Review: YEZL T9 "Flood to Throw" Zooming XML Light

YEZL T9


Reviewer's Overall Rating: ★★


Summary:

Battery: 1x18650
Switch: Reverse clicky
Modes: Five: Low, Medium, High, Strobe, SOS
LED Type: XML T6
Lens: "Aspheric"
Tailstands: Yes
Price Payed: 30 USD
From: cnqualitygoods.com
Date Ordered: 7/6/2011

Pros:

  • Good construction
  • Amazing flood light
  • Multiple modes

Cons:

  • Big
  • Dims when zoomed
  • Plastic Lens
  • Bad threads

Features / Value: ★★☆☆☆

Having owned a Yezl Z1X that I was decently impressed with, I thought this light might be a fun thrower to have around. Multiple modes, including SOS and strobe, appealed to me. Flood to throw also seemed like a nice trick to have a flashlight do. I was wrong. What I have in my hands is a Z1X made crappy. The Z1X is a nice compromise between flood and throw and it works well. The T9 floods really well but the throw is just unimpressive.

Design / Build Quality: ★★

Aside from the plastic lens and the gritty threads on the tailcap, the light is solid. Very thick construction, heavy in the hand and anodized well.

Battery Life: ☆☆☆☆☆

That's right, zero stars. Here's why; I bought this light thinking that an XML driven at 2.5 amps with the head zoomed fully would be the most amazing thrower I could possibly put my hands on. WRONG. While drawing a stout 2.5 amps, this light at full zoom is no brighter than my Ultrafire recoil thrower that pulls a whole 800mA. Also, while still drawing 2.5 amps and in flood mode, the flood is no more impressive than my Ultrafire recoil light in flood mode but the Ultrafire draws just over 1 amp! Sure, there are multiple modes on the YEZL but the PWM is so horrible that they are essentially unusable. It's like walking with a strobe light on.

Light Output: ☆☆☆☆

The output of this light is so underwhelming on full zoom that I can only give this one star. It gets dimmer as you tighten the beam! So much light is wasted by the wide angle of the XML LED.

Summary:

While well built and an interesting design, this light does one thing well. It's a great flood light but the PWM on lower modes and current draw on high are both a turn off for me making the light a hassle to use because of low battery life and strobe effects when moving, especially in wooded areas.

Pictures:

YEZL on the left. Ultrafire on the right.

that's saved my cc balance for something better.

If you're looking for a dedicated thrower, I recommend the Catapult on Manafont. It drives the LED harder than my UltraFire (1.2A on high, instead of 800mA on high) and the construction is much better.

Bro, well XM-Ls aren't mean to be throwers in small diameter aspheric form. My T9 copy made 18k lux @ 1m, which is the same as my UF-980L. If you get a 75 lens with shorter focal length, yep that can be throwers as then at the longer focal lengths they capture more of the 120 deg emitter light to collimate (check out the customs). 100k lux!

This is more meant to be a floodlight with throw as an option, it can easily flood 120 deg. XR-Es floor is narrower by design. And I bought it just for the design and close-in floodlight. With the pretty good heatsinking (it barely sags, same as M7X), ~ 120mm length, its really good for close distances flood with the ability to tube the spot a bit.

The UF recoil throwers (Q5/P4s) in flood, do a reflected bounce light lux meter reading, trust me the T9 floods much more.....though with the eyes without an A/B comparison, it'd be hard to see the difference due to how our pupils compensate. And with floods, it is harder to A/B than spots due to the hotspot sizes involved.

If you compare a XR-E in throw to a XM-L, then even reflectored lights a Solarforce MPP-1 does 50k would be brighter in lux than XM-Ls. Laughing

There used to be a Tank007 group buy, quite a few expressed that they do not know what is the purpose of a XM-L zoomie.

No offence bro, just wanna put it to be technically correct. Laughing

Link, please.

Looks like my theoretical considerations weren't completely wrong. I am sorry that the light does not perform, as you expected it to.

Sorry, it was late. I meant the Conqueror thrower.

Haha,,,yeah you were the guy doing all the mathematical calculations/graphs. Actually a couple months ago I already asked the guy at Dereelight about this, he told me briefly the angle is incorrect but i barely got it. So just take it that the XR-E is unbeatable so i just got that....

But its not that a XM-L aspheric cannot perform. It can do about 100k lux @ 1m with a 66mm aspheric, ala size is just a wee bit bigger than a typical 2 x 18650 light like Catapult V3. That is SR90/TK70 performance. It is just that the focal length of the lens is optimised for flood/at the shortest length. The lens bulge of the DEFT/Dereelight aspherics is very different from this.

You guys play with photography, different lenses?

BTW, my wife, sis-in-law, nieces all like the light. "SO CUTE" Stand it on it's head, cute! Stand it on it's tail, cute! It is definitely cuter than DEFT/Dereelight/Tiablo aspherics.

