XM-L Drop-In Questions

I am wanting one of the new XM-L Drop-Ins and i have a few questions concerning them.

1. Will the Solar Force be as bright as say the nail bender.

2. What are the brightest and best quality xm-l drop-ins for less $40.00

3. Will one of the 3v-9v drop ins work well in in a 2xAA Solar force L2R

4. Will the Solar force L2i be a good platform for one of these

5. Will an XM-L be alot brighter than my low voltage Solar force module

6. Are the XM-L modules from DX very good

I guess I just need a little help on choosing an XM-L. I have several host to use including 123 & AA lights. I am about to buy a Solar Force LM-1 Quick Detatch Mount for my M4 and was wndering if a single mode XM-L would be a good choice for that light and I could swap the module around in other lights. I really don't like 123 lights as the only recgargeables I feel comfortable using are NIMHs and 123 primaries are too expensive even at $1.00 each but I have to buy a 123 light in order to get a good weapons light.

I cannot answer all of these questions but I might be able to help a little. I have a slideshow of 3 XM-L dropins here. Go down to post #2 in that link and the second slideshow compares 3 XM-L dropins that I have tested. This slideshow will show you a KD (cheap generic) compared to Nailbenders XM-L, and a Thrunite XM-L.

In general
The DX/KD dropins will not be as bright and quality is questionable (YMMV). Go this route if budget is your most important consideration.

Dave's (Nailbender) dropins can be pushed to 3.1 amps if you request it in your order, and AFAIK crees top spec for driving the XM-L is 3.0 amps. For this reason this will be as bright or brighter than any non-custom made XM-L dropin you can buy (i.e. Solarforce/Thrunite/blah blah blah). This brightness will be at the expense of some runtime and heat, so depending on your host and expected runtime, this may or may not be important to you. Dave's dropins are high quality and I would recommend them. If your main objective is to have the brightest P60 XM-L on the block - go this route. I'm not familiar with the hosts you mention so the last thing to note here is make sure your power source can handle the 3 amp draw.

I am personally impressed with the Thrunite dropin which is driven less hard but is extremely bright. Price range on this is also mid-range for a P60 XM-L. This would be my personal recommendation as you get the best of both worlds, good runtime, managable heat, and 85% of the brightness of a harder driven XM-L. The price is right on these too.

I would love to try out the Solarforce dropins but have not done so. It appears the distinguishing factor for these is a unique reflector which might give it an advantage in beam profile - you would have to ask other people who own one if the Solarforce custom reflector is great enough to buy this over something else. And of course a "good beam profile" is completely subjective and there are as many opinions as people on that topic. As far as brightness I would guess this would be in the ball park with the thrunite - brighter than DX/KD, not as bright as Dave's.

Good luck in your selection.

Only think I can contribute to the conversation is I have the 3 mode Thrunite and I am extremely impressed with it. Love the tint (maybe one step towards cool from neutral), love how bright the high mode is, love how low the low mode is and the medium mode can probably serve about 90% of most 'I need a pretty bright light, but I don't need it to be CRAZY bright' needs.

I am going to have Dave/Nailbender build a single mode XML module for use with my handgun. From what I understand, it will be a bit brighter at the obvious trade-off of run-time, but it will see minimal use and I just want max brightness if/when I need it and the cost isn't much more than the Thru-Nite and you get to pick the tint, the drive level and the number of modes.

I have an Ultrafire C1 with an XRE R2 that I got from Dealextreme for about $15. I think it's back up to $18 or so, but they also offer the same light with an XML module already in it for about $22 shipped. If budget is the #1 concern and you can deal with maybe adding your own quality o-rings, lubing your threads and maybe having to tighten the tailcap and possibly having to return it because it is DOA or dies in a couple weeks, that's a pretty killer value. I've not had a bit of trouble with mine and I've actually got a lot of use out of it. I'd say it's about 50% the light my Surefire C2/Thrunite module and costs about 15% of what that combo would cost new. Just one route is about 99.99% reliable and the other seems to be about 70% reliable on average.

Here is a post from BigChelis. He talks about the brightest XML P60 drop-in you can get for AA batteries (and it is not solarforce of DX):
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb...mmendations!&p=3676167&viewfull=1#post3676167