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Hi there Jason,

Sorry for the delay. Originally the ceiling bounce at 1 meter was 460 lux. After I performed the pill shave, this resulted in a slight increase to 550 lux. This was actually higher, but that’s at the point it started to settle at.

I literally have the 5A driver and MT-G2 sitting in the pill waiting to be potted and fujik’d but havent had the time to finish it.

The I-O 5A driver needed a lot of sanding and caressing to get into that pill.

Perhaps tonight.

My test runs leads a much warmer tint than the beamshots posted. I hope im doing it right. Perhaps because of almost no thermal transfer during the quick test?

Hey FM,

Excellent you are so close to getting it going. I’m sure your tint is right. I believe this mtg2 should be rated at 5000k on the money, or close to it. It’s perfect for me because I’m a 4300k-5000k sort of guy. Hopefully you’ll love the excellent color rendering you get from it.

I got her all put together - de-domed mtg2 on (aluminum) sinkpad, potted 9A driver.

The sinkpad is the perfect thickness. I used a thin insulation disc just to be safe.

6A at the tail at turn on, and that quickly drops to 5A. These panasonic cgr18650ch are rated 10A max discharge. good 26650s might maintain that current.

I tapped the pill and I’m using nylon screws, but I think I’ll switch to steel and nylon washers so that I can be sure the emitter is tightened right down hard.

I’m getting ~20k lux@1m at turn on, dropping to 15k at 30 seconds and staying there. Spill is still very bright.

Holy cow that driver is really putting out! You really need to post some beam shots. It must be amazing at that current. I’ll bet with good 26650’s in there, amps and lux will maintain much higher than it is.

yes, but I’m wondering if the emitter will survive

the driver is completely potted to the pill (but can be removed), so if the temperature step-down in the driver works, it should be relatively safe.

i took pictures of the mods, I’ll post them tomorrow evening.

I’ll try beamshots too, but for now I can tell you, it certainly has no trouble illuminating my entire backyard lol

I’d say you have the hardest driven and brightest MT-G2 LED out there. Another first for BLF :smiley:

I used my bench sander with fine paper to remove a small amount of aluminum material from the base of the reflector so see if focus could be made even tighter. It had no effect from what my eye can make out. So I’d have to say it’s as focused as the Torchlite reflector will allow.

It’s easily one of my favorite lights and I love using this thing. I hope the rest of you have as successful a build.

Finally got the Manafont "3T6" driver. The perpendicular circuit board is epoxied to the battery board. The epoxy covers several of the components. Fearing I would render the board useless, trying to separate it, I resigned to installing it in the pill (instead of in the space around the reflector. To build the depth of the pill, I cut a .25" length of 3/4" copper pipe coupler and pressed it into the pill. It was pressed to the shoulder that is the threads terminate at. Here is pic with the extension press in, the driver, and the driver in the pill.

Although this route gives more than adequate space for the wiring and driver (driver was not changed), I would not recommend this much of an extention. In order to fit my protected cells, I had to not use a battery spring on the driver and had to switch to a small P60-type spring on the tail cap. Even with that, I can barely tighten the tail cap enough to work. For the emitter side, I used a copper slug to bring up the emitter to the base of the reflector. I soldered the slug and copper sinkpad to the pill. Used a XM-L2 T6 3C. With the cells charged to 4.17V, current at the tail was 2.86A. This number sounds high to me because I thought this driver was a 4.5A driver. With this set up, this light out throws my Defiant Super Thrower (10 7135's, XML U2 NW, Parellel 18650's), my ZY-T08 (stock), HD2010 (11 7135's, XML U2 NW). It only out throws them due to the higher current. With the same current, the others would out throw this light. That being said, I would prefer this light to those in most situations because the throw is already more than I need and the profile is very nice. The great thing is that the transition from the "hot spot" to the spill is so smooth that you get a wider long-distance viewable area. To me, the hot spot is not discernible when looking out far. I live in a very thickly wooded area and I can peer deeper into the woods with this beam profile, because I don't get blinded as much by near by trees as I pan the light

Ima4Wheelr. Personally Ima2Wheelr type of guy.

