I am suddenly not pleased at all with Surefire.

[MrGman]

Such an excercise in futility.

Could have had a Fenix TK11. 😳 Did I type that out loud. :devil:

 

[Monocrom]

Could have had a Fenix TK11. 😳 Did I type that out loud. :devil:

Eagletac's T10L is better.

 

[MrGman]

Eagletac's T10L is better.

Normally I would agree with you but Light-Reviews.com shows the Fenix T1 has having higher lux than the EagleTac T10L and since I am comparing this to a E2DL which is somewhat of a "thrower", I figured I would recommend the one of those 2 with the higher throw.

but we could spend 5 pages of senseless argument about it just for fun. (they are both great lights) 😗

 

[gratewhitehuntr]

sorry
DP

 

[NightTime]

Sorry to tell you this, but I don't appreciate the kind of discussion we're having here. I thought we were all polite, kind and respectful to each other choices & opinions. I'm supprised this thread is still open. Maybe, it's just me though...:thinking:

 

[DM51]

gratewhitehuntr.... it seems I deleted your post as a double post at the same time as you edited its duplicate for the same reason. Perhaps this coincidence is trying to tell us something - I was going to ask you to edit the other one before someone decided it was trolling. Shall we just leave them both deleted?

 

[Kiessling]

Sincerely, I never liked this "mistery thing" about Surefire LEDs.
C´mon... If you´re using just "premium bins", what´s the problem to tell us clearly which one each light has ??

Well... there is a lot of brands that says it, clearly.
Fenix, Tiablo, Dereelight, Lumapower...

What´s the big deal ??

Unless...

I suppose that was a serious question, so here's the simple answer:

SF lights outlast the "bin of the day". SF does not produce lights that are identified by a bin number. Instead, they make lights that are made to certain specs, and if they surpass those, even better.

The bin is simply not important, the mission and the claimed specs are. Imagine the hassle to sort bins, to monitor which LED goes in which light, to make sure it is written somewhere on the light ... as a SF model is made to last ... and can well start its life in the catalog during the era of Cree P2 and still be in the catalog when the R5 comes out.

Then ... the customer will not be able to grasp the differences, there will be confusion, questions, hassles ... and all that ... for nothing. As only people like we occupy themselves with such stuff of so significance.

I expect the tech department occupies itself with the bin stuff and deliver me a light that does what it should do. I don't wanna be involved in LED selection. Easy as that.

bernie

 

[D-Dog]

I think it all comes back to the fact that when we spend that much money on a flashlight of all things, we want to feel "special". I don't know how to explain it, however, having the latest and greatest makes someone feel good. It's kinda like "keeping up with the Joneses" in flashlight terms. If someone buys a Surefire and gets a P4 and then sees a post about someone who just got the new 170lm/350ma Fenix T4(I made that up...), it doesn't make them feel special, as their new light already got "outclassed", at least in their mind, by a flashlight with a third of the retail price. Plus, if two people buy the same Surefire and one gets a Q5 and the other a P4, the one person will obviously feel cheated...

 

[bullterrier]

My E1L have 3 wires and my E2L have 4 wires.
both are new model with low/high.
but E1L is very white tint and my E2L is warm tint.
when i have them side by side is my E1L almost has white/purple tint.

but i love them both equally much:naughty:

 

[Bullzeyebill]

I am unsubscribing from this thread.

Bill

 

[easilyled]

I have found that my P4 Crees are sometimes brighter than my Q5 bins.
My only R2 Cree is way dimmer than another Q5 Cree I have.

The lesson from the above is not to get too caught up on bin-codes because
they often don't mean very much.

The chances are that since the new generation of Crees and SSC-P4s came out, that the output hasn't increased enough to be of any significance
compared with the more important aspects of design in a light.

 

[GlockDoc]

I suppose that was a serious question, so here's the simple answer:

SF lights outlast the "bin of the day". SF does not produce lights that are identified by a bin number. Instead, they make lights that are made to certain specs, and if they surpass those, even better.

The bin is simply not important, the mission and the claimed specs are. Imagine the hassle to sort bins, to monitor which LED goes in which light, to make sure it is written somewhere on the light ... as a SF model is made to last ... and can well start its life in the catalog during the era of Cree P2 and still be in the catalog when the R5 comes out.

Then ... the customer will not be able to grasp the differences, there will be confusion, questions, hassles ... and all that ... for nothing. As only people like we occupy themselves with such stuff of so significance.

I expect the tech department occupies itself with the bin stuff and deliver me a light that does what it should do. I don't wanna be involved in LED selection. Easy as that.

bernie

Exactly! The average buyer doesn't know an LED from an IUD and could care less. What the average buyer wants is to press a button and get a reasonable amount of light for a reasonable amount of time. Anything beyond that is gravy!

