Ok, I understand the concerns. This is my comment.
For those who really want a confirmed working 3 x XM-L and at very very low risk of DOA or warranty return on receipt, just get the TK70 from HK Equipment. usd 183 shipped with tracking. Get 8 x Eneloops XX 2500mAH if you already have a good AA charger like Maha, 8 Eneloops would do great and people tested them to be of the same power output since the light is regulated. 9 over amps due to sag, but it'll do like 30 mins on Turbo, good enough (heck just switch it to high if you need the run time will ya, nothing's perfect man). If you want it short, pay some money and get the TK70S from thaipowerlight.com. Not sure where would you get nice 32600 though (or does it operate also on 32650?). LOL! Not recommended to run on IMR 26600 with sleeves say from bestinone.net or something.
Why spend so much? (1) It is a Fenix, just sell it later if you need the $$. I mean try selling a Sky Ray or something... (2) HA, quality uniformity....only issue is someone mentioned the reflector has some very minor pits (3) It puts out a humongous 2300L OTF.....the Sky Ray 3800 is 1600L by the same user. (bro ergotelis) This is the only light that can hang around with the SR90 at 102k measured by ergotelis. BTW bro ergotelis is in Greece, and it is as hot as here. It will fare better in a cold climate.
Else pay 25 bucks and some more shipping fee for a smart charger from battery junction, pick up the 4 x Tenergy 10AH cells at $28. $65 total shipped for Indianapolis. It is difficult for me because it costs additional 10 bucks for the smart charger shipping, so i might as well get a hobby charger from HobbyKing, which I did. The 110V adapter does not work for me, plus the 240V version is 41 bucks and even more shipping.
Another option which I think is more juicy would be CNQ 3 x 18650 triple XM-L shorty of 150mm length. Solid light, solid grip position format like the Ultrafire RL-2088, specced to be running at 2.5A for the emitters. Take care not to gun for long unless you are in sub-zero dead winter kind of conditions. I said juicy because it has T4 7C tint. Same throw/flood characteristics like the SR3800. <<-- Stay tuned folks, it is currently at the Post Office which is just 250m away from my apartment. Sorry but I do not have the key to the PO. :)
Third would be the Trustfire TR-3T6. Not even sure if the 3-cell version can really take 3-cell, but i'll take Trustfire's word for it.
The TK70 left HK on 26th July and TR-3T6 left HK on 29th. If I am lucky i'll get the TK70 this Thursday/Friday if not the following Mon/Tue. The TR-3T6 probably end next week.
I know it could be flaky, but it works (else how would you know it is at 9 over amps). Not sure if they'd start a fire or something, that's for me to find out how's the temperature they are doing at the contacts end. My plastic crappy HIDs do over 10 amps initial and those lousy switches/connections hold up fine. 8.4 amps constant. You can beef them up with 15mm dia magnets and additional copper wire, very easy job.
Do I really need a torch this bright? Probably not. But I think it's cool to have one just in case I need those few extra lumens. At least now I'll be prepared to do a search and rescue, hunt possums, etc. You never know what tomorrow brings. lol!
P.S. I don't think there are Possums here on Long Island. I'll have to find another use for it. :)
Don't worry atbglen, there are hobbyists/enthusiasts who use 1-6 million lux @ 1m lights on a regular basis. 52 million lux @ 1m is the record for hobby built lights but that is to be broken, though the owner had a job change and so it could be several months till we see the new light.. Commercial it is 1-2 billion range but its been sold, think there was an incident with the FAA chopper landing on his property and police etc. This is just a 17k light, if the police shows up just tell them this is just a Sky Ray piece of cheap chinese crap costing 50 bucks. LOL!
Yea, my Trustfire TR-3T6 3-cell version arrived yesterday :) boo though I'm having late nights all week, so I probably won't be able to do much with it until the weekend.
It arrived in typical MF fashion, it two parts, all wrapped-up in bubble wrap. It's amazing how it makes 9,000+ miles in a thin envelope with little bubble wrap the item, and no box or real packaging.
Will be interesting to see how it stacks-up against SkyRay 3800 Rev2, which looks like it will arrive later on today.
Well, as you do not say anything bad, I am assuming that it worked. As I have one coming from MF as well, that makes me feel a bit better! A friend of mine just bought the SR Rev 2 from MF, as well, so it will be interesting to compare. My own (DOA) SR 3800 is sitting on my desk as a paperweight.
