TrustFire 12X Need some MORE Mod help...please!

Probably heavier wires and a spring mod will help. You could also take a pic of the driver there might be something that you can do there like jump a resistor.

Oh and yep. They all have a screw in the center, some have a second screw as well.

Chances are these are already wired in parallel but you can check that as well. If there is anything like 4S3P going on you can change that around to 3S4P and that will give you a boost. If you can take a picture of how they have it wired that will help too.

Here are pics of driver:

I removed the internal screw, but reflector still will not budge. Any ideas there?

Hmmm I haven’t seen that driver before but it looks like you should be able to jump the 476. If it was me I would solder a small piece of copper wire directly over that resistor from one end to the other. But then I also have a bag full of dead drivers! I don’t have the knowledge to say exactly if it will work or not. Someone else might be able to help. Like I said, I would give it a shot but I’m not sure you want to take the chance and end up with a dead driver. If you do try it, you can always test it first with just a short burst. I know this is cheesy but I tape three batteries together with wires on the positive and negative and touch them to the driver after I do a resistor mod. Just for a second and longer if nothing bad happens. If you screw the body on and hit the button you might not have time to turn it off before you get the dreaded burnt smell of death.

As for the reflector make sure the O ring is out of the way and if you have an ice pick or something like that you can tap on the reflector from the bottom, this will usually knock it loose.

You mean tap through the hole that the screw was in?

Yep!

Pic of LED wiring…

If I were you, I would order a Zener modded FET driver from RMM and wire it 4P3S.

I used the FET driver in the almost the same light, but with 9 x XML wired 3P3S, and it blew me away. Here’s the link to My Light

Worked like a champ…thanks!

Glad to help.

Ok it looks like you have four wires comming up to emitters that are positive and from each of those four they are branching off to two more emitters. So it’s 4P3S You can go to 6P2S and you should still be safe.

That would meant that the positive comes up and is connected directly to Six emitters on their positive and then from each of them to it’s own separate emitter also positive. Then do the same with the negative.

I’m not very good at explaining this so if you don’t get it let me know and I’ll try and draw you a diagram.

Before I mod this…what batteries would best suit it?

To really put out the lumens after modding…are my protected 3400mAh 18650 pannies ok…or should I jump up tp 26650s?

If so…they need to be protected cuz light is in series…correct?

Anyhow, I reckon i need to buy a matching set of 3. Wish I could find the new KeepPower protected 5200mAh 26650s somewhere…or, is there a better battery for this application?

Bump…some help with post 16 please.

Gratchias

These aren’t protected but so far have showed the lowest internal resistance and the highest capacity. http://www.illumn.com/batteries-chargers-and-powerpax-carriers/26650-keeppower-5200mah-imr26650-high-discharge-flat-top.html They are replacing every other 26650 I have. Run your light on medium and monitor the volts until it starts climbing too high or shuts off. I’m finding a lot of big multi cell drivers cutting off at around 3.1-3.4 volts per cell. With a low voltage protection built in you’ll know the amp draw at shut off. If no low voltage protection I’d use at least one protected cell.

OP updated with mod help questions.

Direct drive from 3 cells? That would require putting a lot of faith in the cells having enough voltage sag to keep it alive.

I have that same driver in a TR-9T6. It was a pain to pull it out too because they just shoved it in burs and all and it basically was locked in place by the retaining ring threads.

I didn't want to soup mine up much as I didn't want to pull the emitters to put them on copper. So I just put a 70N02 FET in that empty FET bay. It increased tail current up to 6 amps. So about 2 amps per emitter (3S3P). Heats up real fast.

Some day I will properly mod the light. Just wanted a modest boost for now and that did the trick for mine.

EDIT: Oh, just using 3 King Kong ICR's in mine.

True, you wouldn’t want to use sony 30amps or heavy gauge wire either. Thin wires and king kongs would work. At least I’m pretty darn sure it would. I would give it a shot but then again I’m not too worried about frying a few XML’s.

I know it would work with noctigons and good thermal epoxy. Might be iffy though if there isn’t good paste under there.

I’ll be using 3 brand new protected KeepPower 5200 mAh 26650s…if that makes a difference.

Overcurrent will melt the bond wires, but too much voltage will zap the dies even at low current. I have done 5 XREs in parallel driven from 2 series 18650s and it lived (and was stupid bright) but only with no-name Chinese laptop pulls... I tried it with INR 15Qs and all 5 LEDs died instantly without even giving the faintest flash beforehand. ZAP!

I haven’t looked up the keepPowers recently but I think they are pretty high amps if I remember right. 4P3S would be the way to go I would think. It’s really goofy though. I have been messing around with these in various combinations trying to get the most out of them and the resistance from the driver itself seems to make a huge amount of difference as well as the wires used. 4p3s should be a ton of amps anyway and I guess even if you did manage to zap it up there higher you would probably lose a lot to thermal sag within ten seconds or so anyway. Try 4p3s and if you are still only getting around 5,000 lumens then you you can always try and bump it up some more by rewiring it later. Also some of these drivers are really easy to get too hot and kill them too. Start without putting the tail cap on for sure. Just ground it with a screwdriver or something and go through the modes that way. If it works and nothing fries and it’s the output you want you should consider potting the driver after that. Also when you do put the tailcap on have your light meter handy and watch for either climbing amps or dropping off really fast. If either one happens turn it off quick before you fry something.