10w flash lights for 18650 and 26650 batteries

Looking for recommendations for what to me would be sweet spots for flashlights:

a) smallest possible flashlight, 10w for use with 18650 battery. regulated power supply (constant current), switchable to something close to 10w and 5w (50%). With zoom (narrow/wide-angle). And smallest possible means that i do not care for the tube being so thick that one could fit the silly 3*AAA adapters inside.
b) Same as a) except for use with 2 * 26650 batteries.

My reference so far has been the 4 * c-cell duracell durabeam 1000, which i believe looks very much like running the single cree LED in it at 10w and gets close to the 1000 lumen it promises. Alas, these can not run on rechargeable c-cells because they do not have a current regulator so they burn out immediately or after a short while on rechargeables.

I found one ca. $9 flashlight, 2*26650 with XML-U2 that has regulated output and nicely keeps power / brightness stable down do ca. 3.7V, alas the regulator runs the output at close to 4W so it is quite dim. No idea why they didn't put a 2A or 2.5A regulator into it to actually utilize the 10W of the cree.

The $10 flashlight for 1*18650 with XML-T6 i found does nicely go up to almost 10W at full battery, but alas its does not seem to have a real regulator at all, so it just dims down as the battery goes down.

If there are no reasonable options (aka: <= $30 is reasonable (without batteries), < $50 is something i'd suck up... maybe. Beyond that, price is IMHO unreasonable), i would also consider modding the flash lights myself with some cree+driver module. Recommendations for that welcome as well. Seems that the driver for 2*26650 would just need to be step-down, but the driver for 1*18650 ideally would have to be step-up/buck-converter if i am not mistaken.

Thanks!

The 26650 question is a good one that I don't have an answer to from my personal experience, so I'll stick to 18650 lights that I've used. The smallest possible 18650 is probably the Zebralight SC63, which might get down to the top end of your budget with the SC64 just coming out (will take patience). Not too much bigger is the Emisar D4, a flame thrower of a light with a great UI, programmable thermal regulation, color and LED choices, $40. Another small step up in size and down in price, especially if you want to do some simple modding, is something like the convoy S2+: MTN electronics and others sell full-up lights or components to build your own (host + driver + LED + solder = flashlight) for very reasonable prices; many body colors and LED choices.

Best of luck!

Cheap but good, check out convoy as a brand. The s2+ is a fairly compact 18650 light. Their c8 is a little larger and the thrower of the family. Then the daddy, the L6 which uses 2x 26650 cells to feed an xhp70. All great lights, all cheap but actually good. Not $5-$10 chinese junk with fake LED's, blue/white beams with PWM with a 1 month life span if lucky. The s2+ can actually be had for around $10-$15 which makes it an actual bargain compared to other similar priced lights.

Good luck:welcome:

+1 on the Convoys.
Welcome to CPF!

Hmm... i did try to reply to this thread twice, but my replies are not showing up, so not sure if they are lost in the new-user approval line.
Lets see if/when i can easily continue this conversation. Thanks a lot so far.!