Sofirn SP36, impressions of a sample

I will ask for it, the sample has no attachment points at all.

Btw, I was too tired tonight to do a teardown of the SP36 sample but I did some turbotime testing. This afternoon I set the stepdown temperature at 60 degrees (or so I thought) and let the light cool down and recharged the 30Q’s. Later this evening I ran the turbo-test. It ran for 4.25 minutes at around 4600 lumen before stepdown occurred, the flashlight head was then 67 degC. So about 3 minutes before the head is too hot to hold (but I could hold it by the battery tube until stepdown)

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I just measured throw of the SP36, and I get 39 kcd.

I also measured my high CRI 219B ROT66 and I measure 19 kcd, which is higher than maukka’s copy (he measured 14 kcd). The XP-L HI version of the ROT66 throws better btw, 60 kcd was posted by someone (seems somewhat high to me). The ROT66 manages that because it is higher powered with its 9 leds. (the XP-L HI version of the ROT66 has twice the output of the SP36. The thermal stepdown kicks in much sooner too: 30 seconds on my ROT66 when set at 60 degC., vs 4.25 minute on the SP36)

Could you post the length and diameter?

It’s a FET driver, right? Any info on regulated levels, PWM?

The leds are driven quite hard at max…

I think it’s a good idea and an interesting flashlight. Do you know if sofirn is planning to take out his 21700 c8f with USB charger? for me it would be ideal for some gifts that I want to make.

Yep I totally agree. I’ll buy a few of the 21700 C8F with USB C recharge if Sofirn makes them

But of course, THIS is a discussion of the Sofirn SP36… there are other threads discussing their other lights. :wink:

The SP36 proves that Sofirn is able to make a flashlight with both Narsil and USB-charging, that is a desirable combination!

This pipe bomb walks into a bar… the bartender says “Hey, aren’t you that crazy pipe bomb I threw out of here last night?” The pipe bomb says “No, I’m just another cheap flashlight with a built in USB charger and multiple Li-ion cells. Give me a break man! And a glass of water please…”

Satire, an attempt at humor where humor doesn’t exist…

I ’m not an expert on charging electronics but once I opened the driver I will make pictures, it may use a known and decent charging chip.

With batteries directly connected parallel it does not use balancing charging, monitoring each individual cell, my question is: how bad is that?

Even IF a pricey name brand excellent charging chip was used, it’s still charging 3 cells in parallel that may be imbalanced and will almost assuredly become so at some point in the flashlights life. I sure wouldn’t use it. I remove those and plug the USB charging port with silicone to seal it up. I like my fingers on my hands and I like to be able to see… consider myself to be a compassionate person and don’t want to deprive anyone else of their senses either, Lord knows there’s far too many folks actually running around not using much sense these days…

Simple scenario, and we’ve had someone in the forum recently talking about how they do this… a 2200mAh store brand protected cell get’s put in the light alongside a high discharge 30Q and a 3500mA high capacity cell. All three of these, side by side, charge simultaneously from the same charging circuit. Hmmmm, yeah, I don’t think that’s a great idea! A lot of folks take chances daily that I’m simply not willing to take at all. I reckon Justin said it best when he said “It is what it is…” Still, I’ll stay well and clear away from that mess, thank you very much!

(Remember, you never know what someone else may have put in a light when they’re using it right beside YOU! Or in your building, at work, at the store, at the movies or in the mall, so simple for someone else’s error to become your life, or your loved ones…)

[I know someone that recently had a cell vent, scary scenario!]

Not bad at all. One parallel group of cells works as a giant group, so no problem there.

The only thing needed is temperature monitoring here, and a reverse polarity protection circuit for obvious reasons, physical, or electronic if possible.

E: I have to add something.

Different capacity+internal resistance cells in a parallel circuit is not too bad, since they will just be charging at different rates and will be equalized at the same voltage at the same rate.

The thing you do not want is putting different voltage cells in parallel. It won’t do much damage if the delta is less than 0,1V, but beyond that, it gets dangerous for the cells mostly.

UPDATE

Do not listen to my advice unless you have a multimeter and battery knowledge! It is advanced knowledge :slight_smile:

Keep a matched set of batteries for one large multi-cell light, and keep them at the same charge level when putting it inside the light.

And for what it’s worth, I had 4 LG HE4’s, pretty new, in a Nitecore TM16 this past year, a matched set from the beginning, and one day one of the 4 was stone dead! The other three were holding their charge and seemed fine, that one cell wouldn’t charge and my chargers wouldn’t recognize it as a cell… is it really safe to charge up those parallel cells on a single circuit if one cell is that much off from the others? I mean, it didn’t just get dead all of a sudden, did it? We get lax, day in day out, don’t we?

Preach it Blue, but it goes against everything we’ve practiced here for the past 6 years. Stay away from me and mine if you do that, I want no part in it…

No problem.

You want matched cells obviously. I’m just saying it’s not dangerous for someone like me and you

I wouldn’t have too much confidence in someone else putting a laptop cell at 3,6V and 2 fully charged 30Qs. Now that would be a nice combo, and a dead laptop cell :slight_smile:

Any chance to have the illuminated side button in a different color to keep it a little different than the Q8?

Yeah. Let’s make it orange :stuck_out_tongue:

The problem here, Blue, is that you’re trying to address the few dedicated flashaholics in a room consisting of 26,663 people. Only 58 members were logged in as of a few minutes ago, but we do have 26,663 members… you have to be careful the advice you spread, thousands of new people will take it for gospel and never check the voltage in their cells, don’t even have a multimeter. . . .

Any change to have SS bezel on this SP36 ?

Dale, your concerns are mostly valid for all flashlights with parallel cells, with or without charging, like the Q8. Not everyone must be given a Q8. The question here is if the parallel charging part adds extra danger to that.

What we, based on assumptions, have been doing the past 6 years has, after actual testing, more than once been proven unneccessary or even wrong. Knowledge develops over the years.

I would like as much input as possible before dismissing this quite useful feature.