# Old KL1 back into service



## laxref (Jan 22, 2021)

Was cleaning out a junk drawer and I found an old Surefire KL1 head. Nothing special. Nothing worth bragging about by any modern standard, but it has decent usable light and a decent run time on a single CR123 cell. 

My E2 bodies are all LED bulb upgraded so I didn't have a home for the head and it didn't seem to have enough value to sell. What to do?

Decided it would make a nice walk around at night light for light weight pocket carry. An email to Malkoff had a MDC body in the mail. 3 days later it showed up.

I think this will work out nicely.


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## 1996alnl2 (Jan 22, 2021)

Nice little setup, I find myself using my old school Surefire lights for around the house quite a bit. I could never sell any of them, too attached.


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## ampdude (Jan 23, 2021)

My little guy. He's retired from service. I keep him around for the cool vintage factor and to remember the old days of the first high end Surefire LED lights and those crappy square beams.


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## Beamhead (Jan 23, 2021)

Try the KL-1R mod, I did a few and loved them.
https://www.candlepowerforums.com/v...heck-in-here&p=1461045&viewfull=1#post1461045


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## ampdude (Jan 24, 2021)

Also of note, the KL1 will be noticeably brighter on two CR123A's than one. So you might want to try it out on a two cell body as well, or get a lithium ion 3.7v cell to use it with. You'll get about 50 lumens (45 officially) instead of the 30 lumens on one cell.

These versions of the KL1's will take up to 9 volts easily. I've heard people claim 12 volts, but I wouldn't try that. They had a pretty robust boost/buck converter and didn't have anything programmed into them by Surefire like when they tried to make the KX heads all proprietary for awhile.


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