my name is keith i live in co. waterford ireland, i recently bought a cree 1300 lumen flashlight through ebay after hearing about them from a friend and later reading a few reviews on this forum as a guest, so i bought one and was blown away by its performance.
My only fault with this unit is out of the several modes she has i only want to use the flood or most powerfull setting on the switch, this means clicking through the strobe , s.o.s, half beam ect before i actually get to the mode i need.
would it be possible to modify the unit so it was just a on / off flashlight without going through the whole menu before finding the mode that i use most?
Welcome to BLF gosnest. Probably not so easy to make single mode but if it is someone here will now. You will need to provide details of the light and photo's
That sounds like an Ultrafire C8 or similar clone.
I have 3 C8s, and all have "memory", so the light turns on in the same mode it was switched off. So I don't need to cycle modes. (I always do though. Something a bit OCD about checking which mode it's in.. )
Out of my 3, the ones from 365bid are way better quality.
But I don't think I get 1300 lumens out of any of them !
I made one of my cheap "CREE Q5" ebay lights kinda direct drive, too. I simply soldered the "Out -" of the driver to the negative ring of the driver. LED consumes about 1.5A from a fresh TF3000. When I put clamps directly to the LED-star, it pulls about 2A, which is too much imo.
Driver swap wasnt possible because its glued between two metal tubes which just cant be torn apart without ruining the light and for an 8$ flashlight, I didnt want to invest too much time. So that was a good way to go.^^
e1320 is probably referring to re-programming a driver - which is a more complex but super cool solution...
you could also connect more than one single mode (on/off) driver in parallel (since I'm not aware of a single mode driver that will run an xm-l at ~3A).
Hi gosnest, welcome aboard. I can't help because I know (almost) nothing, but you've got some very knowledgable company here at BLF. I'm learning all the time, and I'll follow this thread with interest.
Sorry, going OT here:
@ Suncoaster: "Out of my 3, the ones from 365bid are way better quality."
Interesting. I wonder if this seller is anything to do with 365 digital? I've bought a dozen items from them without problem.
Almost can't go wrong with a good ole' C8. You aren't quite getting 1300 lumens (more like 665 to 750, give or take, maybe a bit more at the emitter), but it depends on how hard it is driven. The more lights you get and experiment with, the more you'll relish comparing them. Next, try a KE-5 XM-L
I've no idea of any connection between 365bid and 365 digital. I don't think there is.
I know 365bid was discussed here (positively) some time ago, after I made my first purchase from him and before my second. Both C8s from him are reasonable to my untrained eye.
The other C8 was from a "variety" store on ebay that sold a lot of childish junk as well. It was advertised as an XM-L but has an XR-E Q5. The finish is chipping and the torch is physically smaller in some areas, and has poor quality lettering. I complained and they offered a discount, I refused but asked them not to sell flashlights again, and they haven't...
