Some notices to DQG Tiny 26650 V3.0 (post by designer and producer: GEORGE)

Hi, friends, I am George, designer of D.Q.G series of flashlight. I am very happy to recieve emails from lots of friends, they will told me they like my design, or discuss many topic with me, about flashlight, about universe, about history of human, about mankind’s awareness……
this is my first thread on BLF, its about the problems of DQG Tiny 26650 V3.0 that feedback from many friends or from other methods.
one important problem is the flashlight’s driver will drop out if you open the light. like picture as below:

I am very curious why it can open like that. this light is assembled by 3 main parts: light head, battery tube, and tail cap. but the question is the light head and battery tube is glued when on assembling, it cannot easily opened only by hand. so, only tail cap can open to put the 26650 battery into (the SS ring cover at light head is not glued, the LED’s optics maybe have some small dust, if you want to make a clean, the ring cover can open, and take the lens out to make a clean).
to be honest, there does have aroud 10 pieces of lights is not glued. but both of them are all in China market. the tragedy is happened as expected, some of friends distoried the driver after they screw the battery tube out, and then crew the tube on without make a study to let the driver in right position. after these events, I decided to glue every lights of Tiny 26650 V3.0 in order to avoid this event.
So, now I want to tell all friends: please do not try to uncrew the light head and battery tube, it will break the driver if you uncarefully put the driver on position. if you have opened it, please according to below method to put battery tube on: first use finger try to make the driver in right position, the switch on driver board right toward the button on the light head, then push and hold on the driver, use a pencil or other streight stick instead of your finger’s push, then put the driver cover ring (copper) on, then let the battery tube through this stick and slowly crew the tube into the light head with the push of stick keep on.
Tiny 26650 V3.0 is a single lio-on battery flashlight which nearly reach the limits of its output in all kind of conditions (battery discharge ability, driver’s drive ability), so, please don’t try to open it to study if there have any can to reach more output, although there does have a little ability to reach more if you are lucky got amazing perfomance of driver and amazing low VF leds.
NOTE:

  1. the light only can take the battery length above 65mm and within 70mm. if you cannot light it on, please check the battey length, and confirm if you crewed the tail cap tighten enough or not.
  2. suggest use battery without protective, due to maybe protective battery have current limit at the protective circuit, that will let light cannot archive turbo mode (it need aroud 10A+ current in some condition)
  3. many electic components is special choiced in orde to build a powerful light as small as could, that mean these components is not so easy to resource, so, do carefully to treat if you decide to open the light to make a study.

nearly 6 years from DQG first light untill now. I am very happy that many friends like my designs. although I need to assemble every lights myself, cannot hire people to extension my dream, but I am still luckly have time to understanding what is our world running indeed.

the important thing I want to say:
thank you very much to those friend’s encourage and stand by, without yours, I cannot adhere for long time, your tolerant and understanding to every shortcoming of every DQG lights keep me move.

best regards to everybody,

George

Hi George and welcome to the forum :sunglasses: By the way your picture doesn’t show. You may need to add exclamations (!) before and after the pic embed link

I’m a fan of the DQG26650

Though they sometimes get modified :smiley:

I like very compact lights, i like your concepts.

I didn’t buy the 26650 light because of the problems i encountered with the tiny 4.

The switches break off the PCB because only small soldering joints keep them in place.
And there’s no thermal path from LED to body.

Maybe have a read here: DQG Tiny 4

sorry, I just cannot put the picture on the text, it said need a link of image, I put the picture on my google imange, then quote the link insert the text, but it does work. :frowning:
nice job, I saw 4XPGs, more LEDs you should try to modify the driver to light it on, but the turbo mode cannot reach its current. :slight_smile:

If you’re using google to host pictures you will need to add them to a shared folder first then copy the link

The lights pictured (left to right)
1- stock v3
2- 2s2p xpg2, driver with turbo resistor mod
3- 4p xhp35, driver with turbo resistor mod
4- RGBW, with Meld-x driver
5- stock

yes, you are right, tiny 18650 4 have no thermal path, due to my goal is steady run at high mode to instead of a Common AA light to reach more output and runtime. turbo mode is a berden for the drivers.
switch’s quality does not so good at tiny 18650 4 first, now, I have redesign the PCB using more good quality switch, it will not easyliy break off from PCB now.

tiny 26650 have solid thermal path, otherwise it cannot berden nearly 30W-40W power.

