Just finished 2 builds with this light and thought i would post up the results measured at 28’ and converted to kcd.
xml-2 U4 + 5.1A mtn max driver: 380kcd
mtg2+ 17DD zener driver: 150kcd
Keep in mind my numbers always seem to be lower than everyone else seems to report on these aspherics. Also I had a couple of different lenses and tried them all with the same setup and found a 40kcd difference between the worst and best.
does your emitters handle the 5.1 amp driver?does it get hot?
i have the turbo timer set for 60s and it doesn’t get hot at all. i wish i could set it longer now.
At 5A you could probably get by with no turbo timer without fear of damage in a 1405. It takes a long time to get hot at 5A in my experience.
do you know if there is any way to turn it off on a mtn max driver with stock firmware ??
I suspect it would need to be flashed to update the firmware. You could probably order an MCU with the proper firmware for about $2 from Richard and just swap out.
Thanks, that’s what i thought, and the reason i usually get the guppy firmwarre in richards drivers, unfortunately there’s no LVP on this one if you go that route with this one
That’s no longer entirely true, the MTN-MAX drivers I just ordered with guppydrv firmware will have a 6v step-down.
Doooooooooohhhhhhh I just got mine last week ! This driver rules BTW
So I ordered the MTN-MAXlp driver, choosing the 5.1AMP version along with an XP-L V6 3D LED on Noctigon 16mm MCPCB and a XM-L2 T6 4C LED on Noctigon 16mm MCPCB for experimentation. In stock form the copy of the UF-1405 that I got from GearBest can light up a freeway at a distance of about 700 feet from above, and that’s at a tail cap rated .74ma. At 5100ma this should be a friggin white laser! Maybe on a clear night I can blast a beam across the Columbia Gorge outside Portland, Oregon. My favorite place to test lights is at the Vista House.
ANy other driver option( exept MTN-MAXlp ) for 1405? The default driver died pretty fast though
It depends on what kind of emitter you’re gonna use.
For 3V emitters, I’m afraid there is no other good choice other than Richard’s MTN-MAXlp, unless you somehow modify the pill and make it to accept 21mm driver.
For 6V emitters, the simplest yet effective route would be zener-modded linear driver.
Hmm… anybody tried Mtg2 inside the 1405? Dedomed or not
I used Richard’s 17mm MTN-MAXlp HP driver in my 1405 driving a dedomed XP-G2 S2 1D at 4.5A, producing 403kcd using the measuring distance of 4.5m.
Here are some pictures including poor quality beamshots (I used my smartphone to take the beamshots). Click on the pictures to view the full size. Descriptions are at the bottom of each picture.
Building the driver by myself and it is definitely not an easy task for me as this is also my first driver building. Gotta give credits to Richard for his helps along the way. 
Lightsaber shot. It is very hazy around here recently. 
But it also makes the beam much more visible in the air.
Control shot. The building is about 300m away from where I stood.
The haze was heavy but the light still hit the building anyway, easily.
Just another one. You can’t really see the hotspot on the building due to the messed up exposure, sorry about this.
Gotta say that the 17mm MTN-MAX is an excellent driver and also seemingly the only solution for the 1405 at the moment. I might be able to get better lux readings with 5A current, using the latest XP-G2 S4 2B and measure at longer distance.
10x for sharing your experience m8
Well I received my package from MtnElectronics yesterday and got it all soldered and installed tonight. In stock form at full brightness it had a tail-cap rating of 0.74amps. It now has a tail-cap rating of 3.69amps, which is weird as I chose the 5.1 amp driver, but I guess I’ll chalk that up to resistance loss. The driver I received had a short length of 22ga. silicon wire running from the base of the spring to the top, so I copied that design to the tail-cap spring. The light is now MUCH brighter and after 30 seconds the head of the flashlight gets very warm, which is a sign of good thermal coupling. Now to take it up to the Vista House just outside of Portland Oregon in the Columbia Gorge to check out its new throw. _
When I receive my XP-L HI noctigon from International Outdoor Store next week, I’ll playing with it too and track its output.
Buck drivers are not 100% efficient, and most of the good buck drivers are having 70% to 80% of efficiency only. I have not verified what is the efficiency of Richard’s driver, maybe he can chime in on this.
Beside that were your batteries fully charged (i.e. 4.20V)? With buck driver as your batteries discharge and their voltage go down over the time, the drawn current will increase. This is exactly the role of a buck driver - To regulate and ensure that the total wattage is always constant. I have a 17mm MTN-MAX from Richard too with the 4.5A option, and with my fully charged Sanyo the tail reading was around 2.52A, but as my batteries discharged further the tail reading would increase to 2.80A something, and this will go on until the batteries are (almost) fully depleted.
I use Efest 4200mah 26650 batteries and both were freshly charged to 4.2 volts. After some beam tossing and estimating throw distance via Google maps, this flashlight went from throwing about 700ft to about 2500ft! Can’t wait to see what the XP-L HI is gonna do for this light!
I do have a question. When soldering the driver to the aluminum pill, do you solder around the entire perimeter? I only soldered about 50% of the way around like the stock driver was soldered.
With a buck driver on two li-ions in series, the tail current is not equal to the led current, with 3.69A at the tail, the led may very well receive the promised 5.1A.