I ordered the X9 after I saw yours at the last CPF meet, got it yesterday. My light had a flicker every 10s on HI mode which I knew from previous experience that the driver is faulty. True enough after running it on HI for another 10mins, the head wasn't even warm and the light shut down and never turned on again. I contacted the ebay seller for an exchange, real bummer because it'll cost me AU$25 to get it shipped to HK by Registered Mail. Apart from the questionable quality issues, I'm very impressed with the X9 and even bought another one for my younger brother. I just hope that the crappy driver is just a one-off and not a true representative of the quality of the X9.
I just changed out the driver to the kd 2.8a driver. I am getting 2.7a on high which was a huge gain over the 1a i was getting with the factory driver. However I am now having other issues. The spring on the new kd driver causes the battery to sit much longer and the tailcap won't even get close to screwing all of the way on :S I've clipped the spring on the driver down a little bit but still have a ways to go before I can get it to fit properly. Ordering flat top cells may help a bit but I am looking for other remedies.
thankyou, i will try the tailcap method right now!
edit: I removed the brass portion of the tailswitch and it is soooo close to screwing all of the way tight. Now I will see what I can do with the spring on the driver.
Oh man I wish I had those soldering skills. I am so close to having it fit comfortably, I will try modifying the white plastic washer when I get home and see how that goes. thanks for the help everyone! Greatly appreciated:)
Ooops, didn't notice this post from an old thread -- welcome jelenasousa!! Those lumens #'s are "Chinese lumens", our term for outright, utter fraud basically - they are made up, completely fabricated, no basis in reality. The X9 has a quality body, quality parts and is designed and intended for distance (throw), not total light output which is what lumens is a measurement of. Hope this helps -- there's a lot more to it in the science, and understanding this crazy budget flashlight market. There's lots of fakes, clones, etc. out there as well, but haven't heard of the X9 being faked, except there are lower quality clones, but they are branded differently (not called an X9).
i have this light. the hotspot is smaller and tighter compared to Small sun ZYT08 or other thrower with head diameter up to 55 mm like Trustfire T1 or even bigger one HD2010.
however gotta drive it harder to obtain favorable performance
Yes - I mod'ed one X9 a while ago, reflowed a U3 onto it and upgraded the driver to a Nanjg or KD V2, maybe added extra 7135's too, don't recall, but it gave it a nice bump and it really made it into a nice thrower. Today, I'd do it differently with a SinkPAD or Noctigon, maybe add a copper disc to mount it on, maybe more copper to heat sink, then bump up the amps more, and with my custom programmed Nanjg's, I got full control over modes.
G’day, little thread dig here but I am considering buying this torch to mod for a friend of mine.
Before I get it can someone who has one tell me what the emitter MCPCB and driver sizes are? The driver looks to be a 17mm one from the pictures and I assume the emitter is pretty large at >25mm?
Yes, 17mm Driver. And the Star looks to be more like 30mm, I don’t have a ruler handy.
About the driver, I’ll just warn you that in my particular light, a Panasonic 3400mAh protected does not fit. The plunger put a shallow dent in the neg pole of one of them. If you’re going to add an a/m driver you will need to disassemble the tailcap and remove the plunger altogether. This involves cutting/grinding the pedestal off of the switch retaining ring, leaving the bare spring. I don’t know what driver you plan to order, but if it at all protrudes beyond the ends of the threads on the pill you will need to modify the tailcap in some way.
