Test/Review of Qlite Rev.A 7135*8 Multiple Modes Circuit Board 3.04A

It finally got “warm” enough to step back into the garage for some soldering.

I decided to try the 4th star moon set.

I’m getting: nothing - low - med - high.

Fresh charged KP 18650 2900mAh
XP-G2 on Noctigon

High - 3.00A
Med - .765A
Low - .05A
Nothing - .003A

No output in “moon.”

Wouldn't happen to be de-domed, would it?

Everything is stock, dome is still on.

I've only seen that with potentially not-100%-healthy LEDs, de-doming sometimes screws with the Vf especially at the very low end.

It may not be 100%. It’s a 1A that was transferred from aluminum to Noctigon. Oh well, no big deal. I’ll try moon with a different emitter I guess.

Bring back to reflow temp and push down on the emitter while its hot. Let cool and try again.

Maybe some component is leaky.

If it puts the right voltage to the LED and the LED doesn't light up, it's not the driver.

this may sound crazy, but is the room dark enough when you test moonlight?

Yes, it could be the led that is leaky or the garage.

Mildly lit room, but staring directly at the emitter and there’s not a hint of light… well that’s interesting. Still in the same room I checked again to be thorough and there is the tiniest, slightest bit of light coming out of the emitter, but it is flickering quite a bit.

Moving into a pitch black room, there is so little light that it doesn’t show up unless almost point blank.

And after turning it back off it’s gone again. Not even the slightest bit of light coming from the emitter in moon mode.

Hmm.

I’ll heat it up in an old skillet in the morning and apply some light pressure to the emitter.

Thank you Sir. Nothing to add :slight_smile:

Mr pyro mentioned a problem with moonlight mode on many of his Qlites, there is a thread about it

I've got a question regarding the memory of the Qlite.

The way I understand the memory, the memory sets in after 2s of use. So if you use the light on mode 1 for longer than 2s, and you want to change to mode 2, you have to do 2 x short-clicks, as the first short-click will return the saved mode, which will be mode 1. I've read that there are mods which can transform the Qlite into off-memory, but that would require custom programming too.

What I want to know is: is it possible to remove memory altogether, but keep the modes. So as an example, when you turn on the light, it will always turn on in mode 1. If you use it in mode 1 for longer than 2s, and you do 1 x short-click, the light will go to mode 2, and so on. If you switch off the light and put it back on, it will start again in mode 1.

Thanks

Awesome review...thanks

Intl-outdoor sells both the NANJG 105C 2.8A and 3.05A versions (same price), (and the Qlite Rev.A version).

Yes, flash it with nlite and solder the 4th star. Of course, if you're going to do that there's no reason to pay extra for a Qlite, just get the cheapest 8x7135 105c and flash it.

I have analysed the moonlight mode a bit (See review), it is no surprise that there can be problems with it.

I recently have moved back to simple 7135 drivers for some lights where I really want to have current regulation. I happened to re-read HKJ’s test and was disturbed by the lack of regulation in the lower modes. I searched for some discussion of this but couldn’t find any. A user (also a member here) made a relevant post:

on the other forum. He found a couple in-flashlight tests that seem to show good regulation in PWM lower modes. This led me to hypothesize that maybe the power source (power supply vs battery) could have some influence on the driver’s ability to regulate current.

I did some tests using a 8x7135 Qlite driver with Guppy FW from mtnelectronics, using the modes: 100, 50, and 15. The LED was an XPL HI. I’ve used two power sources: my adjustable switching power supply and a 18650GA cell. To get the different voltage data points for the battery I used the same 18650GA cell at different states of charge. Below I’ve plotted the normalized current of each mode using the two power sources. The current was measured using a clamp meter. The curves are normalized to the current values: 3.1A, 1.5A, and 0.43A for 100, 50, and 15 mode, respectively. The x-axis is the input voltage at the driver in 100% mode.

With the power supply I observed similar poor regulation in the lower modes that HKJ and iamlucky13 observed. With the battery as the power source the regulation was closer to what we would expect: the lower modes mostly stay in regulation until the 100% mode drops out of regulation. So what is causing the difference between the power supply and battery? HKJ observed a slow rise in current during each pulse during PWM dimming and this acts to reduce the average current. So, evidently the battery can pulse the current with a faster rise time, and so suffers less from this effect. I guess any inductance in the power supply circuit could contribute to the slow rise time.

So rest assured that your 7135 drivers regulate pretty well in all modes.

:+1: