Gladius LED upgrades

Schnotts

Newly Enlightened
Joined
May 28, 2006
Messages
177
Location
Northern Ontario, Canada
Is the guy thats on here still modding the Gladius flashlights in Ontario, Canada with the LED upgrade? His name was Gladius01 or something like that. I had one but broke it last spring and now I'm looking at getting another one for work (cop). Its between the Gladius and a Surefire M3. Maybe I'll buy em' both. I just want a good tough light that puts out lots of light and wont' let me down.:grin2:
 
Is it nice and bright? If the guy in Ontario isn't doing it anymore, I'll have to go this route. I very much miss my Gladius. I used to use the strobe feature for doing traffic control. I'd slip a red cone over the light and hit the strobe and it made me very visible. I sure miss that function.:twothumbs
 
Strategos is half of Night-ops and Blackhawk is the other half. So this mod is about as official as you get. Very bright, top of the line LED, good workmenship and it comes with a warranty. :twothumbs
 
Sent my Gladius to Strategos for the upgrade in August and it took over a month to come back. Workmanship was disappointingly amateurish so I sent it back. Everyone I spoke to was very polite and apologetic, seems like there was some issue with the company contracted to do the upgrade. I have had to initiate several calls to find out the status of my repair and it has finally been completed and is on its way to me right now. Not the best experience but it seems I am in the minority.
 
Sent my Gladius to Strategos for the upgrade in August and it took over a month to come back. Workmanship was disappointingly amateurish so I sent it back. Everyone I spoke to was very polite and apologetic, seems like there was some issue with the company contracted to do the upgrade. I have had to initiate several calls to find out the status of my repair and it has finally been completed and is on its way to me right now. Not the best experience but it seems I am in the minority.

So the company that says they'll mod the light, outsources the work?

Gee, that's nice to know.... Perhaps if I relied on my Gladius, I might be willing to part with it for about a month in order to get a significant jump in lumens. But I normally reach for one of my Surefires as a Must-work-no-matter-what light.
 
So the company that says they'll mod the light, outsources the work?

Gee, that's nice to know.... Perhaps if I relied on my Gladius, I might be willing to part with it for about a month in order to get a significant jump in lumens. But I normally reach for one of my Surefires as a Must-work-no-matter-what light.
Strategos is very upfront on their webpage that the work is outsourced, and makes it abundantly clear that the warranty changes to the 'outsourcer' (as far as the electronics is concerned) when you do the upgrade, or order a light with included upgrade. No deception on Strategos' side.

I ordered a new light with upgrade (they ship a new light to the outsourcer, which then ships the upgraded light to you), and found nothing to complain about. Light is very bright, I trust their numbers (160 lumen); only visible problem was that the head part was not screwed down completely. The thread is glued, so there's nothing to be done about that, and no functional problems (light is watertight and has a good beam), so I filed that under cosmetic. Not sure if they even can tighten it down, the star/heatsink of the SSC might have different dimensions from the original Luxeon (which they ship with it to you, BTW).
 
...I sure miss that function.:twothumbs
Slap one of those G&P strobe switches on a 6P with a G&P 5 watt drop in (both available at Lighthound)...less expensive and would fulfill that "attention getting" mode, eh? Still NOT a Gladius though!
 
Slap one of those G&P strobe switches on a 6P with a G&P 5 watt drop in (both available at Lighthound)...less expensive and would fulfill that "attention getting" mode, eh? Still NOT a Gladius though!

Why do I get the feeling I'm the only CPFer who doesn't have this light on his Top 10 list. Yes, the Gladius has a brain. The technology inside it is indeed impressive. But everyone I know who carries one in a belt holster on a routine basis has said the same thing, "If you don't lock out the tailcap, the light has a tendency to turn itself on as you move about."
 
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