JAYKI

Liked the look of this so ordered one. Imagine it's going to take a while to get here - the XP-G sounds about the best bet for a P60 dropin and if I don't care for the body, I've got plenty of others to drop it in.

I ordered the Solarforce L2p  , and will build a SSC P7 drop in for it . 

Interested in why you prefer the P7 over the MC-E?

P7 has much better beam quality , I had a MC-E and it was way ringy .  Even outdoors . [ OP reflector ] 

A P7 starts off around 500Lumen whilst the MC-E starts around 450 [ Same battery / driver combo ] 

Heat sag is unavoidable in a P60 , with either emitter .  + Both have a slight hole in the beam , but this is not noticeable outdoors , only wall hunting .  

I put the MC-E in my HS-802 , and put a SSC P4 emitter in the old MC-E pill , and the beam is nice and smooooth . 

Ive ordered parts to build some more XP-G P60 drop ins , KD has a new 1A buck boost driver I want to try .. 

Only problem is the shortage of R5's ATM @ cutter . KD/DX have them , but cost more + delivery time etc . 

 If only there were some 1.2A - 1.4A multi mode buck boost drivers ...   

+ I have a unused SSC P7 + Pill + Drivers , doing nothing .... So I figure , what better drop in for a L2p 

I have had up to 4 SSC P7 drop ins for my P60 hosts , currently Im down to 2 , one L2 and one Ultrafire 502B . 

The 502 has a warm nat tint D bin emitter with the Shinning beam 3 mode driver .. Very nice ... 

The L2 has a cool white C bin , and the L2 seems brighter , but the light box says different .

@ Old

Can you  try out how the new  KD 1A buck boost driver behaves in a 1*AA and 2*AA setup? I would like to build me a low voltage drop-in (1.2 or 2.4V) with a R5 for my Solarforce L2R. I like the beam profile of XP-G R5 better than XR-E R2. My Solarforce drop-in has the same brightness with 2*Eneloop as with 1*18650 Trustfires.

Ordered 2 about a week ago , ordered some empty hosts , and have some XP-G R5's on hand .. So will build one ASAP 

Just waiting for KD .... 

Please report your results, as soon as you say they are fine, I will order 1 or 2 of these. BTW the modes are "current regulated" and not PWM? Or what does "current regulated" refer to?

PWM Pulse Width Modulation , pulsing .... IE: The led is turned on and of many many times per second controlling output . [ Cheap ] 

Current regulated = the current is controlled to vary output . 

Looking forward to trying these drivers :  Will do a review ..  One will go into my Spear Clone , the other will be used to build a XP-G R5 P60 pill . 

Ok, than I understood it right, wasn't sure if "current regulated" referred to the buck boost feature somehow.

But powering the medium and low mode through lower amps (and not PWM) and maintaining the current / voltage at the emitter to a certain level, despite what the charging status of  the battery is, are two completely different things, if I'm not terribly wrong. I just wasn't sure which was meant by KD, because their description isn't totally clear on that. I think the

was designed with 2*AA in mind, that's why there is no difference in brightness (not visible at least) between with 2*Eneloop as with 1*18650 Trustfire. I wonder what's the difference to all other drop-ins, I might have to take one apart. 190 would be good enough and I like the option to have 3 modes and no strobes.

The Ultrafire L2 is completely identical (other than engraving) to the WF-504B. All parts are interchangeable, I've just tried. Throw on high about 8,000 though i did (briefly) see 12,000 but couldn't replicate it.

How is build quality, also identical? We still don't know if parts are interchangeable between UF L2/UF 504B and Solarforce/Surefire, or do we?

Don't know anyone with a Solarforce or Surefire - I can probably find out the thread pitch - I'm sure I have a set of thread gauges somewhere in the garage. Or loft. Or somewhere. 

To be honest, I'd be surprised if they were as the USA has not gone metric even slightly and I doubt any Chinese factory would bother cutting Imperial threads. That would actually be more difficult than it sounds, trying to cut inch measurements on metric gear rarely works out well.

The Ultrafire could have done with some lube on its threads - it screeched like a tortured monkey when I unscrewed the tailcap. Must find the Copaslip, but I fear it is most likely in the same place as the thread gauges. I know where I can borrow a set of BA thread gauges but they are unlikely to be helpful. Does anyone know the thread specs for Surefires? 

Build quality, the WF-504 was fractionally better as it didn't squeal at me, but came unlubed too. I'd guess they were both made on the same machines in the same place. They are identical in every respoect other than the lettering and the screech which was easily fixed when I took the lubed tailcap from the WF-504 and put it on the L2. It came in a sort of piano gloss black just like the black WF-504B - much shinier than is the norm for torches.

I have 3 of those Solarforce 3mode drop ins , and they do suffer from the lower voltage and output drops ...

