Reviews of TLE-6EXB (2-3 C/D Maglite Drop in)

[Delta]

I just got mine today and installed it in about a minute. With fresh energizer D cells x 2, the light looked great for the first minute but then it dims and shows its true color: barf green! A terrible product. Stay away. I hope Malkoff will have more of his drop-ins available soon.
:thumbsdow

Wanna trade your barf-green drop in for my tidy-bowl-blue one?? At least yours works for a minute.

Thing is, it isn't even worth returning, money wise.

Matt K, I would recomend pulling this product to save yourself the headache. This product is WAAAY beyond bad. It is too bad to even warrant being saved as a back up light. This LED should have never been realeased. BTW, I'm not blaming you, I blame Terralux.

 

[Creeple]

(Short term lurker, first time poster - I'll make an intro post later.)

Just to add to the seemingly growing tend - mine also appears to be greenish though not the entire beam. The hot spot is still white (though a bit less intense than after it was initially turned on) but I can definitely see some light pea-green tint to the area surrounding it.

Additionally, after leaving it on for a few minutes, the beam started to flicker, almost rhythmically and increasing in speed. Power cycling seems to help, briefly, while re-seating the entire drop-in has no effect that I can determine.

Finally, I challenge the idea that the consumers of this product (or any other) are in any way to blame for a lack of QA on the manufacturers end. Perhaps this is my being naive but I expect a working-as-advertised product in exchange for my money. Should that not be the case then I expect to exchange the not-working-as-advertised product for my money.

 

[Dobbler]

I have three of these on the way -- I hope they don't suck.

 

[Delta]

I have three of these on the way -- I hope they don't suck.

Sorry, dude!

 

[Cydonia]

I tell you what.... I read about this miracle drop-in and thought to myself, you know, you don't have any big lights like the MagLite...a Maglite with an LED like my L2D would be kick ***! Boy did I get duped!

TerraSux LED: $24.95
2 D-cell Maglite: $16.95
UCL Lens: $6.95
NI Grip N Clip: $7.00
3 D cell Mag: $18.95 (after finding out the Grip N CLip needs 3 cells)
_____________________________________________

Grand Total: $74.80 Wasted (more than that with shipping!)

Yep, coulda got Quite a few good lights (Including a Fenix P3D Natural) for that money.

You're in this deep so may as well bite the bullet and get a 3 cell MagLED.

Guess I was right when I asked what does "B" in the 6EX-B name stand for... "Beta?" Yup. They tried to make a Maglite upgrade on the cheap. So disappointing. Flashaholics would spend Twice this price for a Good Maglite drop in with quality efficient circuit design and components that were reliable. I may be hasty in saying this, but, damn you TerraLux for wasting our time with this utterly inadequate device.


I had the 6EX for a brief time before selling it. Getting it threaded on was ok. Rotate the module backwards slowly and with light pressure to get the threads to align and bite first. Slowly thread it on.

I have three of these on the way -- I hope they don't suck.

Good luck man... think you're going to need it

Oh yeah... I've reinstated my signature line again due to this turn of events it applies more than ever these days... :thumbsdow

 

[orbital]

No problems here! 2-D new cells
made sure I didn't touch the dome on install. (easier to turn light instead of trying to turn drop-in) and did not lube threads.
My color is, lets say warm white, not blue or green. All my LEDs are different color shades anyway.
Let you all know, as for tonight I'll run it more.

 

[Phaserburn]

I've tried new cells in my 3C and 2D, and still can't get brightness higher than stock Magleds on my 2 Terralux units! One of the units also flickers.

:thumbsdow

 

[WadeF]

I've tried new cells in my 3C and 2D, and still can't get brightness higher than stock Magleds on my 2 Terralux units! One of the units also flickers.

:thumbsdow

Do you have a Fenix P1D-CE, P2D, P3D to compare it against? My Terralux beats out the P3D in a beam shot at about 10-12 feet (brighter hot spot). Would the stock Magled's do this?

 

[WadeF]

I was happy with this product at first, but after reading here I figured I better do more testing. I have the 6EXB in a 3D maglite. I left it on for several minutes. It slowly went from bright with a slight greenish tint to blueish and it did get dimmer. I was under the impression a LED should be better for long run times, but if you have to turn te light off after a minute or two and let it cool down, what good is it? I think MattK should see if Terralux would be willing to replace our units if they can solve this problem. He has a list of our orders, he could simply offer to send us a new unit if we pay for the shipping if Terralux will provide him with replacements free of charge. I think we were sold a defective product and I don't blame Mattk at all, but it would be nice if Terralux made good on this.

