I bought a cyclone c88 with the 105C driver, but i’m getting 2.45-2.49 amps in output when tested with several layers of wire and two different multimeters. Hank form intl outdoor believes the multimeter and flashlight body (i used the pill and thick wires) are consuming some current and my light is perfectly fine.
Since i can’t test the lumens is there a way of testing the 7135 chips, how do i get the driver out of the pill (i’ve never done this before).
Heres the reply i received
I read 2.76 to 2.77A on mine using an 18650. Stable in that range too, once I’ve got the negative lead firmly planted.
(using custom leads however)
How good are your batteries? If the batteries can’t supply that much power at that voltage current will fall short of the 2.8A limit.
The way I understand it the AMC7135s only limit current, so current may fall under that limit. Of the batteries I use non of the Chinese ones have been able to deliver the full 2.8A of current to a LED with a forward voltage of around 3.3V (bigger the voltage gap… the more current the battery can supply I think)
It is possible you have just 7 working 7135 chips. Finding the bad one would not be easy.
I have new 26650 INR King Kong batteries
Shouldn’t be the batteries then.
+ 1 Vieplis, sounds like a defective AMC7135 (the first defective one I have heard of).
I would think that you would never get 2.8a from that driver. Yes, the sum of 8 chips is theoretically 2.8a, but that is not reality. The "advertised ma" of any driver is usually not what the driver will put out. There is resistance in the board, the controller, thin wires, springs etc. You would have to read ma across the emitter, to actually see what it is doing and I do not believe you can do that with a regular meter. If you are using a good Fluke meter, with very short heavy leads, you might get a better tail cap reading, but otherwise, tail cap readings can be misleading. The closest readings I have ever gotten off a tail cap measurement are with an analog amp meter and 8 guage wires and no spring on the driver, (battery touching driver board).
Basically, I have gotten to the point with these NANJG drivers, that I will just add an extra 7135 chip on them, to get the "advertised ma" + a little.
Of course I could be full of crap too.
I read exactly 2.8A with this light from IO (8*7135 version). The reading doesn’t fluctuate at all either. It’s constantly dead-on.
It’s a tiny host though, and has a screw in copper pill, so body resistance would be negligible.
2.75-2.78A should be max current from NANJG (within host/light, or >2.78A driver only)
I have that same DMM and I think it shows less current, i.e. about 10-15% less. I’m trying to make better leads to get better readings.
To sum up, unless you get <2.4A - it’s just your DMM, not-so-good cells or spring issue.
What model multimeter are you using?
I’ve been using the pill to wire, so no body or tailcap. If i could test lumens and i was getting 900ish i would be very happy and would know its a multimeter issue
I use a cheap “Digitor” branded DMM, with custom made low resistance leads, that I’ve calibrated against the discharge current readings of my Hyperion EOS hobby charger.
For example, I just did a 2.8A battery discharge test with my DMM hooked up in-line, and my DMM was reading 2.78A. It’s never more than 30mA out between 1A and 5A.
Basically, you need a way to verify that you’re getting reasonably accurate readings out of your DMM, and until you have, you can’t draw conclusions about driver and/or battery performance.
How do i do that? the calibration, the resistance of the leads?
The hobby charger I use is a Hyperion EOS 1210i. It’s a quality charger that I purchased years ago when I was an RC (radio control) enthusiast. In discharge mode, it reports current draw in real time (in other words, it doesn’t just report the discharge rate that you’ve set it at, but the actual rate of discharge as it’s occurring). So I wired up a harness that allowed to me have a DMM in the circuit while it was discharging (or charging for that matter). So technically I haven’t actually “calibrated” my DMM, but I have verified it’s accuracy (in measuring current draw in the ranges we typically encounter as flashlight hobbyists) against the readings of another device that I trust.
But that’s only part of the equation. Leads seem to be one of the biggest variables. It’s not just the resistance of the wire either, but the contact you are able to make with the circuit you are trying to measure. That’s why I decided to make some leads using 14AWG wire with low resistance battery bars (for contact) that I used to use in the construction of high current battery packs:
The negative terminal, bent at a right angle, gives a large surface area for contact, and also makes it easy to press down hard with your thumb while holding the body of the flashlight with the same hand. Accurate, and much easier than messing about with the “knitting needles” on normal leads 
I have a Mitek MK5001 DMM with thick custom cables just like Cainn has (I'm into RC model too), just for comparison measured my C8 with 105C at 2.82 A with a sanyo 2600.
Also measured HD2010 at 3.9A high, 1.03 med, 0.13 low.
Today received C88 from I.O. and by eye it was severely underperforming. Tested it gave 1.07A high, 0.33 med, 0.05 low on the same 26650 cell I was using for the HD2010 above.
Now I've written to Hank to hear what he thinks about it.
I get 2.85 amps from a Nanjg 105C using a calibrated Fluke 179 and a strong battery.