I had initially designed this light with the 21700 cell to come out in mind, and now that I have a couple of iJoy 21700’s, figured I’d tweak the light to see if they really perform all that well.
I pulled the XHP-50.2’s out, machined the head for a larger diameter and taller new triple reflector with better proportions in the individual reflector cups, put in new XHP-70.2 P2 3B 5000K emitters and got a surprise…. 32.2A at the tail! On the light box I got another surprise… the small Omten switch does not like 32 Amp loads! The plastic housing melted and stuck the switch in off position. lol
So I pulled a heavy duty Tofty switch from another light and rebuilt that lights tail switch assembly, installed the Tofty in DBC-05 where it’s really needed. And the surprises kept coming! A start lumens of 18,940.5 and at 30 seconds 16,318.5. Woohooo!
My highest lumens to date and in a light I built from scratch, I’ll take it!
Also cut some grip rings into the tube, helps aesthetically as well…
And a shot at the new reflector sitting over 70.2’s…
Ceiling bounce even in a big room is just insane! Even my Dad is hugely impressed, enough that he asked “You’re gonna mess around til you blow up one of those batteries, what then?” As I headed out to the shop to fit in the Tofty I sang “See you! See you on the other siiiide!”
So, we’ve finally found the limit to those little Omtens. And Tofty has been out of business for a while, right? He was trying to sell his business many moons ago here, and I can’t remember if anyone actually took it up. I think you even made a comment that the Tofty switches weren’t really necessary, since the Omtens do so well…
EDIT: Oops, nope, it was Old Lumens that made the claim that tofty wasn’t necessary because the Omtens were good enough. Also, he wasn’t “selling his business” he was actually “giving away his project” to anyone who wanted to take up the mantle.
Well, the Omtens usually are good enough, but new tech and crazy builds are exceeding the limits apparently. The metal components inside a small Omten are very thin aluminum bits, they get so hot at high current the plastic box they’re in melts! The little spring inside was fine, but molten plastic flowed in around the switch components and locked it down. That was 30 seconds at 32.2Amps.
I almost stepped up to a large Omten, but figured the $25 Tofty was much more suited in this case. Thick gauge copper sheet makes the components and the switch can be disassembled for cleaning to maintaing a very good low resistance operation.
I know, right? I tested amperage through the modes, got an initial output test, shined it around some then recharged the cells and did Turbo reading and left it on for a timed 30 seconds… when I shut it off the switch locked up in off position and wouldn’t return up, just simple locked in. I cut it apart to see exactly what happened and the black plastic was flowed in around it and between the plates, cementing it all together very effectively.
I’ve seen McClicky’s melt internal springs at under 10A, I’ve seen traces get blown on the switch board at under 15A, but I don’t recall ever seeing a switch melt down before unless there was a direct short in the circuit. I’ve got mini Omtens in lights pulling 18A and they’re working fine. I’ve got a large Omten on the tail PCB of my M6 that’s flowing 27A, so far so good. Just found the limits of the mini… lol
I’d been looking for 15,000 out of the 50.2’s, was a bit let down to “only” see 11,000+. Crazy how that works huh? So yeah, I was thinking the 70.2’s would surely do 15K, maybe 20K? Not at all disappointed with 18.9K.
Back to back, I’ve now done the most output and the most throw, with my DBC-06 making 815Kcd for 1.122 miles.
The 05 has a 65mm triple reflector that’s 32mm deep, so overall it’s quite similar in size but much heavier due to the massive copper pill section.
I paid $40 for the largest diameter Te/Cu bar stock I could find, it was 3 lbs and a little when I started. The head, no bezel no reflector or emitters, just the bare head is 1.6 lbs now.
It’s really exciting to come back in after all the healing process and not only make a personal best thrower but rebuild this 05 for a personal best output, 2 in one week. Yeah, ecstatic about that!
DBC-05 is a triple XHP-70.2 now, pulling 32.2A at the tail and making 18,940.5 lumens in Turbo at start up, 16,318.5 lumens at 30 seconds… this on a pair of iJoy 21700 3750mAh cells. Current draw is so high here I was forced to dig a premium Tofty switch out of an older build. I’m sure a lot of newer members don’t know what a Tofty switch is, we had a member here that was in Great Britain that had switches made to order using heavy copper sheet material for the electrical components and designed it in such a way that it could be disassembled and cleaned, rated at 15A it is capable of so much more. These were around $25 a switch if I remember correctly.
DBC-06.7 is a large thrower sporting a 97.5mm reflector and using a single 32650 cell. It has a de-domed XM-L2 in it that was de-domed by MaxToch for their Shooter series lights. With a throw of 815Kcd for 1.122 miles it’s pulling only 4.61A at the tail. The new gen XM-L2 keeps amperage lower while still doing a respectable job in the lumens department, making 1652.55 lumens in Turbo level (7 levels with reversing at the tail clicky)
TL