Micro-review: The Warsun Collection MX-900 Find 6, X60, A9, A10, ET26, CT9T.... Initial Impression and some Pics!

Wow, I must have got a lot nicer batch than you. My MX-900 is almost, if not flawless, except for the glossy-ish anodizing.

The CT9T and MX-900 on single 18650 are comparable, but MX-900 seems slightly brighter. On 2x18650 in the MX-900 it's noticeably brighter than the CT9T.

The CT9T I have has a very flat finish. Mx-900 definitely glossier.

I also forgot to email him about the modes. After thinking about it, the only true culprit is the driver to me, and the black insulator piece.

Hey blf. You would need a lot of those resistors to bring up your current much. How risk adverse are you? You will be risking an emitter if you try this. Place a solder blob over one of the resisters. Will be more resistance than a copper wire, but not much more. So you will be close to max current (what ever it is) that that drive can deliver. I have hunch that driver will not deliver a ton of current at max, but I'm an amateur.

Will a driver still put out a certain current amps etc without and led being connected? I wouldnt be too afraid to run this driver at max current because i am only getting 1.2amp with a standard single 18650. 1.6amp with panasonic ncr18650pf.

I have a feeling that the stock led is xm-l2 t4 or t5. I had a slight boost in output when i switched the led to old school xml u2. I accidently ruined hazed the xm-l2 dome when i tried to clean it off with solvent (n-butyl acetate)

@ImA4Wheeler I'm going to go big and do the solder blob, and if not happy, remove all the resistors and just copper bridge, but I will swap the LED to an old XM-L that I have collecting dust, just in case.

@phsinvent Pray for me!

I will also try to do some tailcap readings of my results.

Good idea on the sacrificial (hopefully not) xml. At least if it does fry the emitter, that will mean your driver is capable of high current (or high voltage). Then it's order some resistors time. FT sells 1206 (handles more power than 0603 and 0805 sizes) resistors cheap. Get some R10 and R33's. That should cover most of the situations you will encounter.

PHS, much more knowledgeable people than me advise against running drivers without a load to drive. You got me curious now. Does anyone out there know if you can just connect the DMM to the driver (no emitter in the path) to measure how much current it will deliver? With no voltage being consumed (almost no Vf), it would seem that it could overload the driver.

Best of luck!

Good luck demigod! Be sure to take some tail cap readings before the resistor removal. I’m guessing you will get 2.6amp after removal and solder added.

So I checked the tail amps after I installed an XML U2 led. I was using a single panasonic NCR18650PF. I now get 1.8amp. Strange. Still too low but it went up when i installed a XML U2 Versus the XM-L2 T4, T5 or T6 that came in the light.

I was thinking that something was wrong with my meter so I checked a common C8 running a Nanjg 105C 2800ma and I got 2.78amp with that light.

Ok, well I believe I just blew my 1st LED.

First, I tried the solder blob method, and the MX-900 actually looked like it lost some power compared to the CT9T. Doing a beam comparison on the wall, show the MX-900 hotspot not as bright as the CT9T.

Next, I removed both the R160 resistors, and did a soldered a copper wire bridge. Plugged the XM-L in, and put a single 18650 in. Turned it on an compared it to the CT9T, and they looked identical. Exact same brightness. So then I figured I would try the MX-900 with 2x18650's. Turned it and for a brief second, saw a glow of light! Then nothing! I looked at the emitter, and for some reason seen a really tiny dot, like in the center of one side of the LED very bright. I mean this thing looked like it was glowing almost. I power-cycled, and still nothing. I tried my DMM on the LED, and it showed no sign of life.

I did take led readings from the emitter, even though the LED seems blown, not sure if thats as accurate, or more accurate than tail-cap readings.

Anyways, my results were...

From a single 18650: 1.9-2V and 4.3A (worked perfect, but still not super-bright)!