Also I had a hell of a time screwing it in too. After getting Gene's drop in and seeing how he used a large amount of copper to help heat sink the LED I would be leary of other drop ins that don't have any kind of proper heat sinking.

 

[vic2367]

wow,,,some bad reviews ,,,

 

[scottaw]

Mine is fairly blue, but i was assuming this was normal. I've seen plenty of led's with worse tints. Also i haven't had any flickering yet, ad i've run it about 15 minutes straight, nothing changed for me. It's gonna take some long term testing, but it seems like a lot of people got duds here. Im comparing mine against a P2D with probably half dead batts, turbo beats the mag, high is about the same. Oh well, i put it in a mag i already had, and when my UCL lenses get here, i was gonna buy those anyways. One of these days im going to find a malkoff, this was really just to tide me over until then anyways.

 

[Burgess]

 

[Matt Sutton]

I got 2 units in the mail today, one for me and one for my dad for father's day. I installed mine in my 2C unit without a hitch and it lit up fine with well used cells. I wanted to compare it to my other lights, so I put in some fresh Energizers. I was really impressed until I compared the beam to my L2D-CE and my TLE-6EX in a 4D host. It's got a very green tint. I left it on for 25 minutes and while it did dim and get very hot, it did not turn blue.
Is it possible that the green tint is coming from the light shining through the exposed parts of the circuit boards rather than from the emitter?

 

[qip]

I left it on for 25 minutes and while it did dim and get very hot, it did not turn blue

Its gettin hot with it pulling so much current and its not even getting to the led , when i gave it 2 old batteries it wont light but it was still drawing 700ma draining the battery ..somethings wrong


ironically enough my 2d setup now is what terralux should have been , i got the 6exb cuz when i had the zetex module i couldnt run it in 3d safely but that has changed..when i had new fresh cells i couldnt use the zetex in 3d as it pulled 1amp and it was really bright but got to hot but 2d was fine as it only pulled 550ma off new fresh cells , now that the cells have had some use and gone to 1.4v the zetex now is perfect as it pulls 480ma in 2d and 700ma in 3d which i just tested today and this is the ideal setup as it wont get too hot and this had the same output as the 6exb "when it works".....which is what puzzles me as to why my zetex module @480 matches the output as the 6exb @1amp , the 6exb is wasting energy

 

[mmmflashlights]

Good luck to everyone on their refunds and/or replacements. :eeew:

Sounds like either a complete lack of quality control or a poorly designed product regardless of the manufacturing process, either way :thumbsdow

 

[xhackr]

I think MattK should see if Terralux would be willing to replace our units if they can solve this problem.

I would like hear MattK's take on the previous posts in this thread.

Anyone care to suggest an alternative drop in solution for a 2 cell Mag?

 

[Matt Sutton]

I've had some time to experiment with my 2C Mag/UCL/TLE-6EXB during the forum downtime. My biggest gripes at this point are short runtime, excessive heat, and green tint. It smoked my reflector during a 35 minute constant run. It began to flicker and completely died at about 40 minutes. That was with fresh Energizers. I put the stock bulb back in and those same batteries lit it just fine. So much for this claim on their spec sheet.

INTENSE BRIGHT LIGHT output comes from the brightest LED
available, producing 140 Lumens of light output. Electronic regulation
means the light does not fade as the batteries drain, so its
light output holds up even after a long run time. The light intensity
will only fall near the end of the batteries lifetime. The light will not
suddenly go out like some competing products.

I've been really happy with the 6EX in my 4 cell Mag and I was hoping for similar results with the B version. It's still better that the stock incan bulb, but it's definitely not worth $25.

 

[xhackr]

Well, there clearly is an issue here. Either manufacturing, engineering, or both. The performance is not acceptable. Perhaps for a 2 cell application the OEM Mag would be a viable alternative. Any thoughts?

 

[Modern_Major_General]

With all the bad reviews, I wonder if a TLE-5EX with a BA-1 Bulb Adapter would make a better 2 cell setup.

 

[qip]

you still need a way to heatsink that , the ba-1 has plastic in it which i think would melt , but i have seen a fivemega ceramic gold pr bulb adapter that might work