Flashlight Tinkering

Lately I have gotten back into flashlights a little. Not only did I get a really interesting light designed by flashlight connoisseurs that I wrote about recently, but I also received a P60 drop-in that I can put in any one of a bunch of different P60 hosts that I have. The drop-in uses a recently introduced Cree XP-L “High Intensity” LED, which instead of having a round dome of clear plastic over the light emitting die, has a clear flat surface. The dome works well in gathering light and shooting it out generally in one direction, but if you’re going to use a reflector anyway, the dome acts like a magnifying lens, making the die appear bigger to the reflector and therefore harder to focus. The flat window results in a smaller appearing die that the reflector can focus better, resulting in more throw. The light I got recently has the domed XP-L “High Density” LED while the drop-in has the tighter focusing XP-L “High Intensity” LED, and in a somewhat larger reflector that is used in P60 drop-ins. It has less light output overall and isn’t drawing as much current as in the smaller high performance light, but still shines more light on distant objects.

Five similar P60 hosts: silver Ultrafire WF-504B, fake Solarforce L2, baked black Superfire L2, gunmetal gray Solarforce L2, and black Solarforce L2p
Five similar P60 hosts: silver Ultrafire WF-504B, fake Solarforce L2, baked black Superfire, gunmetal gray Solarforce L2, and black Solarforce L2p

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