BLF-348 - A quick look inside

To remove the switch:

- start with the tailcap on the flashlight but with no battery inside

  • push really hard on the button to force the switch out the tailcap
    Your thumb may be too wide to push the switch, so use an object that won’t scratch the button, like a narrow wooden or plastic stick.

Cereal_killer used a ball mill to bore a hole in the lip around the tail button in this host. See post #512 in an earlier GB thread:

I notice the switch is slightly taller on the new light than on last year’s model — the brass ring is at about the same distance from the lens end, but the button and the outside shell both are a bit longer. That leaves a useful bit more room to dril that hole.

Received a BLF 348 (240 lum) and a reg Singfire 348 (180 lum) today from Gearbest.

As noted by others the quality seems excellent and very solid.

Will need to get a 10440 to see full potential as they are frankly a bit underwhelming with Alkaline and NiMH. Both fairly floody with the older Singfire having a much warmer yellowish tint.

In terms of brightness I would say the BLF 348 is a bit brighter than the Lumintop tool on medium and considerably less than the Lumintop on high and the Hugsby XP-1 (which is more spotty)

Have more BLF 348’s coming for gift lights but will get some 10440’s for mine to try

Any recommendations for 10440 batteries and charger (thinking Xtar MCO)

Efest IMR and MC0 is a good choice. Brighter than XP-1 with 10440, wider beam, and gets warm faster. Not sure how well the switch will last on IMR.

Received mine and love them. It remains just sightly warm with an eneloop and doesn’t need much to figure out how to use it, perfect for gifts. Construction is excellent and it’s hard to see where the tailcap meets the body which means good machining.

I ordered 2 but wish it have been more, although people have mixed feelings when I gift them a flashlight, they give me this strange look :~ until I explain them why this is superior than their 2D incan in the kitchen drawer. I guess flashlights are not that common in my country.

I did a 1 hour test on a new cheap alkie; it got warm but did fine. Switched to a Trustfire 600mA 10440, ran for a few minutes before getting hot, back to alkie showed no visible light loss. Efest with sticker intact drops right in all 3 of mine as does Energizer Lithium primary.

A darn fine little light so far, wish I’d bought more.

Phil

Hi,

Has anyone tried swapping in another driver, specifically the AK-007 that DX.com has:

http://www.dx.com/p/ak-007-0-8-1-5v-3-mode-circuit-board-for-flashlights-11-9mm-50526#.Vog2RPlunIU

I’d like to get some modes on mine.

I believe that one will be too big. There isn’t a ton of headroom in the pill, and the driver diameter is ~10mm.

I did my own pcb, you can swap parts from a nanjg (but it’s 10440 only)

The thing is is that AK007 driver is made of 2 boards. The “front” one is smaller, and I think might fit diameter-wise. The problem that I am wondering about is the “height” of the two-board driver. The BLF-348 has a kind of long spring on the tailcap. Would that give enough leeway so that if the driver was “taller” that it would still work. That’s kind of what I was hoping someone might know or have tried (avoid being the “guinea pig” :laughing:.

Jim

More like the first seal to jump off the ice

Hi guys, would it be good to reflow an xp-e2 red emitter on it? Is the driver suitable for the emitter?

How did you get the bezel off? There’s so little of it to grab hold of and it’s on there pretty tightly. I considered trying to grab out with pliers but I think it’ll just slip, too, and I don’t want to scratch it up.

I just grabbed it with my fingers.

I dropped an Efest 10440 in mine and it fit just fine. The light got very hot very quickly when I used it with the 10440, so I went back to AAA. I saw in another post somewhere that since the light is stainless, it does not have very good thermal conductance as far as moving heat away from the pill, as well as not radiating that heat away after the light is off. They recommended very short bursts of use if using a 10440 to keep the emitter from overheating.

For what I am using it for, and for what I believe anyone I gift with one will use it for, a AAA cell, either alkaline, lithium primary, or NiMH will work more than satisfactorily.

I got it by using pliars on the bezel, and another pair of pliars on the body, and using wide rubber bands as padding/extra grip. My threads were very tight and the body was slippery.

I run a 10440 lifep04 in mine (xp-e - not nichia) with no overheating, but that’s probably closer to a nimh than a li-ion in wattage pulled.

As for removing the bezel, I just pressed mine on a piece of rubber and turned it loose.

What lifepo and where did you get it?

Theres a few on this page but cant tell you if they are any good.

https://www.fasttech.com/search?10440%20LiFePO4%20

Being a boost driver it should do just fine with a lower Vf emitter. Probably better since emitter current will be the same but supply current will be a bit less.

The stack height is too great, the pill just isn’t deep enough. It barely has room for the inductor. It might be possible to design one around the Attiny mmu that fits but it would have to be a two sided board and probably need 0603 or smaller auxiliary smd’s. Going to a .8mm thick board would help.