Surefire U2 What Happened & Wishful Thinking

[:)>]

The U2 was the first light I bought that I cringed at the thought of my wife finding the bill and realizing what I paid for it... it was so expensive to me at the time but when I got it, man-oh-man did it make me happy! The Lux V pushed out a ton of light and the selector ring and the form factor made it just superb.

It is one of my favorite lights of all time and when I found a battery tube that would take 18650's I was even happier. I loved it. I also loved the U2A for its incredible runtimes on low but I wasn't smitten with the size of the hot spot... the reflector in the U2 needed a larger die to spread out the hotspot a bit more... I was ready for Surefire to upgrade from the P4 to an XML or something of the sort but they discontinued the light... who knows why?

I wish they would come out with an updated version with a modern larger die LED and recalibrated levels and with a body that accepted 18650's or 2 x CR123. I imagine the light would be magnificent. I can dream...

 

[marinemaster]

Surefire U2 What Happened & Wishful Thinking

100% my thoughts i had the U2 and lowed it. Too bad that the spot was too small, otherwise it was the perfect light, it was well made and very high quality. I sold mine many years ago i wished would have kept it and mod it.
Unfortunately Surefire lost their way and now they make lights with 1500 lumens with one hour runtime i do not need that.
For the last few years SF has not made anything that i can use as a consumer.
If u still have the U2 keep it and mod it.

 

[Kilovolt]

Re: Surefire U2 What Happened & Wishful Thinking

Mine is still there, first row among the favourites. I never use it nowadays but the cells are in and it is ready to go. I remember too when I bought it some 15 years ago how exciting it was, a real step forward into the future.

 

[bykfixer]

Re: Surefire U2 What Happened & Wishful Thinking

Hey now……
Thanks for reminding me. I pulled the batteries from mine a while back.
What a great flashlight.

 

[Daniel_sk]

Re: Surefire U2 What Happened & Wishful Thinking

It was a great flashlight in its time. I had one. There were maybe two things I didn't like - the hotspot was too tight for a general purpose flashlight. I remember using some SF flip diffuser, but it made the flashlight a lot more cumbersome. The second thing was more of a personal preference which I discovered after using a few of these multi-level flashlights where you can dial the output - in the end I only need high and low, and maybe something in the middle. The ring was adding a lot to the overall length and complexity just for having basically more levels than you need. But this is just personal preference and I have the HDS Twisty which I like even if it is a similar interface - although easier to operate with one hand and also there are shortcuts to jump to max output.

 

[:)>]

Those are very good observations Daniel!

I was just thinking about it this morning and I remember being so much more satisfied with the beam profile, even though there was a donut, in the earliest version that had the Lux V. It was described back in the day as a ram of light… I do know that I did prefer that to the very tight hotspot produced by the larger reflector and the Seoul P4.

I also generally agree that six levels might be more than what is necessary in a light that's capable of producing up to 800 or 1000 lumens... I think that, as outputs continue to increase, more levels are generally better than less. What I'm thinking about now is the current group of Surefire lights which are geared towards the tactical end of the spectrum with a low and a very high output setting... it's because of the disparity between the low and high settings that I wish for something in the middle and I could see this sort of thinking happening if a light had a 3000 lumen high, a 250 lumen medium and a 5 lumen low. In that case, I would want something maybe to some things between 250 and 3000.

The greater number of settings also would provide the flexibility for things like turbo and moonlight which, under many circumstances, a person might not ordinarily select.

So I think I agree but I wanted to add additional perspective because I'm only about 60% in agreement... LOL!

 

[bykfixer]

It reminds me of an Elzetta Bones with a selector ring. I have the 140 lumen version.

Less than 6oz, just over 6", great clip, no hint of blue or gray in the beam, no artifacts, runs at least 2 hours on high, over 150 hours on the low that is very useable when the lights go out, type 3 annodized, lock out tailcap, wonderful travel between momentary and click to on, button press to click is just the right combo of firm or soft, pyrex lens, selector ring has enough resistance to stay put when carrying yet does not put up enough fight to be annoying. Definitely one of PK's crowning achievements along with the Kroma and A2

 

[Kestrel]

Am never letting go of my U2; after all these years I have never owned a finer light (with the possible exception of my BOSS).
A little large for EDC, so it sits in my (garaged) travel / bug-out minivan - the light does get some use from time to time, and I do appreciate its throwy aspect - almost all my other lights are floody.

I traded into a 18650 tube courtesy of a friend here, and had it modded with a 6 volt XML-EZW (4000K).
As others have mentioned, it would probably be slightly better with 3-4 levels rather than the 6.

The interesting thing about the levels though - my suspicion is that that each lower level was designed to deliver approx. twice the runtime of the next-higher level.
If this is true, it reflects the extraordinary attention to design details that SureFire had back then.

