Need some advice on Ultrafire s5 style lights

LED Flashlights – General Info
1

Hello, new to the board, Hoping to get some advice on some S5’s I got off ebay.
Their not branded ultrafire but look just like the S5.

I bought 2 of them 1 black 3mode and another silver 5mode off ebay.
I know from past exp on ebay you never know what you’re gonna get, 5 sellers selling the same flash light will deliver 5 different lights.

Im evaluating the lights for use on firearms, The output is not as good as it could be but good enough for my needs.
Price was right at less then 2.50 a light.

The black 3 mode has that stupid memory “feature” and also there did not appear to be any retainer ring on the driver board, it’s just press fit into the pill.
The silver one is 5mode but has a resister on board to eliminate memory after about 5 seconds.

Both lights have plastic lens and reflectors, not great but not a deal breaker.
And lousy aluminum pills.

Over all I like the silver one, although I prefer black color… the problem is the silver one has a really lousy reflector.
It messures 20x12mm and the emitter hole is rather large, this leads to a dark ring around it’s hot spot.
I already tried several ways of doctoring it up with tin foil but that just ain’t happening the reflector is hopeless.

The black one has a better reflector 20x14mm, mostly smooth but with orange peal the first 4mm or or so around the emitter.
and has a nice soft hotspot.

So here’s my problem, I could keep buying lights on ebay till I find a seller with stock I like, but that could get tedious and expensive.
The silver one is fine for my purpose except the reflector, but Im having a hard time finding a cheap source of reflectors.
… I could just buy twice as many lights and cobble together one decent light using black and silver lights.

another option would be to just buy black lights and mod out the memory, I’d probably use resisters as I’ve had crappy luck with pencil mods… they usually wear off after about 3 weeks of carry in my experience.

Does anyone have any advice for my situation? or know of a GOOD source of this lights given what im looking for for say 3.50 or less?
Im planning on buying about a dozen of these lights as soon as I figure out what im doing and who im buying from.

Thanks in advance.

Lights in question:
Black: http://www.ebay.com/itm/CREE-Q5-2000-Lumens-18650-LED-Mini-Flashlight-Torch-Lamp-3-Modes-Penlight-TL-/351355447561
Silver: http://www.ebay.com/itm/2000-Lumen-Portable-CREE-Q5-LED-18650-Mini-Flashlight-Torch-Lamp-Light-Silver-TL-/371321898964

2

They don’t Lego?
Maybe measure things, it could very well fit Convoy parts, then it is easy
For gunmount maybe “pot the driver” and be happy with plastic lens?

Oh and of course, welcome to BLF!

3

Not sure what you mean by lego. you mean come apart? sure… I have no problem taking them apart.

Not familiar with convoy how would I know what they would fit?
And where would I get the parts?

Pretty much all my flash lights up to this point have been Ultrafire 501 and 502’s
But I’ve been really turned off with the ones I’ve gotten lately from ebay/china in that department.

Thought I’d try something new so picked out the cheapest non zoomable 18650 I could find that had half way decent review/feedback.
Im pretty sure these are sporting XP-E’s or some rip off of such… but im not an expert on ID’ing emitters.
I’ve not measured ampdraw I suspect it’s around 500mah… maybe less.

Im totally cool with the plastic lens… and even the crappy pill, Im not planing on increasing the output, It’s good enough as is for what I need it for just the reflector on the silver light I bought was trash. The dark ring surrounding the hot spot is annoying.

I swapped the reflector for the one that came on the black one and put it on the silver one and im perfectly happy with that light, the problem is that means buying twice as many lights just to rob the reflector and maybe a host swap for color.

If I could find a cheap source of decent reflectors I’d be good to go, I don’t care if the reflectors are plastic as long as they’re cheap enough to make this a viable option.

Otherwise Im left wondering about buying the black 3mode lights and just killing the memory.

Im just not sure which way to go here.

I did come across fasttech which seems to have a lot of parts… problem is the reflectors are marked for xp-e/xp-g
The XP-G is larger, so Im not sure they would solve the problem if Im left with a large gap around the emitter… that’s what’s causing the dark ring already.

Plus if im going to spend 1.25+ for a reflector, aluminum although it might be, It might make more sense to pay the dollar more and get a whole light I can use for parts… back to square 1… know what I mean?

4

It’s not sitting too deep… At least I don’t think… I suppose I could try shimming it but It has a isolation ring on it. Picture attached Ya I thought about it, I mean I like the p60’s… especially the 502 But It means more money and If it wasn’t for the annoying dark ring this light would fit the bill nicely.
BTW where’s a good place to shop for parts these days? DX looks like it’s taken a turn for the worse, is fasttech a good cheap honest place to get stuff these days?

