New Folomov 18650s

Yes, and DQG is Micro USB rechargeable…as long as you put the right cell inside. That’s basically moving the charging circuit from the host to the cell, less convenient but it works.
With a regular 18650 cell that doesn’t feature a charging circuit Tiny is 12 mm shorter than EDC C4.

Interesting!

Has anyone got one of these yet and taken it apart? Waiting to see what the internals are like.

Heh C-K! I got one in today. Definite e-switch feel on the tail. Head assembly is one piece, no removable bezel, and the driver side looks weird - plastic piece surrounds the contact button, I assume to force button top cells, and no obvious way to take it apart. will get it down to the bench to see if I can take more apart. Surprised no one else got one - ordered this one from Amazon Prime, have another on order from BG with Martin's deal.

Agree - UI is weird, "unique" I guess you could call it.

I absolutely love the tint, beam pattern looks good except for some artifacts. The tint is a nice 4000K, maybe a little warmer, but nothing like ugly yellow CREE 3000K.

Nice to hear, Tom. I have one underway too (without deal) because of the nice looks, the tail e-switch and the unusual 219D led. According to Clemence 219D’s are very easy to dedome, but I’m not sure if you want this led even warmer.

I ordered two from BG. Maybe I will put it in the X-ray at work and see what is inside without disassembling :smiley:

Oh boy, on the stock 2600 cell @3.8V, turbo does ~600 lumens, but with a 4.08V BT 30Q, ouch!! Beam center starts turning blue and lots of heat, but modes work fine, so don't think there's a direct short or something with a 30Q in there. The driver appears to be in the tail on a 16.8 mm PCB with the small e-switch mounted in the middle - bad news for modding, unless there's some custom work, or something else to work around this design. On the DMM, I read 51 ohms between the brass button and the outer shell of the head - interesting... I'll upload pics now...

That sounds like this light lives a happier life with a more current capable emitter.

Maybe it’s just tweaked for the high resistance stock cell. I’l charge it up and see.

The black plastic may be a little unclear. Looks like tweezers could fit in slots around the brass button. I tried but could not budge anything. Maybe what I would try is drilling 2 holes in the plastic, then see if i can get some leverage with a needlenose or other tool. The head is one piece, least appears that way - mp removable bezel.

On the stock cell fully charged and on turbo, output starts turning strange colors, blue I think.Other modes are regulated and work fine. With the cell as shipped at 3.8V, turbo works fine but only ~600 lumens. Dunno if it's just my unit or a driver problem, or something...

My blue beam tint problem went away after I heard/felt a 'pop' in the head area. Weird - still gets very hot and output drops hard in the first 30 secs: 626 lumens at start, 476 lumens at 20 seconds. These #'s are way lower than specs. I measured "hi" mode at 273 lumens, med=157, lo=73, lowest=16, moon=0.6
Specs say 900-300-150-50-10-0.5, so in the ballpark but turbo should be at 30 secs, which is probably ~450, 1/2 of what they spec'd.
Wish I knew what that 'pop' actually did -- interesting.

Nothing I can do to mod this, unless someone does a driver PCB design for it, even still, space for parts is tight because of the switch, and the other issue how batt+ and batt- are handled.

That’s my plan. How does the driver / switch actually work? How does the signal get to the driver in the head? Is the method used suitable for narcelM (i.e. can the tail button trigger like a standard e-switch press for the FW or would it have to be custom everything)?

Too many dunno's. Can't get the head apart so dunno what's there - think the driver is the tail board in the pic above. Uses a small 20 pin quad pack MCU. I assume for LED power, batt- goes thru the body up to the head.

What’s the diameter of the tail board?

And why on earth is the only resistor on the damn thing labeled R14 lol?

Edit: just thinking out loud here, how does the MCU in the tail get batt+?

16.9 mm. Think I mentioned that I measured 51 ohms between the brass button and the head shell, so, there's some connection there. I was think'n it's something like PD68's tailcap LED's. There's no other wire running head to tail so it must be using the battery tube shell.

Nice looking light. CW version available?

@TomE
Also received mine today.
Tried it with couple of different fully charged batteries but no angry blue visible.

You have probably been unlucky and got a lemon…

Ok, think this proves it's this one piece.

This is also weird. While testing, in a higher mode, think turbo, I heard/felt a 'pop' coming from the head which I really thought was the LED blowing the silicon bubble, but instead, the blue tint shift went away! It still gets hot quickly on turbo, but the tint shift issue is no longer. Didn't notice any physical damage to the LED either. Wonder if maybe it wasn't reflowed properly, then the heat melted the solder some what and re-seated the LED better on the pads. A bad reflow can cause the tint shift, from what I thought.


UPDATE

Even though in the initial use of the flashlight I didn't notice any angry blue, this evening after turning it on I indeed saw that the tint turned blue after staying for a couple of seconds in Turbo.
So TomE , it seems that there is something clearly wrong in the flashlight in general.
I shall send a message to Fomolov to let them know about the issue.

It could be simply that the 219D is not capable of high current.

Hmm, tomorrow I will fire up my bench PSU to see how many amps it takes before the LED turns blue.

By the way, the whole driver circuitry seems to be implemented into the tail, as shorting the tube with the BATT- creates a direct drive.