 

[:)>]

Am never letting go of my U2; after all these years I have never owned a finer light (with the possible exception of my BOSS).
A little large for EDC, so it sits in my (garaged) travel / bug-out minivan - the light does get some use from time to time, and I do appreciate its throwy aspect - almost all my other lights are floody.

I traded into a 18650 tube courtesy of a friend here, and had it modded with a 6 volt XML-EZW (4000K).
As others have mentioned, it would probably be slightly better with 3-4 levels rather than the 6.

The interesting thing about the levels though - my suspicion is that that each lower level was designed to deliver approx. twice the runtime of the next-higher level.
If this is true, it reflects the extraordinary attention to design details that SureFire had back then.

i wished that I kept mine that accepted 18650's... I would think it would be wonderful with an XML🤗

 

[:)>]

Re: Surefire U2 What Happened & Wishful Thinking

Mine is still there, first row among the favourites. I never use it nowadays but the cells are in and it is ready to go. I remember too when I bought it some 15 years ago how exciting it was, a real step forward into the future.

It really was a step forward! I remember looking at the reflector through the convex window and marveling at the beauty. The beam shape from the maxvision lens / reflector combination in the Tactician reminds me a bit of the Lux V U2... I wouldn't mind an updated U2 with a little tighter maxvision beam. I would, however miss the beauty of the window and reflector.

 

[sp5it]

Re: Surefire U2 What Happened & Wishful Thinking

I also paid a lot for U2 back in a day.
Later machined to accept 18650 and swapped LED to MC-E.
I still use U2 since it gives me needed amount of light and feels good in a hand.
Mike

 

[Vox Clamatis in Deserto]

I wish they would come out with an updated version with a modern larger die LED and recalibrated levels and with a body that accepted 18650's or 2 x CR123. I imagine the light would be magnificent. I can dream...

Surefire did release a successor, the UM2 Ultra, but by the time it finally came out production had been cancelled and it was marketed by a dealer as a closeout. Very nice light but 600 lumens max for two CR123A's was a little behind the times even in 2016.

See: https://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?410582-Surefire-UM2-Ultra

 

[:)>]

Surefire did release a successor, the UM2 Ultra, but by the time it finally came out production had been cancelled and it was marketed by a dealer as a closeout. Very nice light but 600 lumens max for two CR123A's was a little behind the times even in 2016.

See: https://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?410582-Surefire-UM2-Ultra

Vox! Thank you for sharing this... I think I remember this and wanting it but it never came out🤦*♂️ I wish I had one... 🥴

 

[:)>]

Surefire did release a successor, the UM2 Ultra, but by the time it finally came out production had been cancelled and it was marketed by a dealer as a closeout. Very nice light but 600 lumens max for two CR123A's was a little behind the times even in 2016.

See: https://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?410582-Surefire-UM2-Ultra

i just finished reading up on the thread👊 What is the beam like in comparison to the Tactician?

 

[WarriorOfLight]

The Tactician has a bead for the direct surrounding area. It is not a thrower. At all this MaxVision beam illuminates the direct surrounding area. It is not a thrower. The UM2 is a little bit more like a thrower due to the TIR.

 

[bykfixer]

That LOP reflector is so deep, you can almost go speelunking in that sucker.

 

[:)>]

That LOP reflector is so deep, you can almost go speelunking in that sucker.

Was that a U2A or an original U2 that you modded? What LED and what would you estimate the output to be? I agree about getting lost in that reflector... it's beautiful.

 

[Kestrel]

That looks to be the SSC P4 mfr. update - a bit of a shame actually - when they 'upgraded' from the LuxV (which was always a 'hot' LED in most flashlight applications), SureFire bumped down the wattage, increasing runtimes for that model much more so than outputs.

The LuxV U2's were always the better platform - giving it a more modern emitter made it really outperform the newer SSC P4 models.

 

[Kestrel]

The other reason the LuxV versions were a better light was its boost driver - a key aspect that most folks didn't appreciate.

When changing out 2xCR123 for 1x18650, the boost driver kicked things up a notch trying to get ~6 volts to the emitter - so there was very little output hit when going to the lower voltage rechargeable configuration.

The updated ~3V SSC P4 U2 used a buck driver to take down the voltage from 2xCR123. So when using a LiIon rechargeable, you just had to live with the voltage/wattage hit since it was already running in direct-drive at that point; the overhead was such that the emitter was underdriven.

So the LuxV U2's ran much better (near-spec) when going over to single large LiIons. :thumbsup:

 

[bykfixer]

It's pure stock. I bought it 2nd hand from a member here. It's the 140 lumen'd U2A.