FandyFire Rook Mod. 3AA NiMH in series? Yes, it's done, but I'm on the second one now!

Nothing has changed. More confused than ever. To top it off the thing (for want off a better word) works like a charm. Back to the Bex and another Nanna nap for me. Well done.

Congratulation for this impressive and useful mod, O-L, i really enjoyed the whole (photo) process!!!

Great mod, Justin! Just wondering : if the stock voltage input was 1.5~4.2V for 3xAA in parallel, then won’t 3xAA in series be 4.5v? :smiley:

Each

Nanjg drivers will work at 4.5v if need be, just alkaleaks won’t last too long I guess. Nice work o-l I like this a lot.

Beautiful work and a fairly simple solution to lockout parasitic drain. You da man!

+1

Nice mod, I dont know how I missed this one.

I added a video explaining Parallel to Series on this Rook mod. It's laughable, but maybe it will be useful to someone out there.

EDIT: "The Driver Contact Plate"

I stripped all components from that driver plate, so it was a bare contact plate. Since the plate is bare now, I can use a meter and see where the one area is, that makes the contact, from one side of the plate to the other side. I just metered the plate and there was one location, where it went through to the other side. Then I cut the plate, so that area was the positive contact.

Thanks Mr Lumens. I'm probably speaking for .1% off people on this forum. I think that just leaves me? I know about parallel and series no problem. Its just the way you went about making it work. If a pictures worth a thousand words your video is worth 10,000 words. From all the .1%off people here, thanks for going to the effort off explaining it further.

Are you giving away another?

Nope, I am selling the second one. It will be polished (well shiny anyhow), aluminum, instead of gold.

I imagine there’s more than .1%, but they just don’t say anything. “The Silent Majority”.

Great mod OL your a creature of lumens

Olds, I loved that revision in series and parallel batteries. Esp that part when a cig popped in and out quickly! Me not smarter than a 5th grader in this. Just to be sure, its 6v total for a double stack of 3xCR123s in an M6…yes?

What’s the voltage of one? Multiply by 2. 3.6 volt is “nominal spec” for any Li-ion, I believe, so 7.2 volt for two in series.

That’s amazing! I really like that mod. Is there a black or non-gold version of the Rook? I have a NiteCore EA4W on the way, so I don’t think it makes sense to get one of these. But one in slate grey would be nice to mod like this. I’m not a fan of the gold colour.

For the absolute newbies (like me), can you explain what will be different to your modded version compared to a normal one?
I always see you guys doing crazy- and probably awesome stuff, but I have no idea what´s really happening. Can you explain it for the non-Tony-Starks?

Thanks : )

Well, my take on it is probably not the greatest, but with the stock light, I feel it was really meant for 14500 use. With 3 of the 14500 in parallel, the driver sees 3.6 V, (nominal voltage) to the driver. The higher voltage input, should make the driver more efficient in it’s output and people have said, it’s a bright light on 14500s.

With it being a dual battery light (14500 or Alkalines/NiMHs), if you use the NiMHs, then the driver is only getting 1.2V (nominal again), input, so to create 3.6 V to the led, it is less efficient and has less output. Basically, it's like having two drivers in one and on the side where it's only getting 1.2V in, it's not putting as much power out.

I am a NiMH guy, so I just wanted to create better output with the NiMH batteries. I also wanted to make it into a light with a lockout to kill unwanted parasitic drain when the light wasn't being used. With the electronic (smt), switch system, there was some drain from the batteries all the time and on some of these, it was much more drain than it should have been. My understanding is that the electronic switch has to have power to it all the time, so there is some drain because of that.

So the mod gives 3.6V, by using the NiMH in series and the mod also gives a positive lockout, by using the tail cap to break the circuit entirely. Loosening the tail cap breaks the ground through the light, thereby stopping any possible drain from the batteries, when not in use.

Basically, a different driver and battery set-up makes it a different light. It is now very bright on NiMH batteries and Alkalines could be used in a pinch. For me, that's more reasonable, since Alkalines could be purchased just about anywhere in the US and even NiMHs are readily available, but 14500 Li-ions can't be found in your local drug store or Wal-Mart.

I don't know if all this really answers the question...

Veeeery nice explanation! Thank you for that!

I wondered till the end WHY you mod it for NiMHs and you gave a reason
So no questions left.

thumps up : )