Custom light, Cusom UI.

Hi everyone,

As many of you know my true love for this hobby stems from the creation aspect. Making, and modding lights is in my blood.

A few months back I picked up a lathe and started selling my shorty mags and some other goodies on the forum. This has kept me so busy that not one time have I made a light from scratch ( until now). I finally made the time to do it. It certainly doesn't compare to the flash some of the extreme veterans around the forum are capable of, never the less I am quite pleased with it.


I made this from a solid aluminum bar from tip to tail. The specs are as follows.

Custom body, head, tail cap, and pill ( like 3 days worth of work for a noob)
AR coated lens
10 degree optic
XM-L U2 bin emitter
McClickie tail switch
Custom UI



I wanted to keep the light small but still have a thick body because the driver ouptuts 3A at max.



I decided to go with an IMR 18350 to power it. This was a good choice because it small in size but gives much better runtime @ 3A than even the best 16340s.






Whats awesome about having a lathe to make all your own parts is you can make them fit together exactly the way you want them to.

I made the seat for the emitter so that it actually "snaps" into place ( sadly I lost the picture thought LOL)







The best feature about this light is it showcases my new soon to be released custom UI.

The UI consists of 4 groups.

1. Ramp mode low to high with memory.
2. Low 2%, Med 25%, High 100% with memory.
3. High 100%, Med 25%, Low 2%, Srobe, SOS, Beacon, NO memory.
4. High 100%, Low 15%.

Mode groups are switched by 8 fast clicks <.25 sec.

Here is a video so you can get an idea how it works.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akjEKJDPLBU&feature=youtu.be


Last but not least some beam shots.

Here is a shot of my Quark AA2X 280 lumen.



Custom 18350 ( 400 ish lumens?)




I really like the way the beam turned out on this too, its very soft, and useful. Large hot spot but still plenty of throw.


You can look forward to seeing this new UI in all my products in the near future.

Thanks for looking everyone.

Looks good, what's the cost for this light?

Although I have a feeling that you won't be selling these as complete flashlights, I must say that it is a simply, beautiful outstanding piece of work VOB! Small, bright, excellent UI, with good runtime. What more could we ask for?

XML at 3A might be more than 400lm. Looks like a great build. I too love the little 18350s. Trying hard to convert completely to this cell, and RCR123s in legacy lights only (like my older McGizmos).

obi

Thanks everyone. For right now I wont be selling these. Full blown customs take a lot of time and I am not set up ( yet) to do large batches. If I were selling these the price would be in the $125-$155 range I think.

Great job VOB! That price is more than fair for a custom light through and through.

I hope you explore other metals (like titanium) in the near future.

18350 IMRs are my favorite cell, enough to be a deciding factor when I purchase lights now

Do you have a problem with a squarish image of the emitter as the spill with using optics? I made a bezel and was not satisfied as the emitter showed up outside of the hotspot.

Hi Tiresius,

I have seen many similar things to what you are describing. This light has a near perfect beam though. The hot spot is large, round, very smooth, and bright. I am quite pleased with the optics performance and since the bezel was smooth around the edges I didnt get any back talk there either No flowers or squares to speak of. The artifacts in this one are very minimal.