eBay XM-L T6...?

[TacticalTimbo]

My fantastic little 3W Lidl torch, has fallen victim to a leaky Duracell Plus cell. So welded in is the battery, that even a hammer, screwdriver and some WD-40 couldn't make it budge!

Anyway, this little predicament has left me without a torch for walking the dog. The £8 lidl special was so good, with such range and flood, that I can say I'd be happy with any torch that's at least as good. This is where the far east offerings on eBay come in...

I've read up about the XM-L T6, and understand it to be the chip of choice right now, so armed with this, and my desire to cut costs by switching to Li-ion I hit eBay with my criteria... to this end, would anyone be kind enough to advise on these listings;

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/New-1800-...9983852?pt=US_Flashlights&hash=item3cd58028ec

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/CREE-XM-L...ing_LightsLanternsTorches&hash=item5d42840e30 (kit looks appealing)

Perhaps somebody has an idea of what to look for, and how to decide between these seemingly similar offerings? Maybe you could direct me to a better listing?

 

[mattheww50]

The XM-L T6 is most certainly not the chip of choice now. Perhaps 18-24 months ago, but the choice is probably an XM-L2 U2 these days. As for 1800 lumens, not a prayer. Two reasons, first the power required, that is about 20 watts (and the light has nowhere near enough thermal mass to dissipate 20 watts for long) and battery life. Figure about 5.5 amps from the 18650, 5 amps from 3 AAA's (Good luck). IMR cells can reliably put out that kind of power, but the standard 2900-3100mAH 18650 would be pushing the limits, and you wouldn't be able to get much run time out of either the standard 18650 or IMR 18650's at 5.5 amps.

Realistically the upper limit on a XM-L T6 with a single 18650 powering it is probably about 800 lumens. That's based upon heat dissipation in the LED, and what you can realistically pull from a single 18650 cell.

Even Sunwayman V60C with 3 X 18650's and an XM-L T6 is only good for about 725 lumens.

 

[RoGuE_StreaK]

(Got sidetracked mid-post)

Personaly I'd look for the same type of listing at sites like dealextreme, banggood, fasttech etc., where you can at least see individual reviews of the exact item, and I feel that you should have more recourse if it's not up to snuff (could be wrong though, never had to try it yet).
XM-L isn't necessarily the chip of choice, depends on the application, for these zoomies they should give an impressively bright flood but the throw will be a bit disappointing compared to the smaller chips like the XP-G or XP-E (or various others from other manufacturers). That said, it seems like a glut have been made available, mega-bulk-buying, so for bang-for-buck brightness it probably can't be beat at the moment.

As an example, check banggood SKU026306 or SKU037848, both ~$16 for packages similar to your last listed one, both with two 18650s so you can have a quick swap-over. Don't expect too much and you shouldn't be disappointed.

I'd not be expecting the driver to be supplying more than say 1.5Amps, which would give say 500lumens out the front; still plenty bright. You might get lucky, but definitely don't take any stated lumens as even remotely accurate, unless maybe it says it's ANSI (and even then be dubious). Get to know how to read the LED datasheets and you'll be armed with a quick way of getting a rough idea of what to "expect" in terms of output.

 

[TacticalTimbo]

Fully aware that these Lumens claims are bogus... For starters, how comes you constantly see different sellers (sometimes same seller) with the identical torch, but with totally different ratings...!? Then there's having a little commonsense; 1800 lumens is stupidly bright, it's obvious you aren't going to be getting that from a single 18650, let alone 3 x AAA lol

No the only things I'm paying attention to are chip, size, battery layout and price... I don't care if the seller claims 20 billion lumens, so long as it gives what you'd expect from an XM-L + a 18650, then I'm going to be fine; heck the 3W Lidl special kept me happy! Also, when I was saying the XM-L was the choice, I only meant for it's bang to buck; I wasn't meaning to imply it was the best chip on the planet...

Thanks for drawing my attention to the XM-L2, and the XM-l U2; I did do some research a couple months ago (this included sifting through CREE's maze of a site), but didn't spot those two...

With that said, how about these choices, I've combined the advice and searched DealExtreme (already had account) for XM-L2 and U2;

http://dx.com/p/uitrafire-sk-98-cre...ite-zooming-flashlight-black-1-x-18650-214149 Looks v.nice for the price.

http://dx.com/p/ultrafire-cree-xm-l-u2-500lm-5-mode-white-zooming-flashlight-brown-1-x-18650-223825 not sure about the brown

http://dx.com/p/rustu-wf-501b-cree-xm-l2-t6-680lm-5-mode-white-flashlight-black-1-x-18650-202894 XM-L2 on the cheap

In the meantime I went and bought this;

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/300941030...eName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649 for sub three quid, I can slap an AA in and have a servicable lamp, can also use a 14500...

btw Rogue, I do quite like the two you'd found, cheap to have it all together, cuts the hassle + lots of positive reviews...

 

[RoGuE_StreaK]

Can't go wrong with the one you purchased, see the SK68 and clones thread. Looks like you scored and got the updated XP-E emitter. Love how they classify it as three mode though, "on/off/zoom-in-out"

While XM-L2 an/or U2 binning is nice, there's not a huge amount of difference between them and a T6; if you can get 'em for the same or similar price then absolutely go for it, but don't restrict your searching if it means missing a better bargain on a T6 (sounds like you have the search-and-compare down pat anyway)

- See my recent SK98 thread, this is the "big brother" of the SK68, note that there are various different flavours available; personally the "high/low/strobe" would be a little restrictive for me, I like having a "medium" when high gets too hot when on for too long but low is not enough light.

- No reviews on this one but should be pretty similar to the above. My latest (the SK98 above) is "brown", to add a bit of variety to my collection, grows on you, kinda semi-steampunk, more "old copper" than brown. I like the contrasting silver top-n-tail, but that's neither here nor there. The protrusions near the tail cap can act as anti-roll, not sure if they'd be removable like some are. Has a medium setting.

- The 501B is very common here, pretty decent torch for the money with a good blend of spill and spot, but note that it uses a drop-in style pill that often has a bad thermal path to the torch body; not much metal-to-metal contact, might need some work to improve it.

RE: banggood (and DX and Fasttech AFAIK) pretty sure you can purchase direct through your paypal account without needing to create a specific bg account. I do prefer DX's feedback though, banggood's often seems like they've gotten their employees to fill in the forms ("I like this company, they are a nice company")

 

[sol-leks]

I just received this guy in the mai:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/40032718461...eName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649

and am very happy with it. It is significantly brighter than any of the sk68 clones that I have.

 

[ven]

I just received this guy in the mai:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/40032718461...eName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649

and am very happy with it. It is significantly brighter than any of the sk68 clones that I have.

I have had the above for maybe a couple of years,no trouble,good flood and choice of 18650 or 3 x aaa in a carrier.
Cant fault it tbh,especially for the price:thumbsup:




Its probably around a 1/3 of the lumens quoted.........but easily bright enough for most applications imo.