Thank you George! :slight_smile:

I liked the DQG III right out of the gate, the 7 emitter design really grabbed me and the raw machined look also. I HAD to have one!

Being a photographer, I was thinking the light would be floody and help me get close-up pictures. The beam profile from the 7 XP-G2’s was tighter than I expected, and I saw that the driver was boosting voltage for the 7 emitters in series which gave me an idea… a Cree COB! So I found the largest COB with matching voltage to the driver’s output and made a copper heat sink to fill the space in the head, discovered that I had an AR coated lens to use as a cover and dust seal and the result is an High CRI (93+ at 5000K) beauty that is really helpful to me during macro photography. :slight_smile: It’s pulling 20.1V at 0.99A in the highest level. The “mule” configuration allows for an artifact free flood of light that works beautifully from mere inches away or even as lighting for a portrait from several feet away. I’ve seen it outside illuminating a surprising area, from sheer brightness alone. Immediately a favorite and I use it regularly.

Thank you for making this possible. Very much appreciated!

Edit: Levels and numbers

Moon is 9 lumens at 0.007 emitter amperage, 15.03V at the emitter, 0.02 tail amperage
Low is 231 lumens at 0.094 emitter amperage, 16.68V at the emitter, 0.46 tail amperage
High is 690 lumens at 0.297 emitter amperage, 17.84V at the emitter, 1.52 tail amperage
Turbo is 2004 lumens at 0.99 emitter amperage, 20.41V at the emitter, 6.50 tail amperage

This is on an Efest 3500mAh 26650.

its not so easy to use google image and any other google service, I try many times to share, seems the network not work normal. its hard to got good link from China to outside. :frowning:
can you help me put the image on if I send you email?
RGBW, very interesting, it light in turn or same time?

WOW, so nice job, I am not familar with COB, according to the picture, this COB is 6 time 6 series, the drivers does can work! congraduation!

PM sent.

Colours can do in turn and mixing special modes like candle light. TTerev3 made these drivers. All info here - Introducing the MELD-X RGBW(uv) flashlight driver!

The picture belonging in OP

thank you very much, dear friend.

Hello George, congratulations to this great design. My respect for building each light by yourself - I did this with my electronic products back in the eighties, and I know how much work this is.
I guess I received one of the first lights in germany. I don’t think the head of this light was glued, I could open it as easy as opening the tailcap. When ordering the light I planned to modify it, but it came out not as easy as expected due to the LEDs in serial. I’m still thinking of stacking the sense resistors - do you think this is possible? And if I burn the driver - will a replacement driver be available?

Hi George,

nice to see you here. I like your tiny lights very much, although there is still some room for improvements.

The 26650 III is nearly perfect for me, but I wish it has the UI and the same steps in output like the 18650 IV. btw…

Hello George, is are “brass beauties” also designed by you?

Hi, Mike. thanks for your inform, can you remember if there have any glue sign at the crew of the battery tube? I just remember I does do this process of gluing after Chinese market, they are first run. maybe the glue is so little or I forget glue by radom.
about modify, what do you want to do? if you want to reach more output, stacking resistors on the turbo mode resistors (biggest resistors on the board), but as I said, if you lucky got good performance of driver or LEDs. be carefully doing this, there have replacement driver backup now.

Hi, about UI, you mean same UI compare to 18650 IV? this does a question, at begining of design, I does decide using 18650 same UI, but after discuss with a flashlight fan, he told me for 26650, most using area is outdoor and only most fraquency use middle and high mode, seems 3 click for high mode is not so humanity for fraquency application. I agree with he.
so, I decided to make a change of UI.

Hi, sorry, these brass beauties is not my design. but there will be brass made tail click AA series flashlight come out this year. :slight_smile: the housing is producing now.

It’s good to see you communicate with us, George. :+1:

Hi George! Thanks for posting and for providing your lights. They are unique and though smaller lights continue to develop, yours have lead the way. I like that you think out of the box, for example: no one would have thought that the tiny3 would be wired in series. I think it was a great choice and must have been more work for you as there are less examples of this high of boost driver in the flashlight community. Anyway, I hope you have a business plan moving forward and will continue on by growing your one man business? :slight_smile: