Hi Dale,
Your suggestions are very welcome and meet my plans of having 3 different pills! My problem is I’m not sure which resistor I should bridge. I identified 2 possible candidates sitting side by side one R250 the other R260, not connected at the life side, but don’t really know!
I’ll take a picture as soon there is time…. Really busy the next three days!
I make my pills on a CNC milling machining center. A sharp endmill finishes the pocket with a light finishing pass. This of course leaves visible tooling “marks” but they are not able to be felt with a fingernail. It’s very flat.
Looks to me like the Z1 could use some copper lovin? 
> Photos can be enhanced to emphasise tooling marks.
But you’re not accusing anyone of doing that.
The Millers link works fine for me :+1:
Please don’t confuse me with whoever it is you’re arguing with.
I mentioned the fingernail as a way of checking what we think we see, by touching the surface to determine whether there’s any roughness that can be felt.
Yeah I don’t get why people have trouble with it, the first link to the Jax works also on my phone but the main link kicks me to a mobile site that has no functionality.
On PC all work
“Price of everything, value of nothing ?”
I don’t get this question, what do you mean?
Got an email that it is send out.
And of course tell all about it when it comes
Big surprise because when I ordered it they said clearly out of stock.
For now I got
A good price
Fast email of shipment
So all aspects I could encounter are very good.
So we’ll see how the rest goes 
Hoop nailed it, the Z1 benefits from a nice copper pill. So Hoop, when will they be ready?
It seemed to me that if I was doing this, there was no need to piggyback the 17mm driver onto the original Jaxman board. So I made the pill to fit the driver. Now even the weaker MNKE cell pulls 15.55, almost scared to test an Efest.
I’m certainly no pro machinist, and some time off makes me even rustier. But all in all it worked out pretty well. Had to use what was available so a good bit of time was spent reducing an oversize bar of Tellurium Cu, and then I had issues fitting the new brass retaining ring into the small pocket, probably a lack of the proper tools, but I persevered and it worked out pretty well.
Oh man you just made that?
it is a shame the underscore makes thngs italic since this screams for a smiley that cannot be shown O
let me google it
YES this is what I want to show 
or 
That looks beautiful.
It will be interesting to know what thermal improvement results.
TBH, all my engineering knowledge tells me that a decent aluminium alloy pill should also outperform anything made of brass.
Whereas Al vs Cu is a trickier one. Thermal conduction, thermal mass, weight, cost, ease of machining, and doubtless other factors, all need consideration and trad-off.
I suppose, the bottom line, is the price and availability, compared with $5 for the standard brass pill, and what true benefits will be gained, and whether it will make any practical difference, except in extreme modifications.
How much would you estimate that your copper pill should cost, as a commercial proposition ?
Happy Birthday America!
Sharpie, the cost is probably 3-4 times higher, Hoop can probably make the pills for around $15-18. In normal scenario’s this is probably unwarranted, but this Luminus SBT-70 is not efficient and burns a LOT of current as heat, so it’s necessary here to go the extra mile.
18.75A seems to be about the peak here on an Efest 4200mAh cell. At the 43 second step down point with this particular driver, it’s just about burning my hand, copper or no copper.
Happy 4th to you, Dale and the Gang!
Nice pictures!
That makes sense, you do like to push things “to infinity, and beyond”.
It looks like a big chunk, how many grams ?
The brass pill, built, weighs 43 grams. The copper pill, built, weighs 68 grams.
Sorry, I must have missed that post.
Hoop mentioned the fingernail test. I don’t recall that you did.
It is a standard test, and not about whether “there’s any roughness that can be felt”.
That would set a ridiculously stringent test.
By comparison with a calibrated set of samples, the fingernail can be a remarkably precise way to compare surface finish.
And is accepted as such.
To not feel any roughness would require an almost mirror finish.
We have people here that take the shelf to a mirror finish. I personally don’t like to as it prohibits the Arctic Alumina Thermal Adhesive from adhering to the slick surface and can allow the mcpcb to shift once heated. It is certainly easier to remove a glued mcpcb from a mirror polished shelf.
So I tend to focus more on how flat it is and not worry much about some slight surface imperfections. I REALLY don’t like a dimple directly under the emitter from a pre-drill situation being plunged too deeply.
Miller, I appreciate it but really I’m just a hack still. I can manage to make something that works, Hoop can make it look like Art.
I think you already have nearly 60% more thermal mass. Copper and Brass are much the same, per gram. I’ll do an estimate c.f. Aluminium tomorrow.
PS: Aluminium has by far the best specific heat of any metal. Over twice that of copper. But being so much less dense, it takes a much larger volume of it.
Plain old water of course, is more than four times better, and if allowed to change phase (into steam) vastly more so.
Steampunk extreme torches ?
With the exception of Magnesium and of course Beryllium, yes Aluminum is up there pretty high. But like Magnesium, the weight or mass is so low that it’s disproportionate for real world usage in many cases. Made the same size, copper blows the doors off virtually anything else commonly available. I did some testing concerning this a couple of years ago with the Trinity in C8’s, once the copper was brought into the picture prolonged high output and run time (output at life of cell) really showed the difference.
Water will come to play in a handheld flashlight, sure enough, it’s just a matter of time. Pretty sure Bucket already did that, some time back. But it’ll happen as we continue to see improvements in LED’s and the power supplies that run em.
Yes, you got me there.
Practical magnesium alloys , not much difference.
Beryllium, well, yes. But the toxicity, and expense.
That’s why it even was banned from Formula One.
But until then, was the thing for brake callipers, for those who could afford it, and handle it safely.
Nevermind inside the engine, e.g.