The light reviewed in the original post is now dead. I took it with me on vacation and somehow while being wrapped up in t-shirts and other various clothes in my bag, it has kicked the bucket. I tried various pairs of batteries, and tested it with no tail cap (trying a current reading) and nothing. I had a couple other lights in the same bag that came back fine.
I will do some investigating, but does have any advice of how to diagnose this?
Yes the light is running just fine, haven't spent too much time with it. It's tint is a bit lemony, unlike the STL-V2 which is pure white. It's seems brighter than the STL-V2 and has a larger hot-spot and spill, but because of the lemony tint upon first glance I always think the STL-V2 is brighter, until I directly compare them. The threads on the TrustFire TR-3T6 seem to be cut much better and are really shiny and clean, compared to the SkyRay.
Funny how 3x 18650 Redilast 3100 cost more to feed the light, than the light itself cost
Nothing much to investigate, try writing in and ask to buy replacement drivers. Maybe the toroidal coil inside caught the X-ray or something. One of my sensitive pocket weather station also went dead when it went through the X-ray.
Sounds like ours are the same then, because my unit is a 3T6 3-cell mode too; thats why I said it cost more to feed it than the light itself cost me. However I already had the Redilast.
I do though have some Xtar 2600's on the way along with some unprotected NCR 3100's from HKE.
Oh by the way the XTAR 2600 (Sanyos) are not as good as Redilast, because I already have 2 of them, not enough to feed the 3T6 3-cell light, so I used the Redilast.
But here's what I discovered about the XTAR 2600 (Sanyos), I put one of them in my UltraFire UF-980L and the light runs 5 seconds and the protection kicks in on the battery and shuts the light OFF. Tried this with the 2 Xtar 2600's I do have and both react the same way, freshly charged too. You can switch the light off and then back on again, and it will light again, but trips again too in 5 seconds.
Redilast & AW's don't have this issue with that light, neither does AW IMR's or Trustfire red flames 18650's; I don't really use the AW IMR's on that light though since it will feed it too many amps, but I did try it for a minute or so just to test it.
I see...most probably the PCB is configured for really aggressive protection, which is never a bad thing lest some crazy guy tries to run DD in 4S with a peltier cooled triple XM-L setup. I tried some runtime cycles on the Sky Ray 3 x T6 and got 54 mins for the Xtar 2600. Its 50-51 min for Solarforce 2400 and 60-61 min for the Panasonic NCR18650 2900. This indicates a 2.5A - 3.4A nominal load, with the last 2-3 mins tail ending suddenly rising to 3.9A so it is not too light a load. All the batteries are well on the mark for capacity. I have tried like over 20 times full bore runs with all the batts (somewhat cooled by submersing in water, a few times the sink leaked a bit so it was like 1/8th touching the water so it got really hot), so much so that I fried my Sky Ray SR3800's driver. LOL!
Bro, can you pls care to take a measurement for the Trustfire 3T6? Thaicpf measured 2.2A for 2-cells and the photos showed that it is a wee wee bit dimmer than the Sky Ray, but nothing much that i'd be worried about and not noticeable in real life.
My UF-980L is a bit wussy, it does not go over 3.5A. heh...and never trips all the 8 Xtar 2600 which I have. I use the 980L as my quick n dirty current test load. Which is good, from my own tests (quite a whole lot incld ice and dry ice, lux meters) there is no use for > 3.0A here. For that kind of form factor usage i'd pick stuff like the regulated SR STL-V2 or FF STL-V6.
You need to take a measurement with the Xtar 2600, perhaps they are dumping over 5A to your UF-980L already. The cell has pretty low internal resistance (good). That does not indicate that it is not good, as indicated by my runtime and the 5A (!!) load tests done on the hobby chargers by the guys here. Again, 5A is (!!)
The Xtar 2600's will most likely work in my TrustFire 3T6 ( I can see no reason why they won't ), I think you might have mis-read what I wrote.
I didn't use the Xtar's because currently I only have 2 of them, and I have the 3-cell version of the light; that's why I also ordered some more Xtar 2600's so that I can use them in the 3T6 3-cell, just not in the 980L. I have plenty of Redilast, so that's why I used them for now. When the 6* Xtar 2600's arrive, I'll charge them up and probably use them instead.
Yeah, I mis-read you, edited my message. hehe.... pls do get some measurements with your Redilast (Panasonics), my copy won't be arriving till mid next week at least.
