The demise of the drop in?

dougie

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Surefire's new line of lights looks like they have abandoned drop ins as a way of updating their existing lights. Obviously it makes sense for them to design a completely new bezel unit or new even a new light as it guarantees that their products will perform as intended and dissipate heat from the LED's to ensure that their product is reliable as possible. Unfortunately this will mean that existing owners will either have to buy a new bezel or completely new flashlight if they wish to have something better or more powerful for their existing flashlights.

Personally I think it will be quite a long time before the majority of LEO's & civillian Surefire owners replace their existing light simply to see a modest increase in performance from the new Surefire products. I dont necessarily see this as a problem as it allows other drop in manufacturers to step up to the plate and continue to sell their products or even deveop new ones for those Surefire owners who want an improvement over the exisiting Surefire drop ins. Perhaps though the sad bit about this is it Surefire has made it much more difficult for people to play lego and modify their lights with other manufacturers products. Of course this may be a deliberate policy or simply due to design constraints but it is none the less (in my own opinion) a sad development.

Personally I like the ability to easily replace the LED and driver in my lights and consider this a bonus. Hopefully some manufacturers will see this as an opportunity to develop new lights which are more modular in nature and will continue to make drop ins or pills to allow lights to be upgraded rather than replaced b y a complete light?:)
 

Outdoors Fanatic

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The SureFire P60-based lights-- their biggest sellers-- aren't going anywhere. What makes you think this year is any different than the previous years? SureFire is always releasing new non-P60 lights every time they announce a new product, since the very first LED! SureFire is not doing anything different this time.
 

Dioni

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Yep, but the P61L nothing yet! Maybe its never come up... :mecry:

I also think so, however the SF wont kill the P60 style, just not bring anything new devices!
 

Alberta-Blue

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I am personally disappointed by the new direction... The P60 drop-ins are a key feature of SF products and make them upgradable for whatever mission of new technolodgy you need or want without having to purchase whole new units.

The C/P/Z/G/M2 series of lights arent going anywhere anytime soon thou. Even if SF were to stop production of these lines in favour of their new lines the upgradability through aftermarket products and durability of SF products has gaurenteed their survival for many decades to come.
 

paulr

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SF may actually be trying to kill the aftermarket by moving away from the 6P design. I would not be so sure that the 6P or any other incan will be around that much longer.
 

gswitter

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Given the following:

  1. The almost-immediately-after-release update to the Nitrolon-bodied, P60L-based lights, replacing the Nitrolon bezel with the aluminum.
  2. The non-release of the announced P61L while the LED P60 drop-in aftermarket has exploded.
It's probably safe to assume that Surefire feels that they can't release a high output P60 drop-in that does not work - without exceptions or limitations - in all of their existing P60-based lights, including the Nitrolon-bodied lights.

The P60L and the entire LED P60 market has always been, at best, a hack. While the aftermarket can skirt the heat dissipation issue with warnings and disclaimers, or simply ignore the issue altogether, Surefire has to address it. The only way they can get higher LED output for the C-series bodies is the KL3/KL5/KX3/KL5A route, where there is a guaranteed thermal path from the electronics to the user or atmosphere.
 

csshih

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The P60L and the entire LED P60 market has always been, at best, a hack. While the aftermarket can skirt the heat dissipation issue with warnings and disclaimers, or simply ignore the issue altogether, Surefire has to address it. The only way they can get higher LED output for the C-series bodies is the KL3/KL5/KX3/KL5A route, where there is a guaranteed thermal path from the electronics to the user or atmosphere.

I haven't had any bad experiences regarding heat in a P60 module, but for a good argument against that, what about malkoff dropins?
 

Alberta-Blue

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I haven't had any bad experiences regarding heat in a P60 module, but for a good argument against that, what about malkoff dropins?

There are good points made about the thermal paths for higher output LED modules and the issues that the P60 has with that. Surefire does have a habit of downplaying their products performance. So a 150 Lumen AZ2-S may be a different beast then we expect... and therefire have different requirements for thermal management, heat sinking, and dissipation

Malkoff has engineered a significant part of their business around P60 hosts so I maintain that the AEM P60/M60 arent going anywhere so our hosts will have their fill for the time being.
 

Outdoors Fanatic

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SF may actually be trying to kill the aftermarket by moving away from the 6P design. I would not be so sure that the 6P or any other incan will be around that much longer.
Ha ha! Do you really think SF would want to stop selling P60, P61, P90 and P91s just because a handful of minor league manufacturers are making P60-compatible drop-ins in China? That'd be a huge shot in the foot.
 

gswitter

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I haven't had any bad experiences regarding heat in a P60 module, but for a good argument against that, what about malkoff dropins?
From the M60 product page:
Note: This drop-in module was intended to operate at maximum brightness for tactical usage similar to the original setup. Operating the unit for more than 15 continuous minutes in plastic lights may cause damage to the drop-in module. This is not an issue in metal lights.
And that's for a drop-in with better heat-sinking that most.

I suspect that Surefire doesn't want (or feel their customers would accept) a similar disclaimer on their own drop-in.
 

Dioni

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From the M60 product page:
Note: This drop-in module was intended to operate at maximum brightness for tactical usage similar to the original setup. Operating the unit for more than 15 continuous minutes in plastic lights may cause damage to the drop-in module. This is not an issue in metal lights.
And that's for a drop-in with better heat-sinking that most.

I suspect that Surefire doesn't want (or feel their customers would accept) a similar disclaimer on their own drop-in.

As far as I understand your post, you're referring that Surefire does not want a dropin wich a possible damage depends on the knowledge of the user to turn it off when its hotter.

Doesn't this type of damage by heat occur in other led models of the surefire?
 

Outdoors Fanatic

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As far as I understand your post, you're referring that Surefire does not want a dropin wich a possible damage depends on the knowledge of the user to turn it off when its hotter.

Doesn't this type of damage by heat occur in other led models of the surefire?
No. There is no heat warning on stock SureFire products.
 

gswitter

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There's "Caution Hot Surface" warnings on lots of Surefires, but that's different. Those warnings are to reduce the chances of the users hurting themselves. The Malkoff warning is to reduce the changes of the users allowing the M60 to hurt itself.

I think it's fine for an aftermarket company to say their drop-ins are not compatible with the Nitrolon-bodied light. But, it gets a little tricky if Surefire says that some drop-ins are universally compatible with all of it's C-series lights, and some aren't. I'm guessing that Surefire is trying to avoid that mess.
 

Dioni

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No. There is no heat warning on stock SureFire products.

Thanks friend! :thumbsup:

There's "Caution Hot Surface" warnings on lots of Surefires, but that's different. Those warnings are to reduce the chances of the users hurting themselves. The Malkoff warning is to reduce the changes of the users allowing the M60 to hurt itself.

Yep, I know that. My question was exactly on the damage to drop-in itself. Make sense that Surefire does not want this type of problems to their costumers.

Best Regards
 

sfca

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Even if Surefire's P60 drop-ins will be replaced by whole LED heads, there's no saying those LED heads wouldn't have somewhat removable modules.

Certainly then someone could work around the new heads (and someone would) and engineer a new replaceable module, though not as easily replaced as a P60 - for the new head.

I sure hope so!:popcorn:
 

BigMHoff

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At the rate Malkoff is growing, who knows where they'll be in decade. I'm betting Gene has a .gov contract before to long. :party:
 
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