Some help/advice for a new guy please!!!

LED Flashlights – General Info
1

Hi all,

I’m Rob, and I’m new here, I’ve been viewing the forums as a guest, and now, if it’s at all possible, I’d really like some help or and/or advice!

I’ve recently become a flashaholic….oh wait, that sounds wrong, ermmm……flashLIGHTaholic….there, much better, anyways, I’m liking the cree led torches, but I’m not getting the desired results. Allow me to explain, in May last year, for my birthday, a friend bought me a genuine Led Lenser P14, jolly generous of him, and I loved the throw, flood isn’t my thing you see, it comes from my love of laser pointers……so, there’s me using my P14 for late night dog walking excursions, excellent bit of kit.

But, one night, I’m out with the dogs, I’m panning the hotspot across the field, looking for the twin orange glows from the local fox’s eyes, while panning I picked out 2 figures around 80-90 yards away, when BOOM……I’m hit by this ridicilously bright light……so I goes over and asks what the hell that was, the answer was “it’s an Ultrafire C8 mate, XML-T6, something like 600 lumens, got it from Best Offer Buy”.

I went home and had a look……then bought one. So much brighter than my expensive P14. But something was missing………and that’s when the buying started. I bought a (genuine) 501B, a Led Lenser P7, which I misplaced, C118, apparently again by Ultrafire, and a few others, all XML-T6’s. except the P7 and P14, they’re something else I think….but still something was missing. Then, I discovered the YEZL T5 zoomable, and I realised WHAT was missing, it was the throw!!! The little YEZL, All £6.80 of it, has the CREE Q5 led, runs on the 18650, and the throw is fantastic, as you know it show the shape of the led, but it’s a pure sharp white light and shines to the top of the works chimney, 150 metres away and 90 metres high.

Now, here’s where I’d like some help, I’ve subsequently bought 3 more zoomables, with aspheric lenses on them, and, well, they’re crap! the size of the projected led’s are hught, and therefore the throw isn’t that good. The most expensive one was £20 (collected) and supposedly rated at 1600 lumens……my little T5 blitzes it. So, instead of ‘back of the drawer’ throwing of these torches, is there some way of pulling the beam tighter? Is there somewhere to purchase different lenses? Or have I mispent some of my ‘hard earned’??

Thanks in advance,

Rob

2

The Yezl uses a Cree XR-E LED. Your more expensive zoomies probably use the Cree XM-L LED.

The XR-E is an older emitter and lights that are equipped with it usually cost less, but the XR-E is still the champion of throw.

XM-L are newer, are more efficient, and have more overall output than XR-E but the emitting surface is also larger and the output has less intensity. This results in less throw.

3

So I’ve wasted my money then?

4

Probably your newer ones, if indeed they are XM-L, are just underdriven. It'd help if you give link to the source where you bought the item. Or did you buy them from stores?

5

Rob, I don’t have any good answers for you, but I wanted to say welcome to BLF, nonetheless.

6

Hi Rob, I wouldnt say that your money has been wasted, its just all part of the addiction. Many folks here have dozens of flashlights bought in the quest for the perfect beam/modes/tint etc those that dont meet the grade could be modified.

As rojos mentioned, the xml wont focus as tightly in a small lens as the xre, so you could replace it with an led with a smaller die such as the xpg2 or xpe2, although you might have to reduce the current to these leds.

Another option might be to try a different lens, try dx .com or kaidomain etc

Woody

7

Thanks for the welcomes!!

I have to be careful about future purchases, mainly because my girlfriend will ‘knack’ me, oh sorry, ‘to be ’knacked’ in the UK is to be verbally flogged with a knotted rope, or something similar!

I’m simply disturbed that I paid like, £6.80 for a ‘cheapo’ YEZL, and maybe £40 in total for the other XML-T6’s……and they’ve been blown out of the water!!!

I may try different lenses then!

Or, ‘back drawer’ them, were they won’t see daylight again!!!

