This little light packs lots of power and I love it. The problem is low is also very bright, it lights up houses way down the road? Is there a way to reduce the output on low?
Tangsfire C8 1300LM
Replace the driver with a Nanjg / BLF DD, with modes programmed to your liking.
What FmC said, except I wouldn’t use the BLF17DD unless you unless you also replace the stock mcpcb (the board the LED is mounted on) with a Noctigon or Sinkpad. I’d recommend this driver.
This light has a 4.2 amp driver in it. I like high close to where it is now.
How many chips should I add?
Mobile
what driver do you have in it currently? a njang 103c (or similar)?
if so, re-flashing the microchip to change the pwm duty on the low mode sounds like the best option.
It is not really regulated at 4.2A to be exact. This light uses East-092 direct-drive driver, so the current draw is very much depends on the battery quality that you use and also every single connecting point in your light. I have one and yes the low is still quite bright with ugly visible PWM frequency, but I don’t care much as I already have other better lights around.
Since you are from USA you can buy Qlite driver (Nanjg 105C variation) from mtnelectronics run by Richard, who is also our fellow BLF member. Better yet you can ask him to help you flashing customized firmware into the driver based on your preference, and he can also stack additional 7135 chips on it for higher current draw with linear-regulation.
Some Nanjg 105 drivers use 350mA 7135 chips, so with 8 of them the total current draw would be 2.8A, whereas some come with eight 380mA chips on it and the current draw would be 3.04A. So you can do the calculation and see how many chips you need to add in order to get there by just simply summing up all the 7135 values.
EDIT: Oh yeah just like what the other have said already if you want to make it into high current draw you should change the LED board into DTP boards like the Noctigon and Sinkpad.
What cells do you use in the light? With direct drive drivers like the east-092 or BLF-DD the current to the LED will be highly dependent on which cell you use. If you have junky low drain cells the LED could be perfectly safe with a DD driver even though it's still on an aluminum MCPCB.
I am using sanyo 2800 protected
Also and brighter some, $1.00 blue top cells unprotected sold by a User here.
I am on mobile so I cannot link.
I know of what you speak. Those are good cells.
You can keep the super-powered high mode. You can buy a pre-made FET driver, or if you like soldering very small components, wait for this to get back in stock and pair it with this . You’ll get similar performance on high, but with very good low modes.
And if you’re using the stock emitter on the stock star, you need to replace it. With the aluminium mcpcb in there you’re letting the emitter heat-soak and degrading performance and life of the LED. Solution
This is perfect, but if I am replacing the driver and the led might as well get a bare host.
Nah, just save the LED and driver for other projects. 3 amps is about the maximum you want to put through an aluminium-padded XM-L2. I have an aluminium star under the XM in my Convoy M1, and any subsequent Convoy lights not a C8 will likely be 3 amps or less. I’m just saying, 4 amps through your light now is kinda wasteful and is slowly frying the emitter.
It should be noted that even upwards 5A the board material makes little difference, there are sinkPAD’s available in aluminum, the deciding factor is wether its DTP (direct thermal path) or not (meaning it has a dielectric layer in between or a direct heat path to the board). Saying an aluminum board can’t support higher amp’s isn’t correct.