Hey guys...I just shot this tonight. It's my first attempt at a video, so please be gentle. I grabbed 3 other ligths at random aid in comparison. They are a stock 2xAA mini mag, an EDI-T T11, and a Zebralight SC60. The little "shoot-n-share" camcorder I used looked like it only captured a fraction of the light from all of them, as they're all much brighter in real life.
A few notes: Wanting to keep under the 1.5C max discharge of my trustfires, I'm running the mini-match at 2.2A total (1.15 at the tailcap). Besides not killing my cells, this seems to be a pretty good sweetspot for output vs heat and battery life. In usage it looks like it's easily putting out double the light of the Zebra, with a huge hotspot. I just got a luxmeter so I did some ceiling bounce lux readings (I really need to build an I.S.). Here they are:
I was just playing around with NiZn cells in this just to see what it would do. I was actually suprised. They drove it for over a half an hour (when my patience ran out). Obviously not as bright as the 14500's, but still brighter than the Zebra SC60. Here's my little comparison with the NiZn added:
Zebralight SC60: 9.3lux
Mini-match (NiZn): 11.5lux
Mini-match (14500's): 20 lux
Manafont XM-L drop-in (3.2A taildraw): 25 lux
Not suprisingly regular alkalines would not fire it up.
I have finally been able to source another driver for this project. The only problem was it was 19mm vs 17mm, which required a complete rework and redesign(big pain in the butt...). It was just easier to start with a new light (red one this time). Here's the list of changes:
- 3.2A supplied to the triple xpg star
- Neutral White
- 3 Modes: low, med, high
-Mode memory
- Reverse battery protection, low voltage protection,and probably most importantly, thermal protection ( the board will drop to low mode if temp gets too high)
May I present the Mini-Match version 2.0
I'll try to get some better pics and some beamshots up later.