You are so right, changes already made, it now makes 1552.5 at start and 1400.7 at 30 seconds on an Aspire 18350, 1735.35 at start and 1604.25 at 30 seconds on a Sony VTC5A.
Spring bypasses top and bottom, swapped in an XP-L W2 1D on a 20mm Noctigon.
Love how it lost .4A but gained some 300 lumens in the trade.
Fitted the long tube from my D4 onto the D1 so now it takes a 20700A cell and makes 1783.65 lumens at start… interestingly enough it does the same 1604.25 at 30 seconds as the VTC5A.
My light box was calibrated with 25 ANSI rated lights, so it should be very close. Any new light I get that has ANSI ratings I always check against it and the variances are +/- from moon to Turbo, usually very close.
Richard (RMM) and Tom E as well as robo819 all use light boxes made by the same people as mine is, so at least 4 of us are in sync and we all show similar numbers to the ANSI rated lights for the most part.
Edit: One thing that is an obvious difference is the cells we use. I try to use the latest and greatest cells for maximum output, because max is how I like it. The manufacturer’s do not necessarily use, say, the Sony VTC5A, so the numbers can vary on this alone.
Edit II: Might ought to add, I swapped the MOSFET to an Vishay SIRA20DP and it is now making 1818.15 lumens at start on the 20700A cell.
Mine was set up with XP-G2 and I swapped in Nichia 219C, Nichia 319A, XP-L HI and finally XP-E2 green. Somewhere in the Emisar D4 thread of TK’s all the results are posted.
Is there something unusually fragile about the 7135 chips after they have been added to driver boards?
I’ve now had three of them fracture when flashlights were dropped a few feet onto a wooden floor.
Each time, the chip on the spring side of the driver apparently took the impact transmitted from battery tube to retaining ring to the side of the chip closest to the edge, and the 7135 broke.
A couple of these were cracks without any obvious separation until I poked at the chip after the third one broke and I could see the problem. But they fell apart under slight pressure.
These were drivers where I”d just tightened the retaining ring down and it pressed on the 7135(s) on the spring side of the driver
I consider this my fault for not notching the retaining ring to go around the component, which I used to do regularly.
Can I just heat up that broken 7135 and pull it off the board, and have a functioning 4x7135 driver?
Or am I in danger of melting something else important?
Not sure what the little rectangular thing between the 7135 and the ground ring is - part of the 7135 or another component?
Part of the 7135, it is the same metal as the middle pin on the opposite side. If you have a hot air gun with a small nozzle you can use that to heat the component and remove it. If you only have a normal iron you can just blob a bunch of solder across all 3 pins and remove it then clean up after.
Hm. I pushed the broken bit back toward the middle of the board, and cranked the retaining ring down past it to contact the ground ring — and the flashlight works again.
So, could I have just filed off the corner of the 7135 to clear the retaining ring?
Obviously I have no idea what’s inside these little black boxes.
It’s a mystery to me why the light still works even though part of this 7135 is broken off. I’d guess I’m just getting the other four 7135 chips working and this one not doing anything.
No magic smoke leaking out, anyhow.
Looks like there’s enough room toward the center of the driver that that 7135 could be positioned further from the edge so the retaining ring doesn’t hit it. But that might disconnect whatever contact is being made by that rectangular piece on the ground ring side, I guess. Fiddlesticks.
Is there a picture anywhere of the innards of a 7135 so I could try filing off those endangered corners on other drivers before I install them, to clear the retaining ring, and know how deep it’s safe to go?