Ahh ok, thanx! Dang you got those MaxToch coppers at a great price... Now sorry I ordered them from BangGood a while back (09/03 shipped), any day now from BG... or I got banged good.
--> Richard or anyone... Have you ever seen or heard of icon's appearing on dye's of LED's? I swear -- I got a little doggy in a corner of a bare XM-L2 U2 1A I bought a while back. It's in a budget zoomie now, reflowed onto a sanded down 16mm SinkPAD now. I never saw anything like this - totally unnoticeable in flood mode, but when zoomed out to see the dye image, there it is! I can't see anything unusual on the LED itself - all looks perfect, like any other XM-L2. The dog image itself is much brighter, and measured to be so on the light meter.
Told an engineer at work bout it, and he's heard of it but didn't have much details. I'd assume you'd never notice it in a reflector light. I "think" I bought it at MtnElectronics here -- can't be sure, but think I did because I ordered qty 3 back in July and this bare LED was in a strip of 3.
Tom, interesting puns to very strange Chinese store names aside, I've never heard or seen anything relating to graphics embedded in Cree LED dies. Hmmm...I wonder if we got something special on our hands. A quick search didn't turn up anything about Cree offering this as a service, but who knows.
TONS of batteries back in stock and being updated now!
Here's what we've got now that was out of stock:
Protected Sanyo UR14500P
King Kong 26650 Flat Top
LG E1 4.35v Button Top
LG D1 4.35v Button Top
NCR18650B Button Top
NCR18650B Button Top - Protected
NCR18650BD Flat Top
NCR18650BD Button Top - Protected
NCR18650BD Button Top - Unprotected
20R Button Top
25R Flat Top
If you're looking to get a VP4, take advantage of our battery rebate offer for the best deal around! (See VP4 page for details).
Ah well, its just as good, I have at least two weeks before a lack of proper cells will be the impediment. I’mma hotrod my Trustfire X6 and figure with no low-volt protection in the driver, protected cells would be a good idea. I’m just worried at how much wattage the protection will eat-up.
For me, SupFire is at the top of the "budget" food chain as far as build quality for the money (value!) goes. MaxToch is also up there, producing insanely great lights stock at a value price. They may be moving slightly out of the strictly budget realm, but they perform right up there with the big dogs, including fit and finish, for a lot less money.
The thing that gets me about so many “economy” lights is the fact that from what I read they often have lousy heat sinking even though it would cost no more to provide a decent LED mounting platform that is integral with the light head and also to provide good contact between the light head and body.
Even cheap lights should follow sound engineering basics but seemingly many do not. The classic stupidity to me is the SRK clone I sent Richard for modification. He pictured the internals in this thread. The LED mounting platform design had been purposely changed so that it no longer contacted the light body. A totally stupid and bad engineering design change. As I recall another member got a group of lights built this way and when the vendor was contacted he told the buyer that it was done due to some customers complaining of their lights getting hot too fast. So modify the design so the heat is trapped internally? DUMB. I also have a couple of low output USB powered light heads which have NO LED cooling as the LED mounts direct to a fiberglass circuit board.
A lot of people do not seem to realize that a light emitting diode is also a heat emitting diode. From the point of physics just different frequencies in the electromagnetic spectrum, one infrared and the other in visible light and remember that visible light can heat and cook things too. Just ask a kid playing with a magnifying glass outside.
I have the M6, L6 and F9, like em all and agree that the build quality is at the top of the budget line. The F9 is a nice C8 variant, with fins in the right places and a neat ano finish. I did a giveaway on one a while back and Jack the Clipper won it.
Those new copper stars sound very interesting as well, nice work Richard!
If you get the JAX for better than that current price - I'll buy one for sure...
Ohhh - as asked for a couple days ago, here's pics of my doggie in the window, ahhh, on the XM-L2 LED:
The pics didn't come out all that good but these were the 2 best, but this is really, really weird... The doggy hot spot had pretty good throw #'s, but the rest of the square was disappointing.. Totally unnoticeable in full flood, and thinking no one would notice in a reflector light. The LED appears flawless - it's a XM-L2 U2 1A still with dome. Ohh - since I had 2 identical zoomies (the cheap ZeusRay SK73 clone with super thick pill top), I swapped parts around and the doggie follows the LED anywhere it goes , my best friend now.
or I got banged good.