Rob

8

Hi Rob.

Not sure how much help I can be, but I’ll offer up what I can.

1. Don’t believe any lumen claim from any budget torch maker, especially Chinese ones. In some cases they simply quote the theoretical maximum the emitter could produce under ideal conditions, but a lot of the time they are just plain made up lies. Also OTF (out the front) lumens will always be lower than what the LED can produce due to loses from the lens, reflector and head.

2. There are a lot of emitter types. Most flashlighs (although by no means all) use CREE LEDs. There are several different types of LED and each type is then sub devided into a ‘BIN’ category. Basically the higher the ‘BIN’ the brighter that example of emitter is. There’s some good info here: Cree - Flashlight Wiki

However some common emitters you’ll come across are:

XM-L
XP-G
XR-E

The XM-L is large emitter so it produces a large hot spot and has the highest lumen rating of all the emitters. Common bins are T6, U2 and the just released U3. Meaning a U2 driven to the same level will be brighter than a T6.

Something else to watch for, while you have the emitter name, the ‘BIN’ you also then get tint classifications, although many sellers will not list this. But if you see things like 1C listed then it’s referring to the tint colour of the LED.

XP-G’s are a good all round emitter, physically a lot smaller than an XM-L and produce less lumens.

XR-E’s are some of the older emitters dating back from 2006. These are also very small, produce the least lumens but are favoured because they are cheap and can throw well. Q5 is a common ‘BIN’ of XR-E emitters.

3. Don’t get hung up on LUMENS. It’s a bit like “torque” with cars. Just because you have more of it, doesn’t mean it’ll be fast/shine further.

For example:

An XM-L makes more lumens because the hot spot is many times bigger, i.e. there is a greater volume of light being emitted.

The lest most light is an XM-L, see how much bigger the hot spot is:

The biggest thing this does is light up a “wider” area.

4. Throw relies largely on several factors:

-emitter size
-surface brightness
-reflector size

In relative terms a smaller emitter in the same sized reflector will offer up more throw. e.g. if you have a torch with a 3/4” wide reflector a lesser lumen XP-G will likely project the beam further than a higher lumen XM-L will.

Surface brightness is hugely important to throw and this is were the old XR-E does very well. It’s tiny but it also has the highest surface brightness of all the CREE LEDs.

A larger reflector will help with throw over the same LED in a smaller reflector.

Special lenses like TIR’s and aspherics can enhance throw and make more of a beam as you’ve seen. But the other factors still remain true, basically a smaller higher surface brightness emitter will still out throw larger higher lumen ones.

The only real downside here is, XR-E’s while they can throw the furthest they can become quite ‘laser’ like and will only have a tiny hot spot and no spill light. This means while they can reach a long way you won’t be able to light up much at a time.

5. Drivers. Last up is how well the light is being driven. Even if you have the right emitter and in a high ‘BIN’ category, if the driver (electronics) aren’t supplying the right current to the LED then it will under perform. This is common with many budget lights. Now if you have an interest in this you can buy new driver boards (and emitters) and fit them or upgrade existing lights. Some are easier than others to do this to however.

If you want something that can chuck out a tun of light and still offer up some good throw then the Ultrafire HD2010 seems very popular:

It is an XM-L equipped torch, but the LED is driven hard in HIGH and combined with a large reflector it is very effective.

Something like the Jacob A60 which uses an XR-E can probably throw further, but the beam will be a lot more narrow and a lot less light over all.

If you want more then you need to look at some good aspheric lights or build one. This can be in the form of a modded MagLite, a p60 based light, Crelant, Dereelight and a good number of others.

9

Mr……Drumstick?

This is what I’m trying to acheive to be honest, I use two (yes I bought another one) Yezl T5, one is set permanently on flood, the other is set for throw, so when I’m dog walking, I carry them both, left to flood, right to throw. I’m going to be part of a ‘kill team’, which basically means I, on request, go out to a farm that’s being overrun with rabbits, and well, let’s say lessen the overrun shall we? Truth be known, I’ve been asked dozens of times, and haven’t gone out once, I don’t like killing things, I joined the team because now I’m licensed to take my rifles anywhere, as there’s some restrictions about taking firearms away from shooting ranges!!

So yes, the laser like distance spot/square is actually what I really desire, flood bares no interest to me!

So if you have any further ideas, I’d be grateful, that goes for anyone else too you know!!

Cheers

Rob

PS: So can these XML-T6’s be swapped out for XR-E’s?
PPS: On the beamshots you took, against the red wall, what torch/emitter is the one on the second right? The one with the tighter hotspot!

10

Yes you can swap an XM-L for an XR-E. But depending on the driver in the light you might need to change it too, but you might not. Some lights come apart easier than others, so again it’s dependent on the specific light.

For my beamshots the torches are from the left:

Small Sun ZY-T16 this has a T6 binned XM-L in it and is considered a good “thrower” for the money ($24). It offers up a lot of light and throws quite well IMO.

-Next is a 2D cell Tesco CREE torch (£15 in Tesco’s if you can find them). Less light than the Small Sun and a smaller hot spot and less bright spill, but amazingly will throw as far (maybe a tad further). Pretty sure it’s an XP-E emitter (similar to an XR-E).

-Next and the one I think you are asking about is a D cell MagLite with an XP-E drop in from the The Torch Site.co.uk due to the focusable head on the MagLite you can get a really tight hot spot. This throws very well and is currently my champ of reflector equipped lights

-On the far right is another D Cell MagLite this time with an XP-G R5 drop in and a DX aspheric lens. This is my current throw king.

If you want to see some great beamshots have a look at this thread, it’ll give you an idea of what different emitters and lenses can offer up.

:slight_smile:

11

Just buy an ebay/aliexpress 85 watt HID flashlight and you’ll never need those multi-led flashlights every again. That mate will go blind when he sells ur light in the bush 300 meters away.

12

Had an epiphany….

Well ok an idea lol!!

I’ve got a WF-501B at home, just sat doing nothing, now, it’s got a reasonable throw and tons of spill, it’s supposed to be 500+ lumens, which we all know is crap.

The reason it’s sat there doing nothing, is the reasonable throw and the hotspot size. So, my idea is this, shall I dedome the XM-L U2 (apparently) that’s in there, or, shall I buy a ‘thrower king’ XR-E Q5 drop in, dedome that and, well, drop it in!!

Will this work?

Thanks again in advance!

DAMN THESE TORCH/FLASHLIGHT COMPANIES!

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Anyone??

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Either will work fine, the Q5 will throw further than the XM-L one though.

15

I certainly applaud your willingness to get into modding. What it sounds like you want is a thrower, that being the case, I’ll leave this post here :- Small Sun ZY-T08 (Tk-35 style) for 29 USD

And allow you to follow the links and make your own mind up. 0:)

It should be said that our current thrower fetishist Ilikeflashlights loves this light, and was happy to stick it up against a fenix tk41, which to me, for a 17 quid light is pretty damm fine an accolade in itself, regardless of the result. I’ve got one on the way, but it seems that many people who have got this light are very very pleased with it.

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Hello Gords, yeah it’s it’s a thrower I want, if fact, I’d like to mod all my zoomies to the XR-E Q5, so here’s a quetion for all you modders, if I put some pics up of my XM-L zoomies, can you advise me as to how to convert them? Pleeeeeeease?

Oh and I PM’d you Gords!

EDIT:

I just read here that if I buy an aspherical lens, a new drop-in like this:

http://www.manafont.com/product_info.php/ultrafire-cree-q5-mode-led-dropin-module-36v-84v-p-4053

and paint the reflector ‘flat’ black, that’ll be matte black in the UK, I’ll have a pretty decent thrower!! Anyone have an opinion on this?