Wow big, hefty light. Just what I was looking for - but wonât turn on. DOA it seems. Green Shockli 26650s worked just fine in D4S. Topped them off to 4.2 last night. Connections cleaned, head and tail as tight as I can get them. Bummer.
First light I have gotten where it wonât turn on right out of the box (well, after the cells are in anyhow).
Guess I will be pushing back to Amazon in the morning.
I think the magnet material itself is not a good electrical conductor and most of the current might be passing through the thin plating on the surface of each magnet (probably nickel plating). For flat top batteries I would cut a small round piece of copper (copper plate 2mm thick from Lowes) and solder it on top.
Sorry to hear about the DOA. Did the green LED light up the side switch? I assume the connection between each battery in series is good. If you have a few 18650 button top batteries, maybe you can use the plastic tube adapters and try those batteries?
So your batteries do make contact from head to tail?
You might try loading the batteries, but leave the tail cap off then run a jumper wire from battery negative to the battery tube. This bypasses the tail switch.
You also might try removing the battery tube from the head and make sure there is no glue on top of the driver. The battery tube has to screw down and press on the drivers outer ring. I had a little glue on mine, but not enough to prevent a connection. If they added a bit too much glue it could harden on the driver ring and prevent the battery tube from screwing all the way down and making good contact.
Also make sure the tail cap retaining ring is tight.
Yep cncyana and Jason your suspicion was warranted. I found a pair of protected button-top 18650âs, adding about 6 mm total length and, BINGO, let there be light. I then remembered I had a faulty Folomov travel charger with the magnets (would charge batteries but didnât work in reverse to charge a device), so I scavanged one of the magnets as a spacer between the too-short, flat-top, 26650s and things work fine now.
All modes and turbo seem to be working fine. Will now check and make sure batteries discharge evenly. If not, I guess maybe I will solder a blob on them.
Boy I like the light. It is a tank. I have lotâs of lights but not a single âthwackerâ until now.
Iâm still learning when it comes to the max discharge curve. Does it always have to reach 80 degrees to show a max rating?. Iâve seen tests from HKJ that have bad discharge curves which havenât reached 80 degrees and theyâre too high.
Iâve tested 14500 cells and the curves and capacity at that current look terrible without 80 degrees being reached.
EDIT: If Iâm wrong them Iâll alter my first comment
No. Magnets having poor resistance is a myth. The material has poor resistance but large diameter and short length means the total resistance is negligible.
Try using the magnet on a cell in a battery charger that measures the internal resistance. You will see a big increase. Iâm not sure if this directly effects the performance on a FET driver, I havenât tried to measure the amp draw difference, but I assume it would.
That, plus the potential to move around if dropped and cause a short makes me not want to ever use them. Iâll just solder blob a cell or get button tops or solder on a button top.
The older cyan and black are good cells (a good choice assuming you can solder blob them for series contact), the new blue 5100mah seem to be questionable. Like always, buy from a reputable store that does not sale fakes.
Here is a repost of my battery tests from a few pages ago.