UltraFire Cree XR-E dive light

[jjblomquist]

Thanks for all your posts. I to have ordered one of these lights, I was all ready ordering 2 R2 mods for to up grade my two UK4 led. So what the hack $40 fo a backup. I will give You a report when I get then. Thanks for the Info

 

[thyuen]

Go mine today from a local store. Run it in the included batteries (Maxell Power Ace Red manganese AA dry cell) in a bucket of water for 4 hours side by side with a Halcyon xeon mini Scout (2 Duracell C cell).

Initially the W200 thrown out a whiter and brighter beam than the scout. It then started to flicker after 10 minutes. The flicker was like going from full power to 50% power for a split second and then went back to full power for a minute or so and dim to 50% power for a split second and so on....

After about 20 minutes the flicker was gone and it gave a steady beam at about 75% of the initial brightness. About another 30 minutes later it went to about 50% of the initial brightness and stayed like that for another 3 hours (total run time 4 hours) before I end the test. The Scout on the other hand went dead after 3 hours.

I am now running the light on rechargable NiMH AAs. It gave full power for the initial 5 minutes or so before it started to flicker for 20 minutes and then went down to about 1/3 of the initial power. It has been stayed like that for about an hour now beside me and it would give out a bright 75% power from time to time for a minute or so.

Tomorrow I will test it on Alkali batteries.

Also like to report there is no heat coming out from the light itself.

 

[gsk3]

Thanks for the report! Looks viable except perhaps for that flicker. Interested to see if it holds up at depth.

 

[Packhorse]

Interesting. I wonder what is causing the flicker.
It may be a bad connection but more than likely its something to do with the driver reacting to low input voltage. Mine should be here early next week so I will see if it suffers the same problem.
What does the beam look like?

 

[thyuen]

Interesting. I wonder what is causing the flicker.
It may be a bad connection but more than likely its something to do with the driver reacting to low input voltage. Mine should be here early next week so I will see if it suffers the same problem.
What does the beam look like?

I don't think it is a bad connection that causes the flicker. I've tried shaking and banging it but doesn't change the way it performed so very probably is the voltage.

I'll run it on alkali batteries tonight and if it could hold up to 2 hours without the flicker, I would get myself another one to replace the scout mini.

 

[Packhorse]

Just got mine.

Body is Delrin head is aluminium. Mine has a scratch on the head. This does not worry me too much but makes me wonder if its a
"second". It came with no box or instructions etc.
Im not overly impressed with it stock light output (compared to my modded IST's mind you) but I think it will make an excellent candidate for modifications.
I have not run it for long so no idea if it suffers from flicker.
Hot spot is 5 -6 deg and side spill is 35-40 deg.

The body has an aluminium insert that holds the AAs. With this removed it will hold 18650 Li Ions !!! It will require wire put in to connect to the bottom spring but its doable.
Throw in a new driver and you have a light that should run for 3 hours at full output and another 3-4+ at reduced output. Throw in an aspheric lens and you can get a really good penetrating beam. Replace the P4 with a R2 LED and you will get even more light.

 

[Katolix]

Just got mine.

Body is Delrin head is aluminium. Mine has a scratch on the head. This does not worry me too much but makes me wonder if its a
"second". It came with no box or instructions etc.
Im not overly impressed with it stock light output (compared to my modded IST's mind you) but I think it will make an excellent candidate for modifications.
I have not run it for long so no idea if it suffers from flicker.
Hot spot is 5 -6 deg and side spill is 35-40 deg.

The body has an aluminium insert that holds the AAs. With this removed it will hold 18650 Li Ions !!! It will require wire put in to connect to the bottom spring but its doable.
Throw in a new driver and you have a light that should run for 3 hours at full output and another 3-4+ at reduced output. Throw in an aspheric lens and you can get a really good penetrating beam. Replace the P4 with a R2 LED and you will get even more light.

Thanks for the report! thyuen thak you as well!
Do you think the aluminium head is enough to heat sink extra power from the LED to water?
What exactly the base of the LED is, star or something else?
I'm just curious, is there any room for driver (d=20mm, h=8mm) there?

I'm confused about flicker. Usually the reason for flicker is extremely low battery voltage: below 2.7-2.8V. Which seems to be not the case for 3xAA cells. The LED voltage measuring during the flicker would clear the things.

Looking forward to see the report of depth leaking for the light.

 

[Packhorse]

If I was to drive the LED at higher current I would probably go for a P7 or MC-E, rebuild the pill so it has a tight fit in the head to help with heat transfer, use a 2.8amp driver and 2 18650 LI Ion cells. 1.5 hour burn time on high (700 lumen+).

As I said before, I think the limiting factor for this light at depth is the front lens. Its about 6mm thick by 30mm wide glass. Dont know it its tempered or not.

 

[Packhorse]

Mine flickers too on Alkaline.
Not happy.

But a great reason to modify it.

 

[jjblomquist]

Got my cree dive light this week along with the 3 R2 light mods. Fit 2 of the R2 mods into my 2 sl4 Lights they are awsome. The Cree dive seen to be fine out of the water. I took all the lights for a test dive today. The Cree seen to take time to get bright in the cold water. The it would flicker high and low. The UKs with the R2s are so bright they are prefect. Nice tight beams for a longer distance very cool. We dove 76 feet for 45 min. At the end of the dive I turned of all lights while doing a safty stop at 28 feet. When i got out of the water I noticed the front of the Cree light was pluged out. The front O ring was 3/4 of the way out and the light head and batterie compartment was FLOODED. SO just to let eveyone now this light would be good around the house just DON'T DIVE IT