From two 18650's: 3.8V and 8.6A (emitter blown it seems)

So I'm guessing an XM-L can't handle 3.8V at 8.6A, huh?

I’m confused… you got 4.3A from single 18650 that has 1.9-2V in it? :expressionless:

I just checked the amps at the emitter on my stock mx900 and It reads 2.89 amps. 1.8 amps at the tail.

Yes, that's what the LED reading showed on my DMM. Maybe readings are messed up from the bad LED? I will replace the LED and see what it gives me. I need to learn how to take tail-cap readings.

I discovered something new with the mx900. I would like to call it a turbo mode but it isnt a big increase. While you are in high mode with the side switch. Double click the button very fast and the output increases 5-10%. Strange that we never found it. Nothing too special though.

Thanks for the reports blfdemigod. 8.3 amps is good news. Indicates that driver might be able to deliver more than any xml2 on copper can handle. Are you reading the current in line with one of the emitter wires?

Something must have been wrong with the blob. It shouldn't be too far off from copper bridge.

Time to order some resistors and take Tom E's suggested approach.

Nice find phsinvent, even if it is a tiny little gain. I tried this on both the CT9T and the MX900 and they both have this "hidden micro-turbo" mode, so I assume all the models have it.

@ImA4Wheeler Seems my findings on the volts and amps are a little skewed, as I took those readings after the XM-L blew, direct from the driver wire leads. But they were very steady readings, no fluctuation at all. I will try to get correct tail-cap readings when I can.

The manufacturer is also sending me the USB mobile charge adapter, and I have some 26650's on the way, so I can test the rest of the flashlights as well, and see how this phone charging adapter works.

Sounds good. This is getting interesting if that driver is able to belt out serious current. Did you notice the 2 resister packs I linked in post 25? Those have worked for me every time so far because you can combine them in parallel and series to get other levels of resistance.

I was playing with the mx900 some more and noticed that if you double click on the side switch it will take you directly to the micro turbo mode, no matter what mode you are in. If you are in the the low or stobe mode etc, you double click fast and it jumps directly to the max micro turbo mode.

Hey ImA4Wheeler, I did notice those resistors you linked, and I ended up ordering many other different resistor's as well, to have in the future.

I have also been in talks with the manufacturer to create a sample that I believe will change the face of Warsun forever!

The manufacturer says he can make all the necessary changes I requested, so hopefully he will come through with a sort of holy grail light that I have asked him to make. We'll see how it turns out, and how much $$$ it will take to get this prototype off the ground, and if it's feasible for me to invest in.

Well, I think you now understand how this works from experience but when you're dealing with a buck driver you can't just bridge the sense resistors and hope for the best, it will almost always end up with a dead emitter. I've also been there! You can bridge them for single cell use but then you can't use two cells.

With most of these you can up the output a little bit safely, but not much. Even though I don't have the equipment to measure it I think we end up with voltage/current spikes that are higher than the average voltage/current that we see on our cheap DMMs, which is why some buck drivers are fine at 3.8A measured with the DMM then when linearly they should only go to around 4.0A they will pop emitters. I'm guessing if we had it hooked up to a good oscilloscope we would see that the peak current levels are actually much higher than 4.0A.

Haha, now I understand! Luckily, I used an emitter that I didn't care for. I also had a back-up plan as well, and just received my first order of 10 LED's from you in the mail yesterday. You definitely spared no expense on packaging, that's for sure! Bubble wrap, black foam padding, and a cardboard box, definitely the best packaging I have ever seen from any shipper. How do you make money using such high quality packaging, lol? I have actually saved the boxes and padding, and plan to use them in the future for sending some of my own packages!

It also seems these cheap HFT DMM's might be forcing me to by a Fluke, as the more and more I use my HFT DMM, the more I start disliking it, all 8 of them I have! It's good for some things, but seems great at nothing. But I cannot complain about free gear!

Most of that packaging is recycled stuff from battery orders, etc. I already paid for it, so I might as well put it to good use!