Ultrafire uf10 zoomable 16340

LED Flashlights – General Info
101

And my U-F10 is further away from stock again. I’m sorry not to have taken pictures :frowning: , I promise next mod will be with pictures again.

I had already bypassed the 1R5 on the driver but ultimately I wanted this light to throw, and throw in a small light like this for me is a dedomed XP-E2. I have a few XP-E2 R4 3C’s (from intl-outdoor, they are still stocked) and those should give a good tint after dedoming. I ruined one by dedoming it too cold and ripping off the entire phosfor layer (it is a very nice royal blue XP-E2 now :cry: ), an other one dedomed well and indeed the tint is pretty pleasant: slightly yellow 4000K but no green…

A good throw needs a well focused led and the 16mm Noctigon is way thicker than the stock board, it needed sanding down to 1mm thickness :weary: . To do that I soldered a curved piece of solid copper wire as a handle on the wire pads and by holding it firmly with pliers I sanded the board down using the disc sander, keeping the board cool by dipping the board into water after every 6 seconds of sanding. Took 5 minutes of pretty focussed work because the sanding disk was worn down already and needs replacement. The already dedomed led was reflowed on the board, checked for succes with the led tester, and then the board was soldered onto the brass pill.

The voltage of the XP-E2 is high compared to the stock XM-L2 so to get the ideal current of about 2.2A both springs needed bypassing. I kept the brass cap of the tail spring in place, the silicon bypass-wire was soldered in the middle on the inside of the cap so that the spring fitted around it.

The current on a fresh Efest IMR 16340 is 2.3A now, which is slightly too high for my liking but with drainage of the cell this will lower enough. The output in flood of course went considerably down compared to the XM-L2: the led is way smaller and the current too. There’s 250 lumen leftover (still sufficient for an EDC), and of very good tint compared to the stock light. And of course the throw went up drastically: I measured (fresh battery, 30 seconds after switch-on, measured at 7 meter distance) 46kcd.

I hoped for about 54kcd based on an dedomed XP-E2 sk68 mod in the past (that had 39kcd throw, but has a 1.38 times smaller lens than this one), but 46kcd is pretty nice too :slight_smile:

102

Nice seeing everyone’s different mods to this light. Wish we could all get together… :+1:

103

After both of mine are turned on the High setting, the green tail cap lights up Green for a minute or so then it starts blinking Green 4 times then Red for a one second pause then blinking Green again. Is the normal?

Thanks

104

…and it keeps doing that for most of the drainage of the battery and finally it blinks just red and the cell is then 2.6V.

No, it is not how it should be, I guess the voltage at which the red/green blink starts is too high, and perhaps the voltage at which it turns to just red is too low.

105

Yea, I'm seeing the same thing. Was think'n it's quicker now with the resistors bypassed. I thought maybe they are seeing some sort of sag effect with the voltage, but we don't have that problem in our custom Atmel tiny drivers.

106

The flashing was annoying with no real purpose, partly the reason why i removed it.

107

That’s annoying. I like the light but Dang.
I wonder if its because I am using Protected cells?

108

Is that easy?

109

Not the mod i did earlier, but a different switch and driver wouldn’t be too difficult.
An sk68 driver might fit.

110

But I like the e-switch feature of this light.

If the leds are too annoying you can just remove them from the driver, or remove just the most annoying green one and keep the red one for the low voltage indication.

111

Good thinking. :slight_smile:

112

I messed around with 0603 SMD-leds last night in my (dedomed XP-E2 @2.3A) U-F10 and this driver really acts too weird for me to succeed.

*first I tried to replace the green leds with purple (400nm) ones, so not entirely remove them but make them way dimmer. Removed the green ones and soldered one 400nm led in. I checked for function and it appeared that I soldered it the wrong way around: something happened upon switching on but no light from the 400nm led. Then I soldered it correctly and the other one too. The light worked normally and the purple leds lighted up, very dimly so, but that was expected from 400nm and it would make the annoying blinking at a far too high voltage way more bearable. However, it turned out that the purple leds stayed on during the entire drainage of the battery, no blinking anymore, no red leds either: any low voltage detection appeared gone. I may have destroyed the indication by soldering the purple led in the wrong way around? Or is the indication very dependent on the type of led (Vf), and it works only work with the green leds?

*anyway, with the blinking gone anyway, I decided to remove the purple leds again and go for blue ones instead which are much brighter. That worked well, with still no sign of blinking or red lights lighting.

*the tail leds lighted when the light is switched on is still quite pointless, so I tried to add a lighted tail by soldering a red led (plus 6.7KOhm resistor in series) between battery-minus and ground ring of the driver, to see some light with the flashlight switched off instead of on. That appeared a complete fail: the red led never lighted up and the user interface was completely scr*wed (it did produce a nice moonlight though, with no other modes :person_facepalming: ). So I removed the red led and called the lighted tail idea a day.

*to finish with some easy succes, I replaced the dark grey switch boot by a light blue one I had around (I used a flat type switch boot that has 6mm height instead of the most common 8mm). The blue leds appear brighter now and the light comes out more diffused over the tail cap, pretty nice. and the blue tail makes it look different from stock.

So nothing worked as planned, the result is still the (pointless) tail light only with the light switched on, but I find it nice enough :slight_smile:

Happy with the result:

113

Yea, I'd love to figure out how we could upgrade the driver to keep the e-switch. I might be able to come up with something, but would require a custom PCB probably, and a lot of time which I don't have...

114

Hm, if they’d make it an amber-and-red tail light, it’d be useful as a bike light.
Add an accelerometer and it’d be a brake light too (grin).

115

Do you find protected cells to be too long for this light? I have some protected button tops and if i screw the tailcap all the way the light flickers on and off. If i loosen the tailcap the flickering stops.

