Tag: M30

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VME Malkoff Valiant Concepts Head

Flashlight with VME Malkoff Valiant Concepts Head, Malkoff M30 drop-in and Vital Gear FB1 BK body
Flashlight with VME Malkoff Valiant Concepts Head, Malkoff M30 drop-in and Vital Gear FB1 BK body

I’ve been using a Surefire E series bezel and a Veleno Designs E-Series tower module with a Vital Gear FB-1. I wanted a brighter light, so I bought a Vital Gear E to C adapter that enables the use of a P60 style dropin. When I screwed on a Surefire Z44 bezel, it made the front end of the light a little larger than I wanted.

Valiant Concepts makes the VME Malkoff Valiant Concepts Head that fits on an E series body and enables the use of a Malkoff Devices M series dropin lamp assembly. The VME head includes a lens for dropins that don’t have one but I use it with a Malkoff M60, which has a protective lens as part of the optic. I modded my M60 with a driver that enables three modes. The diameter of the VME head is slightly smaller than a Z44 bezel – 1 1/8″ vs 1 1/4″ (28.5 mm vs 31.6 mm) – which doesn’t sound like much but it makes a difference. With the modded M60, the flashlight is a lot brighter and also throws further than the Veleno Designs module.

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Cree MC-E LED P60 Drop-in

The current high lumen output LEDs use multiple chips on a single die. The Seoul Semiconductor Z-Power LED P7 and the Cree XLamp® MC-E LED are two examples that are in popular use by flashlight modders.

DealExtreme Cree MC-E LED 3-Mode Drop-in Module

I recently bought a DealExtreme Cree MC-E LED 3-Mode Drop-in Module ($18.30 USD) for my Surefire 6P flashlight (the 6P body is bored to work with a single 18650 battery).

The DealExtreme P60 size drop-in works with 2.7V~4.2V – a single Li-Ion 18650 battery, single RCR123A battery or CR123A battery. There is also a not too low level mode and annoying strobe mode. In the Surefire 6P host (about 5.2″ long – 13.2 cm), the DealExtreme Cree MC-E drop-in is an extremely bright flashlight in a small package. There is an extensive list of similar sized flashlights that use P60 size drop-ins in this Candlepowerforums.com thread.

DealExtreme seems optimistic in their description of the MC-E drop-in brightness as 410 lumens. It has more flood and less of a hot spot than the Malkoff M30. For comparison, my Malkoff Devices M30 output is rated at a realistic 235 lumens. My SSC P7 mod, inspired by jirik_cz, gives me the feeling that I am seeing everything. If not for the $125 USD cost, I would be all over the Malkoff M60 MC-E (NLA).

In my flickr set below, there are beamshots comparing the Cree MC-E, Cree XR-E and SSC P7. I centered the beam of each light on the scrawny tree against the fence.