If you intend to carry as a EDC light in a pocket with other stuff then the SS has advantages from a wear and long term appearance standpoint. Anodized aluminum lights, even hard anodized, show wear a lot worse and if carried with keys and coins it is amazing how worn they can look in a year or so. To me SS and Ti are fine for a light that is used occasionally for relatively short periods and carried a lot, typical EDC duty for most people. Aluminum is the way to go for larger lights and ones that will be on for extended periods such as S&R, dog walking, emergency lighting & etc.
It was intended as an edc and was a compulsive buy, and had the driver bumped up to *8 thinking more is better, now I’m thinking of getting yet another less expensive convoy, one with a *3 and swapping drivers if they are compatible.
Edit to add … pill not driver
It’s easy to remove extra 7135 chips if you got too many. To reduce it to 4x7135, you don’t even need to take the driver out of the pill.
In any case, I really like my S7, especially after making some simple mods to it. It’s pretty and has a great beam and tint, and it’s practically bulletproof. Great for biking or EDC use, though a bit on the heavy side for its size.
The weight goes with the material choice. Basically SS is about 3 times the weight of aluminum per volume and Titanium is 2/3 the weight of stainless steel or double the weight of Aluminum. You make your choice based on a combination of price, appearance, weight and heat dissipation characteristics if you are aware of all the factors. I ordered the Customlites SS single 18650 light just based on the 4 mode UI which I preferred to the S7. More money but I also prefer the looks.
Maybe easy for you to remove extra chips but the last time I got near a driver with a soldering iron I messed up a driver , kinda expensive one too, and since then my wife said to only buy lights that are already put together . LOL
Ah, okay. I removed some 7135 chips as my very first mod, when I didn’t really even know how to solder… basically just put on a wide tip, hold it across the three legs on one side of the chip, and gently lift the chip with tweezers. It should come right off.
So, I say it’s easy since I managed to do it with no prior experience. I’m still mostly a noob, but I’ve since done some slightly more difficult mods.
The next part is what I’m really excited about… making new firmware for the attiny13a chip, so I can make the common nanjg/qlite driver do whatever I want.
