I really like both my MF01 and my new MF04S I just got, however the MF04S steps down on turbo to medium after about 45s-1min at only about 105-120f around the button, this is useless to me, I need a sustained highest setting runtime of at least 7 minutes. Even in High it steps down after ~3mins at ambient room temp. THIS SUCKS guys, is their a way to bypass this?
I mean I have a 100watt Hid spot that runs all night, only problem is, it needs to be plugged into a 12v source like a car that is running. The HID draws about 8-9amps at 12.5-13v, has a plastic housing (very light) and NEVER GETS HOT OR STEPS DOWN OUTPUT! I just wish it were portable, and no I do not want to rig up batteries and walk around with a 15” round hid light.
I am disappointed about most of these high output LED lights. They seem to be all show and no go after 30 seconds or less. I believe HID lights are more practical for longer sustained high output can someone chime in with a REAL solution PLEASE?
I just modded the driver in several ways, albeit after owning less than 24hrs, I did sense resistor to up the current, then realized that the addition heat on turbo mode made it step down in 30 seconds, so out with that idea. I then removed the thermal paste around the driver and gr. ring after realizing that the driver does not use a timed stepdown, this did not help substantially so I replaced the cheap white goop around the driver with metal paste. Heat on outer body did go up a bit quicker but stepdown initialized at about at the same time <>.
I did the next best logical thing, without replacing driver, I removed the thermistor. This solved the stepdown, however a quick therm. chk with my digi. therm. gun showed the heat sink around switch was at 144F at hottest point after about 4 mins on turbo. I quickly removed the battery canister to chk driver temp and bad news, it was at 178F max around spring. I can not tell if it was the dual springs or driver that was hottest, but around the spring was at 140ish F. I will have to move to to an aftermarket driver if I am to solve this issue, as I hate the toyish nature of Buck and boost drivers. Much rather a simple real world solution such as a solid FET driver that can run like mofo in real world use for more than a couple of mins on high.
Yeah should have, it has more capacity as well, MF04S discharges efests 3k’s down to 3.75v in about 10mins on turbo. This is combined runs of about 3-4 mins each, I have two mags with new efests, did it to both of them.
Yes it does. I am not sure about the GT70, as mine is on backorder. But if you want to run the stock driver more than 1minute on turbo, you have to mod the stock driver, and man does that shyt get hot after 7 minutes.
This is an important detail that should be emphasized more often on reviews. A light with higher lumens or candela may be significantly less useful given timing or thermal regulation and quick step down.
I would go 35Hi on the big lights that one wants to run on full bore all the time. I have a Haikelite MT07S Hi and the thing puts out a pencil beam, very cool temp, and runs all day on turbo without stepping or getting uncomfy. I tested it on my tube to do over 2k lum. with no drop in lums after 3 secs.
My driver got thermal stepdown which is user configurable (NarsilM or Anduril)
NarsilM also has the option to do timed up to 7 minutes or disable
code could be also modified for different times
// Timed stepdown values, 16 msecs each: 60 secs, 90 secs, 120 secs, 3 mins, 5 mins, 7 mins
PROGMEM const word timedStepdownOutVals[] = {0, 0, 3750, 5625, 7500, 11250, 18750, 26250};
Inexperienced people read on the box that a flashlight is very bright and happily buy it, they don’t know that brightness drops to half or a third after just 60 seconds! People don’t even imagine such an absurd thing! Except for Imalent, I have not seen any manufacturer declare the runtime of the turbo and the High in the specs. This is a real scam. Manufacturers are well aware that if they declare the duration of high levels of output, their sales will drop dramatically.
It is a truly ridiculous and dishonest question. Today many EDCs reach 3500Lm but only sustain them for a minute and they get hot. The Imalent MS03 claims 13000Lm but after just 45 sec. they drop to 2000Lm! What are the sense and the use of such a light? IMO it is a 2000Lm light! The same problem affects large flashlights with high output. Their large size and weight are justified only by their big output which however lasts for a short time. At the lower levels, all that mass becomes useless.
The sustainable light level is the most important element of a flashlight and should be stated first in the tables. The turbo is an accessory level, an emergency light that can be activated for short moments in case of need. A performance lasting one minute cannot be considered the flagship feature of a flashlight.
If you want a flashlight with a large sustainable output then you have to turn to HIDs. In the photo, the last image shows the Lemax LX70-SP beam: 7000Lm, over 4 Km (declared) of throw and 80 minutes runtime with no step-down. And the light doesn’t heat up in the slightest! But it costs more than $6000.
The only LED flashlight that can sustain the turbo with no step-down, that I know of, is the original BLF-GT, with huge mass and little output. But it works just with throwers where the essential element is the size of the reflector, much more than the output. Yet it is very heavy and bulky.
