Most people already probably know how to do resistor mods. Since this is a fairly new light I thought I might show others how easy it is to mod this new light. I have both the cooper version and the titanium, this mod works on both and maybe the aluminum version if its the same driver.
This light is tiny compared to all my other 16340 flashlights especially since it has a side e-switch. Amazing they got all parts necessary to fit in such a tiny light. Its smaller than my ITP A1 EOS which is the smallest 16340 light I own, and its a twisty.
So on with the mod. First you will remove battery and battery tube. On the driver battery side it has a black plastic retainer with 2 small holes in it. Take your time here and use needle nose pliers or whatever you use but keep the tips very shallow in the holes. The driver components are right below this retainer. If you go to deep or force the retainer out you will twist off components on the board and brick your driver. Now unscrew the bezel once the retainer is out, I used a pair of short needle nose pliers stuck down in 2 of the 4 notches on the bezel spreading the pliers apart fitting the notches. Be careful here and keep pressure outward and twist counter clock wise. Mine was not glued and came apart easily. Now unsolder the little ground wire and both led connections, unscrew the screw holding down the ground wire terminal and don’t loose the terminal. The led mcpcb should come right out and has very little thermal paste on it or mine did. Now take a small screwdriver and push on the wires a little and maybe the board, but don’t force it, it should come out fairly easy.
Once its out flip the driver over on the spring side. You are looking for the resistor marked R050.
In the pic above you will need to solder on another R050 resistor on top of the original one. The light draws 1.5 amps factory. Half the resistance doubles the current. Mine draws 3 amps with the piggy backed resistor. Best I can tell the formula would be 75 divide by your target current in milliamps. 75/3000ma = .o25 ohms. Now time to put everything back together. Be careful and take your time. The driver will only go in one way with the switch lined up with the button. Good luck modding.
At 3 amps it gets hot within 3o seconds and seems like some batteries can’t keep up because it will step down from turbo to high within a few seconds with some batteries I have tried. Might be better to be conservative and use a resistor that gets you closer to 2.5 amps or so. This light is suppose to have thermal regulation but with a good battery it gets so hot I don’t wanna hold it any longer so I have to turn it off.
Klarus sales ad:
“Newest Intelligent Temperature protection System(ITS) monitors internal temperature and adjusts output to regulate heat dissipation; protects LED and internal components for perfect balance of output and safety.” :person_facepalming:
Sorry guys I had no idea the pics were not working. I linked them thru google photos. They show up on my end, so it looks fine to me. :person_facepalming:
I’ll see if I can fix it, might need some help letting me know if the new pics work.
I just created a imgur account for hosting photos. I’m really upset about photobucket holding my older pics for ransom. Google photos seems to have problems sharing on forums from what I googled.
Does both pics show up now?
I guess your referring to a beam shot pic. I dont have any at the moment but I have some Efest IMR 16340’s on the way that are rated for 5 to 7 amps continuous (depends on the seller). So I’ll wait until I have those to use. I have several of the top rated 16340 batteries from HKJ’s comparator but none work good at a 3 amp load, to much battery sag. Seems they haven’t really designed a high current 16340 yet that I could find. The driver I’m pretty sure has a low voltage step down, so when the battery sags below say 3v the driver steps down to high, thinking the battery is depleted but its not (to much voltage sag).
The best I found by description was the Efest IMR 700mah (red) or the Imren IMR 700mah (blue). They haven’t been tested by HKJ yet or anywhere else I could find, so I’m not sure what their going to do, but I do plan on testing the Efest 700’s when I receive them. I noticed they were popular with the vape sites, so that’s a good sign since that’s a high current device. I may buy some Imren’s to try also. Probably just the same battery given their both 700mah Imr’s.
I tested the Efest IMR16340 700mah(red) and there no better than the klarus LIR16340(red) or the fenix ARB L16-700. They all dive pretty quick in voltage at a 3amp load. I get around 300mah at about 6 minutes out of any of the 3 at a 3v cut-off. Trustfire seems to be about the best 16340 at the moment from HKJ’s testing, I got four on the slow boat to try next.
Nice Mod :+1:
The Yellow AWT 16340 cells are great, I’ve been using them for a while now whereas the red TF cells were good at first some failed quite fast at high draw. YMMV.
