SRK’s are a crapshoot as to whether or not you’ll get a proper thermal path or not. Order whichever one you want, just be prepared to have to cut and fit a disk of copper into the light to provide a shelf for the emitters to sit on, as its likely you’ll get one like that.
The more LEDs the shorter the throw but with more spill because the reflectors get smaller.
Brightness does increase, but since the LEDs are under-driven as you add more of them, you probably won’t notice a brightness difference. Plus, a SRK doesn’t have adequate heat management for long runs.
I just got the Skyray King 4X Cree XM-L T6, the bream is like having two single XM-L T6 flashlights working together, one is zoomed and the other not.
So you get the long throw distance and the spill off to the side, working at the same time, in one flashlight.
I guess the throw is somewhat more then my single XM-L T6 flashlight offers, on zoom.
I’m not sure having more Cree LEDs in one flashlight really makes a worthwhile difference and having more LEDs just drains the charge faster (plus more heat).
Also it seems the more LEDs, the less reflector surface each LEDS has to work with, so your getting less from each LED, with the more LEDs you add (from what I’ve been reading).
So for my next Skyray King, I’m going to get the 3X LED version, I would rather have the slower drain on the charge, then more LEDs.
I can maybe see owning one 7X LED version, for when you really need a good long throw, but otherwise owning several 3X LED flashlights.
Hi there, I’m pretty new here and am glad I found these forums. I also just bought an SRK, from that high fee auction site. It’s a 4 led model. Boy is it bright! And has throw. It has what I guess you would call a shelf right underneath the led star. I also bought 4 really high power 5000 mah 18650 batteries. They are ultrafire batteries. Tonight I am going to see if I can take out the circuit board. Maybe I can mod something in there. I’m going to do a search for SRK here and start reading up. From what I am seeing so far,looks like there are plenty of mods available.
This isn’t quite correct. The driver will pull the same amps (assuming the drivers are the same) no matter how many LEDs. So the runtime will be the same or near enough.
I believe a good Skyray King pulls approx 7.5 amps tail cap. This means on a:
3 led you get 7.5 / 3 = 2.5 amp per emitter
4 led = 1.9 amp per emitter
6 led = 1.25 amp per emitter
If you look at the Cree data sheets most leds are more efficient at lower currents. This means in total more LEDs while they will have more losses (more wire, etc). Should in theory produce more lumens in total. It certainly won’t be less. Not at this number of LEDs anyhow. Driving the emitters less hard will also produce less heat. So you’ll probably get a more stable output assuming your batteries are up to the task.
As for the reflectors. Smaller shallower reflectors will offer less focused hot spot and a more diffused corona to spill beam. i.e. Less throw and more flood. OTF lumens are likely to be unchanged or even slightly better.
Had no idea! That’s pretty low, to sell these batteries like this when there not too good. I wonder how much they actually hold. I don’t have any way to test them.