Ok I got the lens off. I'll try to mate it with the Dereelight aspheric and see what it can do... Stay tuned folks! <---- This is what i call Flashlight Hobby!

Update : I got 49k lux @ 1m, meter at 1m. Hand focusing with the Dereelight aspheric lens. heh.... T9 is 38mm, Dereelight is 52mm diameter i think.

Hi, I have this model but modified to improve everything, I leave some videos Statutes.

http://www.youtube.com/user/NEEXMOO?gl=ES#p/u/18/fjQpJePxiV4

http://www.youtube.com/user/NEEXMOO?gl=ES#p/u/17/_bMF57MfpuA

Glad you like the mdida think they are 38mm but to be sure, miratelo this link.
http://forolinternasled.com/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=172

Thanks, do not understand, explicate best, pcb thermal paste do not have to put thepost dropin.Te, everything goes.

http://forolinternasled.com/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=172


I should have read this review first...

I bought the T9 thinking it would have been cool to have this zoomie thing throw to flood with the power of XM-L.

I was wrong. Unimpressive at best.

I also have the same Ultrafire Uf-009 which KLowD9x tested the T9 against, and reached the same conclusions, the Ultrafire is better overall.

The throw is almost the same, the T9 projected a slightly bigger square hotspot at distance, but the Ultrafire reach a bit farther. Ultrafire do not warm at all, T9 heats up rapidly. So the overall efficiency is better for Ultrafire.

The flood of T9 is good and bright, brighter than Uf009 flood, but T9 is a very large hotspot (darken in the middle) meanwhile Uf009 is a full flood which is like a worklight, very useful for short distance working. You can hang it from the hood and lighten up the whole engine bay plus the ground around where you left all the tools!

(it may be usefull to explain for those who does not know it, that Uf-009 has two leds, an XR-E recoil for throw, and an XP-G front mounted for flood. See review here: https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/2720 )

Also, given the zoom construction, Yezl T9 cannot be considered really waterproof, because zooming out will suck air (or water) into the body.

Also dislike the plastic lense, too easy to scratch. Even fingerprints can scratch it.

So at the end after playing with it for a few days, I resold it.

That will be the one you have touched you in series, making him the improvements that willbetter show below twice, then it would happen for quite to that comment.

http://www.forolinternasled.com/bricolaje/la-canon-cree-xm-l-u2-1a-1050-lumexx-1x18650-zoom-t172.html

Sorry man, but can't understand what you are saying...

Google translator at it's worst, maybe?

Ok thank you.

My model is very good t9 modified.

With a better lens, it is one of my favourites with its size.

I've got one, but for a good price I would get a second haha, I am waiting to see a comparison with the TR Z6 too.

Hello Gorann,

Here you got my impressions of this light:

Pros:

You can zoom in and out with one hand easily.

For short distances, the flood is great ( 180cm@1m with a very homogeneous spot).

For long distances, it throws quite good, not as much as a XR-E with the same lens, but more than smaller lenses (X2000.MXDL etc).

It is compact enoght to be on a pocket, it is not the typical light you leave at home (at least me, I leave the TR1200 and others with similar dimensions normally).

Cons:

Not all drivers are the same on this light, it might come close to 3A on high or not (mine wasn't and it is DD now).

There is an o-ring on the head, and other on the pill, it makes it more "weatherproof" but, it adds the "bellows" effect, that is to say, it doesn't stay where you leave the head position, you can solve it just making a little mark on the lens edge, or removing the front o-ring.

The lens could be better, it is good for flood, but on throw, the image of the die could be sharper, getting a bit more of throw, you can improve it replacing it by the one on the SMALL SUN ZY-C10-S, which is the only one I know off available now (there used to be a better one on a X2000 with 2*16500 at Ultraok.

Some people had problems with the switch, it is more or less easy to be repaired just dissasembling and assembling it again.

Well, that is all I can tell about this light, even with the cons, I like it a lot as all of them can be fixed so far.

As far as I know, the only competitor is the TR Z6, but it has a smaller lens with less throw, and I don't know yet about the flood, I am waiting response from a friend who has both, but he told me it does throw less, but in the other hand it is better built.

*And the EDI-T P15, but that one is far from this prices, and I believe it has the same lens,switch and driver, as the driver is already marked by EDI-T on the Yezl, has the same lens diameter, and exactly the same switch, and just to add something like a proove of it, I asked the dealer of EDI-T in Spain and couldn't say it didn't come from their factory..

Sorry for the long brick I have written hahaha.

The switch in mine began to fail and I pretty much destroyed the tailcap getting the switch out. It was some really crappy designed pressed/locked in switch. It was the first light I ever had with this type of switch.

To dissasemble it, the best way is making two small holes on the plastic ring that retains the switch, and then unscrewing it.