I finished my first UF-T20 last night. XP-G2 R5 1A dedomed on a 16mm Noctigon. QLITE driver a 4.5A, measured 4.58A with a fresh 20R. My light meter is away right now but visually it doesn't seem to throw as far as my Small Sun ZY-T08 mods with a dedomed XM-L2 at around 5.5A. The throw is pretty nice for the size of the light and I like the smooth beam you can get up close when needed. The big reflector lights are definitely more efficient but a zoomie can still be useful in certain situations.
how wide is the lens on that
and how wide is the bezel.
a good thing about sk-98 zoomies
is that they are very small and fit in your back pocket
Don't have exact measurements (check out Wallbuys for an estimate) but it is both longer and much wider than an SK98, which I also have. This is almost the same size as a C8. You can get much better throw out of this lens though than the one in the SK98.
I know dedoming is usually done to improve throwing, but how does it effect the beam on full flood with these zoomies?
Yes in that particular instance “turbo” is wide open no PWM, what comes in goes thru the 7135’s and right to the emitter
Once you get above 3A on XM-L or XM-L2 the emitters end up making MORE heat than light amp for amp, sure they can handle 5A but the heat output is astronomical
The STAR will kick up to wide open for a pre-determined time then step back to a lower power PWM mode, lowering heat and power draw from the battery, thru for say 2 minutes you get max light, max heat, on a copper base that heat is quickly absorbed and dispersed over a larger area, keeping the emitter cooler, a cooler emitter is more efficient, better light for the same amount of amps/power. however eventually that heat will saturate the material around it and the light will start diminishing as the heat increases internal resistance. The BEST way is to have a copper base soldered or brazed on to a copper pill and that copper pill inside a copper flashlight tube…aluminum is next on the list, then brass
Looks like it might be a 20mm driver as well…there are adapters for going from 17mm to 20mm, also Texas Pyro has made a 20mm Nanjg 8*7135 compatible driver from OSHPark. (you don’t want to do the soldering so here is the example with the adapter, very easy)
I went for a pretty simple upgrade for my UF-T20. Just an XM-L2 on copper with a Qlite 3.04A driver and then painted the top of the pill with matt black paint and protected the LED dome with a straw. I never intended to do anything major to it but it works great, and can be used for quite sometime on high.
Can you tell me if THIS star driver has “Memory function” (sets in after 2 seconds)?
It is 17mm driver:
Mine is also a 17mm driver. 105C/qlite slips right on.
Can you give me suggestion for a good driver because I can’t order STAR driver from “mtnelectronics”, they’ve told me today that the shipping will be the problem because they can’t find anything under 100$…
Thanks, I’ve ordered it!
It seems very good driver, I only miss 50% option with this driver but that is not a deal breaker 
I went a different route on some of my zoomies
I took some of this http://glow-on.com/ on the area around the emitter, now when I run my light for any length of time…I get a green glow when I shut it down (I call it my glow ring bling)
First layer dries kind of bumpy, second layer dries nice and smooth, glows crazy intense, nice thing, they have different colors you can put in it
I also recommend replacing the driver for something with no daggum blinkies, me personally, I HATE blinkies!
I just got my light and one thing I noticed immediately is that it’s not very wide on full flood. Are there replacements pills or other mods out there that will bring the LED closer to the lens?
For this light I do not care the least about throwing, it will not matter that I loose beam concentration when focused for max throw.
You could just grab a 16mm copper shim to space it up along with some AS5 in between the layers. I screwed my emitter to the pill which you could do as well which will hold the emitter, shim and pill together.
This also works well.
or with blinky modes, but always starts on high
Well… this particular flashlight host is widely used for truly pocketable thrower (relatively large aspheric with short focal length). You can add copper/aluminum disc under the star to bring emitter star closer to the lens, but in my opinion doing that potential of this host as a great pocket thrower is wasted. This will better fit your needs. I own one and the flood is extremely wide because lens is very close to emitter and the lens bezel is very shallow.
The Ultrafire SH98 (from FT) is also very wide, much wider than this host. The zoom is about half as good but the flood is great and it is cheap. It can't handle the heat as well but it is still decent for the money.
Thanks for the input. I bought this light mainly for a zoomie that can handle heat pretty good. That’s actually more important than the actual beam profile. Now that I have it I want to make it as useful as possible for my applications, and that means making the beam wider. Generally speaking, I have little need for any throw at all (I have a Convoy C8 as thrower and am happy with it). Heat handling for long run times is the most important.
I have sk98 clone and the flashlight I linked in post above. Flood on flashlight in post above is about 50% wider.
Edit: When I edited post I’ve forgotten put the link