Thing with these lights is the batteries and charger cost more than the lights. Ordered one with tubes, thanks for the discount the. I think going to let my in-law buy the batteries. I know giving a gift that doesn’t work is strange, but I can’t get myself to buy new batteries!
Might change my mind though… I’m already 6 batteries behind
Thanks to the for setting this up. I did miss the other GB from GB.
Ordered one plus two tubes. My brother-in-law has been wanting a good cheap thrower to wow his Boy Scout troop on night hikes to spot animals, so he got in on the deal also.
Did I read a thread here about some potential slow shipping with GearBest? I never ordered from them before.
Shipping from GB has been decent for me. Not as fast as FT or IOS, but not like some people experienced. I’m not sure if it was just people outside the USA, but some people had big shipping delays.
I ordered one with 2 tubes. Has anyone tried 4 or 5 * C batteries? I am thinking about it. I have two other 3 * 26650 lights that run off C batteries. Not as well as 26650 but good enough in an emergency
It’s sold in up to 3s configurations. I’d assume that 12.6v is the highest sanctioned input voltage. I haven’t made a list of QX9920 based drivers, but this is what I came up with just now:
HX-1175b - spec’ed a few different ways, but the highest input voltage spec I’ve seen is 15v. Other listings say 8.4v.
Solarforce XM-L2 dropin driver at Solarforce-Sales - Spec’ed at up to 9v. My (brief) earlier look into this indicated that they skipped the (semi) “regulated” PSU section for the QX9920, so this driver is probably limited by that more than anything else.
Patrol King - no spec, but it’s physically setup for 2s, so take that FWIW.
It’s been mentioned that the light functions on 1s, although I don’t think anyone has tested to see where it drops out of regulation. Let’s assume 3.65v, since that’s the XM-L2 vF at 3A from djozz’s chart plus the 0.25v sense voltage of the driver. Everything above that should regulate. This is a buck driver, so higher input voltages will require lower input currents. If you want to use alkaline in a pinch, try to keep the voltage as high as possible (within reasonable limits).
With only 4*C (alkaline) I don’t think “High” would work for very long. Maybe about 20minutes. Ref HJK’s Panasonic Pro Power C review here. In order to get approximately 1hr of battery life in High mode I think you’d want 8*C.
You could also consider using 4* Lithium AA with a sleeve. If you made caps for the sleeve, that could easily be stored alongside the light with batteries installed in it for an emergency. I think that 4*AA (Lithium) could do almost an hour in “High”! See HKJ’s Energizer Ultimate Lithium AA review here.
Oops, I forgot to account for dropout voltage while doing the 4* runtime calcs. Lithium is probably about the same, 8*C is the same as well, but 4*C may suffer a little. These are all quick and dirty things anyway, back-of-the-napkin type math.
Sure. Or one big dummy, that’s probably what I’d do in your shoes. Less connections is better, and while you can’t do anything about the plethora of connections between the extension tubes you can do something about all the end-to-end dummies. If you intend to make it exceptionally long, try for a lightweight dummy. Otherwise the combination of length mismatches and weight could potentially overpower a tailspring, giving contact issues. You’ll be a better judge of that with everything on hand though.
I just ordered another extension for a total of 3 extensions + Y3. Figure that 5 C size NiMH batteries will fit. I have about 10 Tenergy C size 5000mAh from the fire sale a couple of years back. 650x4=2600 to 500×5=2500
4 C cells (200mm) are about the same length as 3 unprotected 18650/26650's (195mm). So 2 extensions on a Y3 should hold 4 C cells. Three more extensions to hold 8 C cells.