116

Anyone try the IMREN IMR16340 cells? I bought two here: https://www.imrbatteries.com/imren-imr-16340-700mah-10a-3-7v-rechargeable-flat-top-battery/, and am very impressed! They seemed to out perform my EFEST 700 V1 flat tops in tests on both my modded U-F10 and another 16340 FET driver based modded light.

I just ordered 4 more of them. I threw out a bunch of my older EFEST 550's because they don't hold a full charge any more.

117

I use them Tom E and yes was very satisfied. I mostly use the efest red 700 v2s. The IMREN were bought on a sell out…but I would buy more for sure!

118

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I know it’s an old/dead thread but I never ended up buying one of these back then, however I just ordered one from Gearbest for $5.99 with the code from bilakos10. I’m wondering if anyone here has got one of these recently?

Looks like everyone in this thread back in 2016 got one with 2 modes. I wanted that UI and thought that’s what I’d get but I guess not. :frowning:

I don’t think anyone mentioned if it had SOS with a long press, maybe no one tried that?
On the ultrafire.com site it shows the modes as: “Hi , Low , Long Press is SOS” (link below)
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Here’s everything I’ve found researching about this light now:

The current one being sent by Gearbest has more modes, (3 or 4?)

In the Gearbest listing under specifications it shows: “Mode: 3(Turbo;High;Low)” But written in the description is: ” flashlight is capable of bursting out 889Lm maximum output. With two brightness levels and zooming function”

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Here’s some comments from the Gearbest reviews (seems a mixed bag):

  • From Mac Hooke on 2/20/17:
    “Awful modes!!! Stop using strobe modes that you cannot avoid! We hate strobes! Why do you keep putting them in lights?!?”
  • From Johnny_Boy on 11/13/17:
    “The lights mode are 3 (100% / 50% / 25%) For SOS you must press the switch for 3 seconds”
  • From Steve on 1/4/18:
    “3 modes. High/Low/SoS”

The one from Johnny_Boy in November actually sounds great: (H-M-L and hidden strobe)
But the latest one from Steve last month sounds horrible (H-L-SOS)

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UF-9?

I see now there is an UltraFire UF-9 on fasttech ($7.27 after BLF code):
https://www.fasttech.com/products/0/10015804/7113300-ultrafire-u-f9-led-flashlight-w-focus-zoom

Fasttech also carried the UF-10 but it’s now showing “Discontinued” on their site:
https://www.fasttech.com/products/0/10015804/6006700-ultrafire-u-f10-mini-led-flashlight-w-focus-zoom

On the ultrafire.com website there is no UF9, only UF10:
Flashlight, Batteries, Tactical Gears - UltraFire Official Store

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Fasttech also has an unbranded clone ($6.13 after BLF code) https://www.fasttech.com/products/9625593

  • Specs (fasttech) show 4 modes for the UF9 and the clone.
  • Specs show UF9 and the clone 11-12g lighter than original UF-10
  • Tint may be warmer on the clone:
  • All 3 specs below are from Fasttech:

Clone:
“Pure White”
Color Temp Range 5000-6500K
Light Source Color 6000K
Lumens (Max) 800 LM
Product Weight 65 g
Modes: Hi > Lo > Strobe > SOS

UF9
Color Temp Range 5000-6500K
Light Source Color 6000-6500K
Lumens (Max) 689 LM
Product Weight 64 g
Modes: Hi > Lo > Strobe > SOS

UF10
Color Temp Range 6500K +
Light Source Color 7000-7500K
Lumens (Max) 1000 LM
Product Weight 76 g

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UF10 Specs from the ultrafire.com website:

  • 3 Modes: Hi , Low , Long Press is SOS
  • Bulb: CREE XM-L2 T6
  • Max output: 550 lumens
  • Net Weight (g): 74g

I wonder if the strobe/SOS is “hidden” (3s long press) on the UF-9 and the clone, as Johnny_Boy mentioned in his Gearbest review.
Also wondering why it’s lighter now, did they change the pill from brass to alum.? Change the driver? Does it still have lighted tail?

Was planning an emitter swap and this simple driver mod as posted by djozz:

“with the light completely stock I just simply completely bypassed the middle 1R5 resistor with a solder blob, output (measured with a Efest IMR 16340, after 10 seconds) went from 330lm to 670lm.”

I was hoping for the same driver as 2016 but who knows what it has now. If I like it I might end up getting the other 2 (UF9 and clone) from FT.
I know, I know its a lot of words and thought for a 6 buck light. Just thought I’d share what I’ve found on the current offerings and see if anyone knows about them.

119

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Besides the clone at fasttech there’s tons of clones on aliexpress:
Here’s just a few:
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Lowest price ($4.40) 4-mode: High,Low,Flash,Long press switch active SOS
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Muilti-purpose-flashlights-LED-Magnetic

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XM-L2 ($8.80) 2-mode “Mode Arrangement: High>Low”
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/2000-Lm-CREE-XM-L-L2-MINI-Zoomable

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XM-L2 ($10.75) 4-mode: High/Low/Strobe/Long press 2 seconds SOS:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/CREE-XM-L2-mini-powerful-led-flashlight-torch

120

Beam0. I just stumbled upon this thread and light as well. I made a “frankenzoomie” today Thread Here. I was unknowingly trying to create pretty much a UF10. Apparently we are both late to the game.

I’d really like to make this thing into a hot rod with usable modes.

Check out CRX’s updated UF-10 thread here: ” UltraFire UF-10 TurboCharged”:UltraFire UF-10 - Osram KW CSLNM1.TG - 16500 - Lighted Switch

I’m getting a parts list together to do exactly what he did.