Barbolight U-15 (mod), review with pictures

Long John

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Mar 16, 2006
Messages
2,307
Location
Spain, near Cadiz
Hello:)

After some weaker light mods, today I'll present you a very bright light.

The Barbolight U-15

The light is developed as a very sturdy diving- and special-task light, like security-, police- and firefighter tasks.
Therefor it has some certificates and is dive-rated up to 200 meters.

The HAIII coating is perfect, without color-mismatches and the knurling of the body and tailcap is aggressive but excellent, works also with thick gloves.

The head is finned, beside the useful cooling-factor, the look is very nice.
It has a twisty-tailcap with momentary pushbutton, which works smooth and easy to activate.

It is easy to carry in a belt-holster or with a lanyard around the neck, the weight is 360gr incl. 2 rechargeables.

The light works with 2x18650 LiIon's or 3x CR123 primaries and spacer cell.

The light is DD (direct-drive) and works in stockform with 4x Edixeon-Led's. The reflectors looks like high quality McR20.
The Led's are connected 2x series x2 parallel.

The good and reliable is:
when one circuit (Led) will brake, the other 2 Led's will still work, so you will be not in the darkness.

In stock form, with the 4 x Edixeon's, the light was very bright.
Since I'm not a diver, I can't say anything about the usefulness about the different wave-lengths under water, but propably the tint of the Edixeon's will deliver its full potential there.
But my personal taste doesn't like the tint of these Led's, so I decided to swap the ermitters.

The build quality inside is the same excellent way like at the outside.:twothumbs
The Led's are sitting on a 1,5mm thick copper-heatsink and are connected to a PCB-board.
A very nice and reliable idea is the +contact from the batt. to the Led-connections. It's a stainless steel screw, sitting isolated by plastic-spacers, inside the head, coming from the direction of the batt.-tube.
A nut will come from the headside and connect the +pole with the PCB-board.
The 2 Led-circuits are protected by 2 resistors (2Watts).

Here is a picture of the parts (I forgot to show the board):



U-15mod.jpg






For a perfect focus with the SSC's which I implanted, I had to sand down the reflectors. It needs a while, but works perfect with 300grid sandpaper......and bladders at my fingers.:oops:


After installing all the parts inside the head, I fixed the nut with 2part-epoxy. This way I was and will be able, to unscrew the +contact-screw from the outside.With a bike spoke, I can push out the front window (5mm thick) after taking out 1 O-ring, through the hole for the screw.
The spoke will meet the window in the middle between the reflectors, so a small scratch (damage) of the window doesn't matter at this location. Since I had to do this often while this mod, I glued a GID-blob onto the window.

Due to the shortening of the reflectors, the right distance from the window to the reflectors was gone.

I thought a while about this problem.:thinking:

I got 2 ideas:

1. a second heatsink underneath the original one (about 0,7mm thickness). I prepared one, but I didn't liked the idea of a weaker thermal path.

2. fixing the reflectors at their perfect position.

I choosed idea 2.

I found at my stuff a 2part-knead-paste. Perfect for this fixing.
It is stabile up to 130 degrees and will not get in trouble by heat, because the contact is at the reflectors and the PCB-board, not at the heatsink.

Here the light for size-comparison, from the left:

2D-Magmod, U-15, LumaPower M1



Mag2DU-15LPM1.jpg



FrontMagU-15M1.jpg










Now to the performance:

The output is incredible.:rock:



I measured with fresh cells 1,1 amps.
The head of the light gets good warm, but not hot, and the Led-tint is stabile.
The heat transfer works excellent, like the whole light.

The beam is perfect, like all multiple Led-beams. A bright hotspot with a smooth transition into the side-spill, very bright too.
Without any artefacts and a very white tint, without tendency's in any direction.

Compared to my bright Trilux-Magmod, this light is playing in another league. HID-lights up to 14watts are no rivals and the U-15 will be able to compete into the mid-class HID's.


Some outdoor beamshoots:

LumaPower M1 on high, distance to the door is 20m:


M1high20m.jpg








Trilux-Magmod on high, same settings and distance:







TriluxMagmodhigh20m.jpg








U-15, same settings and distance:




U-15mod-1.jpg







More afar, distance to the frontwall at the house: 70m

LP M1 on high:



M1high70m.jpg





Trilux-Mag:



TriluxMagmodhigh70m.jpg






U-15:



U-15mod70m.jpg

The runtime with fresh LiIons will be about 1 1/2 hour with max. output followed by several hours degrading output.
Due to the reliable construction, there is no reverse polarity protection, so be careful by loading the cells.


I can highly recommend this light. It is the sturdiest light I've ever seen, with a perfect building quality and first class parts.
It is unbreakable by normal use and will reliable work in any rough conditions.
Due to the single stage, very bright output, it can be useful to compain a second light, less bright, depending on the tasks.
It is not cheap, but every cent worth.:thumbsup:


Best regards

_____
Tom:wave:
 
:wow: Yet another great mod Tom.

That's a lot of light from a relatively small torch.
What tint did the Edixeons have, and is the light brighter now?

It would also be interesting to see some direct comparison beamshots with your Mega Thrower.:popcorn:

You're on a roll mate :twothumbs.



Colin.
 
Thank you very much guys :thanks:...:bow:...:grin2:

Yes, the output is really a wall of light, but with a nice hotspot too.
The sidespill is brighter than the hotspot of many other lights.

Colin:)

The tint of the Edixeons is not even. Blueish white in the center and very yellow at the outer circle.
Thus the sidespill isn't as bright as the SSC's.
Furthermore I wasn't in luck with my Edixeons, because 2 of them had a deviation in tint compared to the other 2.

But a very good message for potential Barbolight customers:
I've heard, that the lights in the future are equipped with Cree's :thumbsup:.
So no needs for any mods and really perfect lights in stock form:twothumbs.

I'll make some more beamshots including with my Mega-Thrower:whistle:.


Very best regards


_____
Tom:wave:
 
Thank you very much Cassian, my friend:)

Here are more beamshots, with my "Mega-Thrower", specially for Collin:wave:.

Distance to the chair is 50m.

First Lumapower M1 on high:

M150m.jpg


Here my Mega-Thrower:

MegaThrower50m.jpg


Here the U-15:

U-15mod50m.jpg



Very best regards

_____
Tom
 
Another nice mod my friend! Interesting beamshots too! :goodjob: ... :clap: ... :thumbsup:
 
Here are 2 more beamshots:grin2:

First, 1 car headlight, high beam (the 2. headlight is covered), distance to the wall is 80m:

1Fernlicht80m.jpg


Now the U-15:

U-15mod-2.jpg


Don`t to forget, the car headlight needs 55watts and 1x16cm reflector, while the U-15 nearly 8watts with 4x2cm reflectors.

Best regards

____
Tom
 
The pictures with the chair are really creepy lol, but awesome flashlight man
 
Thank you very much Javier:grin2:

But you did also a very good job due to the development of such nice lights:twothumbs

Very best regards

_____
Tom:wave:
 

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