5

Lego means parts of light A fits in light B :wink:
So measure the driver and reflector and such to know what you can use.

6

I have two of them …

I used Nichia 219C 5000K 80+ cri on noctigon (link) and 7135*8 driver (link) and a Convoy S2+ reflector , but with a little sanding on the retaining ring of the pill , so it can fit the 7135 chips on the bottom side of the driver … I also used some very thin copper sheet around the pill to make good contact with the body .

7

Like I said the reflector is 20x15mm on the black (good reflector)
and 20x12mm on the silver (crappy reflector)

The black also has a smaller cutout for the emitter while the silver one has a larger cut out which is what I think is causing the black ring.
Im pretty sure these have XP-E or some such knock off counterpart, The silver lights reflector looks like it could take something larger like a XP-G or XM-L maybe.

The Driver board appears to messure just under 17mm
Im not looking to change out emitters or drivers though… not in the budget and the sad thing is these old ass XPE’s are brighter then the last few “aledged” XML 502’s I’ve gotten from Ebay/China.

They’re bright enough for my purpose if only the silver light had a decent reflector that came with it… Problem solved, I just have to keep an eye on budget, SO I can either

  1. get new reflectors for the silver lights.
  2. buy both silver and black lights and rob the reflector out of the black to put in the silver lights (I’ve already done this results are satisfactory)
  3. Or just buy the Black lights, mod out the memory feature… the black lights are 3 vs 5 mode but all they did was pressfit the driver into the pill. no retaining ring so I don’t like them as well as the silver lights, plus the silver light comes with a Glow in the dark Oring for the lens.

So it sounds like Convoy S2 reflectors will work… problem is where is a cheap place to get them? I don’t care if they’re plastic as long as they’re cheap.
DX is nearly completely sold out of all reflectors… That use to be my goto place but the flashlight section looks like it’s taken a real hit… not sure where to shop these days… ebay is no help on parts.

8

Welcome to BLF.

I think Kaidomain is a good place for spare parts they also have lots of different reflectors :

http://www.kaidomain.com/c/228.Flashlight-D_I_Y/4/40/sizebig/

9

Take my advice and don’t waste your time or bux on cheap crap. You’ll waste more time and experience more ag just trying to get something remotely useful. Silk purse and sow’s ear…

I tried that for C8s, and got garbage lights. Cheap lightweight Al pills, plastic(!) reflectors, crappy driver and emitter, you name it. I was intending to use them just as hosts, but by the time I’d upgrade everything, including the switch, reflector, (brass) pill, etc., it’d cost more than just getting a genuine Convoy host with all the goodies built-in.

10

@LightBringer

I think you missed my point here.
Im not trying to upgrade the flash light in question… just get rid of the dark ring around the hot spot.
For sure all the things you said was true… crappy pills, reflectors, lens, etc.

The lights for what I paid will do the job, I’m just not happy with the beam quality, brightness is fine for my purpose.

Anyway here’s what I decided on, Im taking a multi prong approach.

I bought a reflector replacement for testing here: https://www.fasttech.com/products/1617/10001275/1203505
I also bought a few 501’s off ebay (less then 4 bucks ea)… I hold little hope for them, My last 501/502 orders was about a year ago and I was not happy with the quality. Infact these cheap S5 style lights with XP-E emitters out classed them.

Still if they’re junk I’ll have more host bodies… the last batch while disappointing still had glass lens and perfectly functional bodies.
I then went over to DX and found a drop-in p60 module that looks decent for 5 bucks: http://www.dx.com/p/cree-xml-t6-5-mode-6700k-450-lumen-smooth-aluminum-drop-in-module-with-textured-reflector-55026

I’ve got a few 501/502s that could use the upgrade if nothing else, so not money wasted either way.

So my plan is in this order.

1. If the 501’s I bought turn out to be decent, I’ll just buy those and problem solved
2. If the replacement reflector for the s5’s turns out to be a winner that gives me a cheap path to fix my beam issue.
3. If the 501’s turn out to be junk (almost surely) but the drop in module is ok, That would give me a path to a less than 9 dollar decent p60
… This is way more then I wanted to budget for the dozen or so lights I need… but it’s an option
4. Another option that remains open is to just buy 12 silver and 12 black lights and cobble together what I want.
This is still half the cost of buying and upgrading p60 lights

I’ll let ya know how it turns out, keep the advice coming… just keep in mind I don’t need to upgrade the driver or emitters on these lights… they’re bright enough as-is for my purpose… not everything has to be a fire starter.