You would need to test for it in a lightbox , to the naked eye , cant really tell . 

My Ultrafire L2 has a 5 mode. Lightboxes vary but I'll get the numbers sometime soon. My tests are as consistent as I can make them and should be replicable, and appear to be within 10 or so % of Jay's.

My naked eye is all the measurement I need when I have a side by side comparison. I have the mentioned Solarforce drop-in  and my neighbour has the KD UF 501B with XP-G R5 dropin. If I put his R5 in my L2R(2*AA) it is like half the brightness as with 18500's. If I put the Solarforce drop-in in his 18500 body it's no visible difference at all. Lumen are just a substitute to get a general idea of how bright a light is and even that can be misleading. If given a choice of side by side comparison vs a table of throw/spill/lightbox lumen numbers, I would prefer the first option. For forum purposes those numbers are the only way to compare because most cams can't capture beamshots like the human eye. I still wonder what sets the driver circuit in the Solarforce apart from all the other P60 drop ins , maybe better boost components?

@ old

Do you have the low voltage or the high voltage version?

http://www.solarforce.hk/PRD/content.jsp?id=7.1&template=e.tmp.html

LC-1 (R2m, 3 modes, 0.8V-4.2V) brown sticker

LC-1 (R2m, 3 modes, 4.2V-8.4V) black sticker

All 3 are 0.8v - 4.2v  / I only run 18650 or 2xAA or single 16340 ..  Output on 18650 and Cr123A is around 230 and 190 on two rechargeable AA's , maybe 1.35v each for 2.7v compared to 4.2v .. One is outstanding , and does way more .. so I run it in a L2 body and a 18650 

I dont do the 2x unless its non-boom batts . So most lights come @ 4.2v or are modified to 4.2v 

 Yeah , if that R5 is 3v-4.2v or 3v-8.4v , expect a lot of loss on 2xAA .. The driver is most likely not a boost driver ..

Makes sense, because he said he had a constant decline in brightness, so most likely direct driven. Man my eyes are inaccurate, could have sworn the difference was under 0.5 lumen, need to get them adjusted ;-)

@old

What do you think about this driver? Claims to be 1200 mA and perfectly regulated.

http://www.shiningbeam.com/servlet/the-134/3-dsh-Mode-Perfect-Regulated-Circuit/Detail

That driver sounds real nice. 3 modes and nice flat regulation. Not bad price also imo.

Seeing that L mini II uses the same driver, might even be useful to check out reviews of L mini II.

Pretty promising, is that driver custom-made? Never seen this before, especially the drop back to low from high and med if  battery goes down.

Together with the XP-G R5 from Kai and a nice housing... hmmm, tempting. What about the height? Never measured out the drop-ins. It's a double decker driver (6 mm).

Seems like the perfect driver, or am I missing a downside?

http://www.light-reviews.com/l-mini_2/

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?p=2959017

Plan on getting one : A lot of folks really like it .. Only drawback is the 2 layer set up ,  if only it was 1.4A ....

I would love to see one that could be set up to do 1.2-1.4 or 1.6A , 1A and 1.2A is very conservative , most of my XR-E R2 emitters are doing 1.4 or slightly better , so a fully regulated 1.4A driver would be sweet . 

Bryan is making a new version of the L mini (maybe III?) with R4/R5, they might update the driver too.

http://www.cpfmarketplace.com/mp/showpost.php?p=2438345&postcount=547

Does anyone know if  protected Trustfire 2400 mA fit in the Romisen RC-M4?

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.20392
Cell dimension + PCB 18.2 x 67 mm. (measured)

in that:

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.7934

I just received an other supposed LC-1 Drop-In from ITC, looks fake to me.... (new one on the left). But ITC will send a new one with Solarforce sticker and golden springs for free.

Looks like the same driver :  Just different Springs etc ...

I thought so too at first, but the emitter of the drop-in with golden springs is bigger and the drop-in is brighter than the one with the silver springs. Hmmm... not sure what to think of this.

Maybe 2 quality stages from Solarforce?

Hmmmm , different sized emitters ...  Wow , ok , just looked in my Piritlight / Spear Clone and compared it to the emitter in the A20 , and the emitter in the A20 is much smaller ..

Looks like they may be using the XP-G dies to make XR-E , might explain why the A20 is much brighter than Im used to for a Q5 ...

Anyone ?   But 2 Q5's and different sized die's in the XR-E package ... 

Looks a lot like this:

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?p=2992875

@old

Maybe you got an SST50 by accident, they also mixed up Don's order . 

SST 50 Blows ...  I got an emitter last year , low bin / output .. expensive rubbish ...

A D***I bin SSC P7 is better .. Unless you can feed the emitter lots and lots of current . 

Just waiting on the E bins and F bins , but Cree is not selling the dies needed for higher bin SSC P7's ...  A F-Bin would be awesome .