks like I need to keep working on it.
I have been thinking about a REAL 100,000 lumen flashlight / lantern that would surely be a whole lot different then anything I have seen before, who knows, maybe I will have to funds for this years scratch-made contest.
How about making that 100K+ lumen flashlight out of some sort of incan/halogen bulbs? Osram had some really nice 24V 275W halogens in their catalog not long ago, with well above 10K lumen output.
Gonna call it the GigaTorch? Setting on fire everything on sight! Ooouuh yeah!
C'mon Texas_Ace, build that torch with more horsepower than a good chainsaw!
I have seen that before and while bright for sure I highly doubt it is actually 100k lumens with those cheap ebay LED’s. As VOB showed those LED’s are good for maybe 5000-6000 lumens each and with all the driver losses in the setup in the video too boot I would say 50k lumens would be a generous guess.
Although what I have in mind should be a bit more “user friendly”.
Pretty much all of those lights will get hot in a big hurry on turbo.
The skyrays are fun, the 10,000 lumen versions will start smoking a piece of paper in seconds if you lay it face down on it.
I would love a Q8 with nice copper DTP mcpcb with 8x XP footprints and a matching reflector. Toss 8 XP-L2’s in there and it should be good for close to 15k lumens and maybe 20 second before it is hot. At least that is what my XHP50 SRK does.