I know as much about electricity as a hog does about Easter Sunday and I come from an era when the term 'flashlight' was defined as "a handy carrying case for dead batteries", so the worst light out there is still pretty amazing to me.

If you have quality issues with any product, that's what customer service is for. Call 'em.

 

[Marduke]

I have found that my P4 Crees are sometimes brighter than my Q5 bins.
My only R2 Cree is way dimmer than another Q5 Cree I have.

The lesson from the above is not to get too caught up on bin-codes because
they often don't mean very much.

That is because each light using it's own drive current. You cannot simply compare a P4 and Q5 in two lights side by side, because the P4 could be driven hard, and the Q5 not nearly as much.

 

[Monocrom]

Exactly! The average buyer doesn't know an LED from an IUD and could care less. What the average buyer wants is to press a button and get a reasonable amount of light for a reasonable amount of time. Anything beyond that is gravy!

True. But then again, the average buyer isn't likely to buy a Surefire light. It's one thing if you're a company like Maglite that caters to average folks. Surefire is a premium brand like Rolex or Mercedes. Those brands cater to more discriminating customers.... Customers who notice little things like a scratch underneath the back bumper. Or if the bezel on their Submariner doesn't sound quite right when rotated. Or 3 wires instead of 4.

When you're a premium brand, you expect customer service issues with regards to the "little" things.

 

[Sgt. LED]

I am a forgiving fellow for the most part:

My emitter is yellow backed for what it's worth.
There is a scratch inside along 1 side of the optic which does not effect the beam.
There is a fingerprint on the lens between it and the optic, no way to clean it.
Low mode is a tint shift to greenish which doesn't bother me any.
LED and optic are not quite aligned, nasty inside but just fine outdoors again this doesn't bother me.
2 output levels are nice, a low low and an ok regular brightness. I got it for the low runtime and it does that well.
It has good throw but it would do a little better if the led was dircectly under the optic.

This thread was started to ask how many bin wires other E2L users had.
Not to argue with each other. Not to seek advice on what I should do.
I feel a little cheated and am not concerned if you agree with how I feel or not, again that was not the purpose of this thread.

I am not going to deal with SF over this, if they cared about QC then this light would not of left the factory for the other reasons listed - reguardless of bin.
I will have it modded and have something better and cleaner than they could make to start with.

My best course of action past this is to simply not give SF any more money. They will not notice and it will not hurt their bottom line but that's what I am going to do.

I thank the few who answered my question.

Mods, kindly close my thread.

 

[easilyled]

That is because each light using it's own drive current. You cannot simply compare a P4 and Q5 in two lights side by side, because the P4 could be driven hard, and the Q5 not nearly as much.

Believe it or not I took that into account before making that statement.
Take it from me that my testing was quite thorough and involved interchanging leds from one L.E to another
and interchanging L.Es from one host to another in order to make sure. :thumbsup:

 

[jzmtl]

Believe it or not I took that into account before making that statement.
I knew someone would come up with this response though.
Take it from me that my testing was quite thorough. :thumbsup:

Assuming what you have is actually the bin you think it is, what you just described is impossible.

 

[easilyled]

Assuming what you have is actually the bin you think it is, what you just described is impossible.

I have no reason to doubt it. The sources my leds came from are considered to be extremely reliable.

Perhaps Cree's flux binning isn't always as infallible as you think.

Its probably not that easy to calibrate every light-meter to be exactly the same at different times and in different locations.

Then there is also room for operator error, the conditions in which the tests are made could vary in temperature, humidity,
degree of heat-sinking used.

 

[D-Dog]

Assuming the Cree's were binned correctly, then there is an error on your end. Getting a P4 brighter than a Q5 ought to be a once in a lifetime occurrence for most people, however, it could happen if the factory producing the dies did not accurately label their emitters or if QC slipped. Otherwise, that "Q5" ought to have been labeled a Q2 if that is all it performs as

 

[wacbzz]

SF lights outlast the "bin of the day". SF does not produce lights that are identified by a bin number. Instead, they make lights that are made to certain specs, and if they surpass those, even better.

The bin is simply not important, the mission and the claimed specs are. Imagine the hassle to sort bins, to monitor which LED goes in which light, to make sure it is written somewhere on the light ... as a SF model is made to last ... [EDIT]...

Then ... the customer will not be able to grasp the differences, there will be confusion, questions, hassles ... and all that ... for nothing. As only people like we occupy themselves with such stuff of so significance.

I expect the tech department occupies itself with the bin stuff and deliver me a light that does what it should do. I don't wanna be involved in LED selection. Easy as that.

bernie

I just realized that if you take out "SF" in the above post and replace it with "RA," you have just described one of the best lights out there and you did it unknowingly so. :thumbsup: