Nice review ! 
i considered buying one of these last year, but some things kept me away from it in favor of a couple other lights.
I’m still not sure what I think about the T70, but my modded BST is one of only two lights I reach for when I need to get some serious work done. I either use it or my ZL H52Fw, depending on what I’m doing. It’s a great work light, even during the day. And I’m doing a lot of repairs on a house right now, so I’ve been using my two “work lights” a lot.
Awesome review JohnnyMac. I am a proud owner of 3 original Terminators mainly because of your original Terminator review. Thanks! I have one Terminator (serial 0000001!) which has an imperfect aluminum reflector. I have a replacement here already. I saw that in one of your pictures you removed the stainless steel ring that holds the reflector in place and was wondering how you did it. I remember that in your review of the original Terminator you mentioned that a special tool is needed and that you won’t bother. Did you get that tool or find another way?
Thanks!
I haven’t tried, but you might be able to unscrew the bezel by pushing it down really hard into a rubber mat and turning the head. Depending on the strength of the glue (if any), it might need to be heated first.
How hard would it be to mod this so that it each LED is getting 3.5 or 4A?
I’ve heard that the BST output can be increased quite a bit with a simple resistor mod, but I don’t know the details of exactly what needs to be changed. In any case, I’d say the difficulty of modding it for more amps should be relatively easy.
You wouldn’t think it’d be hard but it’s not easy, I will tell you that. I’ve finished modding mine just about every way possible. I’m running mine with the following:
- Dedomed xml2 u2 emitters on Noctigons
- Heavy LED leads
- BLF SRK FET driver
- Springs modded with 22ga silver-plated copper strand wires directly to...
- Resistance modded tail assembly with full copper braid over spring PCB traces
- Sony VTC5 cells
With all of that I'm still only pushing 3600-3700 OTF lumens. Don't get me wrong, it's freaking awesome! But when I hear people say they used the same driver in an SRK with 3 emitters and it does 5000 initial OTF lumens settling to 4000-4500 OTF I want to bust some heads open. Either...
- My IS is way under reading the bigger lights like this or
- I just have shit luck and the Modding Gods just love mocking me or
- Those folks claiming 4000-5000 lumens are completely off base and aren't getting anywhere near what they believe they are.
That said, 7 modes with instant access to moon low or max output with 3700 real lumens and gobs of throw sure is fun! :D
I tried the resistor mod one of my BSTs. I bridged each resistor to each of the LEDs and guess how much the output improved? Not a freaking lumen! No difference at all.
Now it's a different story with the Darth. Bridging the resistors on that nets a 25% improvement from 1450 OTF to 1950 OTF.
Glad you love the BST! It’s still one of my all time favorite lights. You actually have serial #0000001??? You bastard!! 
I said I couldn't get the bezel off without a special tool? I thought my breakdown pics had it all out but maybe my memory is faulty. Wouldn't be the first time. Once you remove the individual head assembly from the master head I just use a silicon oven mitt I have to press the bezel into while I twist the smaller head assembly. Gets it off every time with little effort. There is no glue used in the BST lights anywhere.
The new Solarstorm T3 and T4, also made by BlackShadow per my understanding, have the same DUMB UI including coming on at maximum and the mandatory switch hold time to get the light to stay on. My T4 arrived defective too as the LEDs do not go out completely when the light is theoretically off unless the light is locked out by rotating the battery holder CCW a bit. Apparently a leaky FET or something.
Another observation concerning the less expensive BS lights versus the Terminator. Why not have the heavy duty battery contact/driver plate of the Terminator in the lesser lights? They all seem to have the contact plate with thin copper PCB plating for battery contact? Potential wear out point particularly if a battery contact is rough or damaged. Only the Terminator and the SupFire M6 and L1 lights seem to have truly rugged battery contact/driver plates that I have seen and the SupFire lights are a lot less expensive than the Terminator, or some other BS made lights made with the cheaper construction.
Beginning to wonder if the BS initials have the other better known meaning to them rather than BlackShadow! :bigsmile:
In general, lumen readings are only comparable against other measurements from the same meter. It’s really, really hard to calibrate the values to match other people’s measurements.
I think I could believe some of the SRK measurements though. I modded mine (according to my light box, pseudo-calibrated to a ZL scale) from 2100 lumens to 3100 lumens, and it’s only running at 11.2A total… so, about 3.7A per emitter. And that’s with less-efficient warm tints. If someone has more emitters and higher amps and more heat sinking, I could see it being significantly brighter.
My BST doesn’t measure at 3500 lm though… If my estimates are anywhere near correct, it’s closer to 2500 or maybe 2700. The light box said 2256, but that’s without a white stencil around it to keep light from escaping (should be a higher reading with the stencil). In any case, my modded SRK is quite a bit brighter than the BST even without totally hot-rodding it out.
Received my T70 from the Illumination Supply group buy several days ago. I also have an older Terminator model and a SolarStorm SP03 to compare it to. The switch repositioning does now allow handle removal but the “thumb screw” needs to be very tight to minimize handle wiggle on my light, way too tight to allow naked finger loosening and tightening. Also the thumb reach to the operating switch now requires a large hand for one handed operation if you leave the handle on and use it.
Improvement is the higher PWM frequency but I prefer the original UI that had the light come on in low mode and did not require holding the switch for 1 second for it to stay on once the switch is released. The old UI is still available on the Supfire SP03 and the reach to the switch when using the handle is also less than on the new T70 Terminator version and it still has a removable handle. The Terminator is smaller and lighter though.
I don't have an issue with the handle screw as I just use a quarter or nickel as a driver but I do agree about the button being too far from the handle and a stretch to reach at best. I too prefer the old UI and in fact, the one I modded to close to 4000 OTF is my old Terminator. I just prefer the original design and with the new FET driver in it PWM is no longer an issue. :D
i would love one just to mod :)
That’s why I got my BST… in some ways, it’s a really easy and nice mod host. I still haven’t taken the two layers of the driver apart though, to see what the MCU is. I really want to reflash the driver, and I’m hoping I can instead of needing to replace the whole driver.
But I’ve got some other projects to do first.
Perhaps one of you could help me?… I own a ‘mark 1’ version (with the 2 colour led handle switch) and I would like to buy a spare set of cells for it -
Am I safe to use Unprotected (but good quality) cells in this?
Will it cut-off power to avoid over-discharge?
I know that the trickle led switch will mean it’s sitting draining away, just concerned that this same draining could over discharge the cells… unless of course there is a protection switch built in to the whole torch…
I’d prefer to keep using the trickle switch too, because I find the low level green light very handy.
ps. I use a new model Nitecore charger too, so the cells are never in crap torches or crap chargers… due to this I don’t see the point of unprotected if I don’t need to .
Relative newbie, so sorry if my questions are a bit daft.
You can definitely use unprotected batteries, so long as they are not flat top, but you will run the risk of killing the batteries. In my experience the standby drain in this, and most other lights tends to be very low, so if you want to leave the batteries in there for a week, it's not really an issue. For a month or more... stick to protected.
Also it's very very easy to just twist the battery tube a few times to lock it out.
On mine twisting the battery tube as little as 1/8 turn locks it out. You just have to break contact between the unanodized front surface of the battery holder and the head of the light as long as the anodizing of the threads is not damaged.
I'm too paranoid... always twisted it more, but yeah, even a slight turn is enough. Kind of regret lending it to a friend... haven't seen it in months.
As long as you treat the cells as one set to keep them balanced, unprotected should be fine. The main issues are related to over-discharge. The always-on green/red light is, um, always on. And I found a couple weeks ago that the BST 1 doesn’t appear to shut itself off at low voltage. Someone borrowed it and then left it on, and when I found it the cells were down to 2.64V. 
I don’t personally run into the standby drain issue, since I treat the BST as a twisty with a mode switch button. When I’m not using it, it gets unscrewed a half turn. Mostly, I just worry about letting other people use it and the lack of a battery check mode or low-voltage protection.