I'm looking for a currently available 2s 18650 driver to operate a single 6v xhp70. Size isn't critical, anything under 35mm is perfectly fine. Ideally has multiple light levels through channel select or pwm, doesn't matter. Has to be an off the shelf item, I'm currently in no position to fabricate my own. Cooling requirements aren't a problem, ad i can machine the housing to direct thermal connection. And i can pretty much guarantee it'll be kept at below freezing ambient and subjected to a perprtual headwind when used at higher levels.
Background - going into a headlamp. Need to replace my 8 year old xm-l homemade headlamps sooner than later. I've made so many 2s4p battery packs for it, going to a 1s boost driver would be extremely costly. And my chargers are all 2s chargers.
Application is extremely fault intolerant, as we used to say back in my engineering days :) I pretty much live with my headlamp on 5 months out of the year. I carry spare lights and spare battery packs everywhere. Bush travel up here is not kind to equipment.
So if anyone knows of a source of such a driver available today, I'd appreciate you letting me know. I've checked with mountain electronics, and ordered some FET drivers to play with, but I'm not super hot on the idea of an effectively unregulated driver as far as light level output or battery life. And the battery life aspect is crucial.
Unfortunately they won’t sell anything more this year because they reached the sale limit for a small company and they would lose tax benefits otherwise.
Edit: The kaidomain’s FX-30 driver should work, I have no idea of its actual performance, you can also find it on AliExpress.
The European driver would work great. And then you tell me i can't have it :)
The import driver would cut out of high mode after 3 seconds and requires manual intervention, according to their spec. That's an unfortunate bit of functionality.
I’m using the top one Barkuti recommended and like it a lot running an xhp70.2 off 3S. Does the claimed 5 Amos and makes a lot of light. Make sure you have good cooling for it.
Well, let me also say that if the application is extremely fault intolerant, OllieCo may want to install two drivers in the headlamp. Of course this could be an exaggeration, but I'm not the one to judge this.
I just carry two lamps. After one particular instance of a failure at 35 below zero in unfamiliar territory, i learned my lesson.
I might try that driver. The shipping time is hideous from overseas, and I’ll admit Im far more in favor of using a domestic source, partially for reliability of access, and partially because i prefer steering the work to a domestic source.
I just ordered a couple drivers from taskled.com, they were far more expensive, but appeared extremely robust and rich featured. I’ll let you all know how they operate once the units are together. These will be daily use tools, so I’ll get a fair picture of functionality.
I wouldn't call it :-D hideous, but of course I've learned to be patient the hardthere's no other way way.
Taskled seems to offer high quality devices, this is no doubt. I'm also sure the above Manta Ray driver would perform nicely, cheap doesn't means bad, not even the slightest, it's more like cost-optimized. But if you were to aim to request some low temperature ruggedizations Taskled would more readily be willing to serve 'em, pretty sure.
4a. No fun. This headlamp is also supposed to keep me warm
Excellent machining there. I love the manual machines and doing one-off stuff. That’s basically what I’m going to do with this project, just in a much smaller form factor.
Its actually a 4.8 amp driver, MRsDNF corrected his self in post #17. You can add a pot for infinite variable output, didn’t know if you saw that or not.
Pretty nice feature.
I built once with a logarithmic pot once. Way more hassle than i thought it was worth. Every time i adjusted my hat, or my hood, I'd touch it and tweak it. Drove me crazy, started cursing, dogs thought i lost my shit.
4.8a is actually right where that's pretty good. I'll see ig i can source a couple. Thanks again, folks! Im looking forward to illuminating Alaska some more.
Ray driver looks a little bit more refined software wise.
all my battery packs use a 99c protection board from somewhere in China.