I love your creativity here. Does this driver have mode memory and from memory it was only 3 modes, high, med and low?

Nice job ima4wlr, I’d add some braid or wire to the tail spring if you have not already, just so that the spring purely provides clamping and not current path. I really liked mine with an xm-l in it, the mt-g2 just provides a huge smooth beam. I like it, just its not a wow light to the uninitiated. Its subtle.

Thank you. Unfortunately, it’s only 5 mode with strobe & SOS. Hoping to find a way to change that, but haven’t so far.

Well put. I remember being a little disappointed about the beam initially, but then I started using it. It smoothly graduates in intensity up to the center point I didn’t realize how a sharp cut off in the hot spot distracted me until this light. Thank you for the complement and the copper braid idea.

Just a heads up but this driver fits in the pill using the torchlite retaining ring, 20mm contact board and torchlite spring. 3 mode with a very usefull low on it too. :slight_smile:

There is also a coupon code mentioned further up in this thread usefull till the end of march.

Ima4Wheelr, I think your solution to extend the pill was better than mine. Very nice and neat install.

Also, due to the 5a driver I used, I was concerned about anealing or burning the +B driver spring, so I left it off, which did give me more room for battery fitment, in addition to removing the tail cap spring plunger too.

Can any of you guys with MT-G2 set ups describe what your lights are like to use in low mode? Let me give so perspective so that you know what I’m wanting to know.

I use low mode a good 90% of the time. There is no area lighting around me as I have no houses in sight and am a quarter mile from the nearest country road. With low mode, I can some what see around me outside of the flashlight’s beam. I feel more integrated with my surroundings and better able to detect motion with my peripheral vision. With my current set up using an xm-l2 touching the bottom of the reflect, low mode is better than any light I have ever had. The useful throw is very far out and the spill really graduates out smoothly into the surrounding darkness. I think I might even prefer it to my floody lights on low.

So if any of you have a chance or have already used your MT-G2 Torchlites on low while moving around in a very dark area, would you please describe what it is like? I suspect that the larger emitter may even make for a better low mode.

I fitted this driver

The low really is suprisingly low but still usefull, not had chance to get anywhere properly dark with it but its good round the house.

Hi gords. I think the driver you have there is the same one I used here,

I had a problem with it that it dropped down in amps a fair bit after about 5 minutes in operation on high. Hows yours going? It put out something like 6 amps on high. I dont recall whether I mentioned I have a couple of these on order,

http://intl-outdoor.com/boostbuck-318v-triple-xml-circuit-board-p-542.html

I have one of these in use at the moment from another supplier and it also runs at 6 amps with a single LED. This is a waste as theres no difference in light output from medium which is still to high at 5 amps. I aim to put a copper star in this and try and make use of this current. I realise that its to big to fit in your pill but just interested in your thoughts.

I’ll be honest. I’ve not had much chance to do any in depth testing of it yet, it does indeed work out closer to 6a than 5a.

I’ll have a play with the thermometer and meter one evening so I can give a better opinion but I seem to think there was a definite difference between hi and mid.

I assume by drop you mean a temperature related drop around 5 minutes? And that’s what you want me to check for? on the ten minute walk about I did the other evening, I didn’t notice much heat build up, but this host is meant to take an sst-90 @ 9a, six amp seem conservative in comparison.

that driver from intloutdoor looks like the one a few have used, at 17mm tall, its no suprise it wont go in the torchlite pill, the one I linked barely fit and needed an alternative contact board solution.

Hey IMA4Wheeler,

I have the IOS 5a 3-mode driver in my Torchlite with the mtg2 LED. The low is surprising low and actually perfect for me if I needed to use this light during a blackout or something similar. I don’t see the low on this light hurting night vision at all. But what I can do is take a beam shot tonight on low mode, and on high mode and post them together if you think it may help.