ENEDED

So I have cleaned everything. Even went as far as to disassemble everything minus desoldering the wires, checked everything visually. Reassembled everything and it still does the same thing. With one cell it will turn on. The switch will be blue then blink red and then the whole light shuts off. Every once and a while it will turn on and ramp about half power before the light turns off in the same manner. (Switch blinks red and then powers off.) With 2 cells it does absolutely nothing. I mean nothing at all. Banggood has agreed to refund my money. May contact Mtn. Electronics and see if they have a new driver that may work. I’m guessing it’s the driver at this point. Not sure what else to try.

If you have a DMM and can take the reflector out you can measure the voltage going to the led. Put the black probe to the bare body.

One fresh battery should read 4.2v and 2 batteries should read 8.4v, or close.

Almost all lights run the battery positive directly to the led, then the negative side is controlled by the driver before going to the body ground.

If good voltage is going to the led, then the problem must be in the driver or the drivers contact to the body (or the battery contact to the body).

I noticed once some sparks when I started putting the tailcap on. Does that mean anything?

That seems a little strange. I don’t think any of my lights have done that. It might be likely if there is a big surge of current, like a light that turns on turbo when the tailcap is turned on. If the switch is on and you put the tailcap on there is the big current as the led lights up. I don’t have an SC04, but I don’t think it automatically turns on when the tail cap is installed. So it’s strange to me. I can’t say anything definitive about that spark.

5000K dual battery config

Well Banggood refunded my money today. I contacted Mountain Electronics about a new driver and they were reluctant to help. Gave me an option which I may take just to have it work to some degree. Also sent a translated message to Haikelite but it may take a day or 2 if they even respond.

Mine didn’t work right out of the box either. After fooling with it I would get a flash the several quick flashes. I don’t know what that mode is or what. I ended up cleaning the contacts with IPA since there was plenty of grease to go around. Also, this isn’t regular Ramping IOS so it seems and wasn’t used to it’s simplified features, no batt check? But the switch isn’t super sensitive so it seems to need pretty positive inputs. I also found that it seemed pretty picky with what battery I used and button top 26650s were a must in 2 bat configuration vs flats with a magnet, for whatever reason.

I doubt Richard would be willing to custom make I driver just for this model flashlight. You would more than likely need to choose a driver that he already makes. It’s also possible that Lexel has a driver that might work. It seems unlikely it would still be able to operate on two different voltages, though. You probably need to choose either 3 Volt or 6 volt and then whatever diameter driver will fit.

Well, knowing it is using a boost driver, I don’t think Lexel still has one.

Just wait for Haikelite/Dale to respond. He will be willing to send you a driver no problem for warranty.

It may take a while though…

Why would you think there is any relation? Haikelite tends to make their own user interfaces unless they specifically say they are running such and such UI version xx.

Really? I was thinking it was a Buck. So how are the 4 leds wired? 2S2P or 4S?

Told Richard I would be willing to sacrafise one. I would prefer it work with 2 cells. He did have one that may work but wasn’t sure how lo g it would last. It was because the LED’s were in a series I believe.

4S seemingly.

2P2S would be possible. However, it would require a buck boost driver, which Haikelite hasn’t made before, and would be more expensive.

4S would be the preferred setup, since it would just require the same type of boost driver found in the SC26, beefed up a bit.

Could these leds be wired 4P and handle a FET driver without burning up?

The LED’s are on seperate mcpcb’s in a series.

So, it’s not using a single series MCPCB?

Seems a bit inefficient in terms of labor cost, and a chance of failure.

Wait!

Is there a possibility that the LEDs are simply not wired correctly?

A boost driver does not work if the input voltage is higher than the output voltage.

With 2 cells, the max battery voltage would be 8,4V, above the forward voltage of even massively overdriven 2S SST-20s.

When it first comes on with one cell, they all light up. The power switch is blue. Within 10 seconds it begins blinking red, the LED’s flash 3 or 4 times and shuts down completely. The light will not work at all with 2 cells. Nothing.

Precisely!

That means either the MCPCBs are wired incorrectly, which should not be too hard to fix. The driver would see that with one cell, the LEDs can still be lit up without any problem.

With 2 cells, the driver sees that there is a case of overvoltage, and shuts down quickly.

So doable to fix for anyone with a soldering iron.

Or the driver is faulty, which would take a lot more time.

Mine did all these things as well and didn’t work on 2 cells either. I seen the flashes and off as well as the red on the switch. If you’ve already cleaned contacts try going into other mode. Also try other batteries. I tried all different things till I got it working.
It seemed like it was in a programming mode or something.

I did get it to work with one cell for a short period of time maybe 2 times. As soon as I broke the contact/voltage ist started the same thing over. Worked once out of a weeks worth of messing with it. I did try different batteries. Got it to work once with the tail spring removed and magnet stuck to the negative side of the battery.