The UF-980L is a funny animal. When I strip out the light, the pill looks ok and all, pretty solid stuff. During operation the host gets hot which is good as this shows it is conducting heat. (I mean how much host-air heatsinking do you want from a 1 x 18650 40mm light, any fins in the body are are really somewhat decorative, seriously). Speaking in pure light output from the front ie OTF, the UF-980L reads 79 lux on the meter from a ceiling bounce but crashes to 60-65 region within 1 minute. The Fandyfire STL-V6 holds steady at 75 lux for 2 mins and then slowly dips about 0.1 lux per 2-3 seconds. The heatsinking is that good, i mean of course it is nothing fanastic in the realm of extreme custom flashlights, but for a on-spec driven XM-L + budgetlight league, it is more than good enough even in a tropical country like mine.
My copy of UF-980L only takes about 3.5-3.6A with a tail measurement. For my other Direct drive lights like the DRY triple XM-L, i could get close to 5 amps with my Panasonic cells so seriously i am capable of measuring high currents (anyway I sometimes hit over 10 amps for my HIDs). Trying to get a new meter though.... heh... And yeah relax, i don't use those cells in the lights, plus i always charge to about 4V so i never go beyond 4A and as it discharges it slowly slips.
X9 - some guys were saying they got low amps of about 1.9. X8 - well you can check out James' beamshots.
https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/2903
I think most are really bothered by the name "Fandy" rather than the technicalities. If you look at the detailed pictures in James review, all the internals in the Fandyfire are the same, PCB colour, wire and the way they twist it, driver components, the black disc at the emitter which centers the reflector. If it really bothers you then get the Sky Ray at 54 bucks + $2 for registered air mail.