Got mine today. My switch LEDs are different brightness levels like someone mentioned before. Not sure if it bothers me though. Anyone else have the same issue?
Post in the main GT thread saying that you want one (or more). Then wait for a private message with further instructions. It may take a few weeks before you can make the purchase, because production is slow.
FAQ: Can I get more throw if I drive the emitter harder?
No, not really. It’s already driven at 2.5A, which is just shy of the peak for the GT’s emitter. There’s very little to be gained from giving it more power; it’ll mostly just produce more heat.
FAQ: Why is my lux meter showing me less than 1.2 Mcd for the GT?
Could be caused by several things…
Lux meters usually read higher for cool white lights, so the GT’s warmer tint could be tricking the meter. This doesn’t mean it won’t throw as well as intended, just that the meter isn’t very good as measuring it.
The beam doesn’t fully collimate until ~20+ meters, so it may be necessary to increase the distance between the light and the meter for a good measurement.
The light might be running at 2.0A instead of 2.5A. Be sure to take measurements on turbo (which is above the normal output modes; double-click to access turbo).
FAQ: How can I mod it to increase throw?
Try an Oslon Black Flat for maximum throw. The hotspot will be tiny though, and the driver may need to be replaced or modified (TBD).
FAQ: How can I mod it to increase lumens?
Try a 12V XHP50, XHP50.2, XHP70, or XHP70.2. It will decrease throw though, and the driver’s sense resistor should be changed to increase power to ~5A. Bigger hotspot, more lumens, less lux. Texas_Ace tried it and says the result is nice. Using 8 cells is strongly recommended for this.
FAQ: My tailcap ring doesn’t want to spin. Help?
There may be a pinched or insufficiently-lubed O-ring inside. If you remove the Lumintop sticker inside the tailcap, the parts should unscrew (reverse-threaded), and then you should be able to check and lube the O-rings.
Either I have the wrong switch cover, or my LEDs are so dim that you can’t tell they’re working unless you’re in a dark room or at night, but I’m beginning to think it’s the LEDs
Hopefully TA can chime in, most of the team lights shipped with opaque button boots.
It is supposed to be very dim, as mentioned in the FAQ above. Two Three ways to have it brighter:
Change the boot to a clear one. The boot is 12 mm, not a common size unfortunately.
Change or stack the resistor controlling the back-light current (R8). Stock value is 33k for ~100 μA. Change to 15k or stack another 33k on top of the stock resistor to double the current. The resistor should be 0603 footprint, but a 0805 will fit as well. Note that this will take the parasitic drain from ~240 to ~340 μA.
Rewire the button LEDs in series and drop R8 accordingly.
Edit: For the mismatched LEDs, that can happen with LEDs wired in parallel. Still preferable to having one off-center LED I guess. It may also simply be the way the rubber boot is orientated. A simple hack here would be to rewire the LEDs in series and change R8 to 10k (MCU is running at 5 V on GT, so there is enough voltage to do this). Bonus, double brightness for same parasitic drain.
Is there a way to have the lighted switch stay on when the light is turned on? Having a lighted switch is just as helpful when you want to change output levels or turn the thing off as it is when you want to turn it on.
There’s no option for that. You’d have to manually run a new wire to keep it powered all the time, so you’d lose the “indicator” function. No big deal as I have two lights where the switch stays on all the time.
If the GT’s lighted switch is controlled by the MCU, it should be possible to change its behavior via firmware. From the way the question is written though, I get the impression that maybe that’s not how the switch light works on this model?
I thought it worked like the Q8, but now I’m not sure.
Yes it can be changed by firmware, but not the existing firmware as it has no options to make the light always stay on. I think Tom E said he was going to possibly add the option to make the light always stay on in a future version of NarsilM.