TheKlone35 - modded by DrJones review

Hello evereybody,

I am glad to show a video showing the great job made by DrJones on this driver, any comment or question is welcome.

I love DrJones' drivers. I purchased a bunch from him a couple weeks ago and then put them into my modded Sipik SK58 zoomie. Previously, I'd been using a 2.8 amp Shiningbeam driver with an XM-L neutral T6.

DrJones' drivers arrived! First I started with his luxdrv driver. The version I purchased included ramping and had user programmable brightness settings. It worked great. I liked the much lower low of the driver compared to the 5% low from the Shiningbeam driver. I also liked that the new driver had battery voltage detection with automatic step down in brightness. Very nice since this little light uses exclusively 14500 IMR cells.

Next step was to try out DrJones' Lumodrv driver in the same light. This was a much more ambitious install. The luxdrv driver is designed for clicky lights. And both it and the Shiningbeam driver were Nanjg 105c drivers so I knew it would easily fit with a little minor filing. No other mods needed to be made since both were designed to use a clicky switch that completely cuts the power when the light is off.

DrJones' lumodrv driver however is designed for an electronic switch, like that found in a Zebralight. With an electronic switch, the battery is always connected to the driver, then a separate isolated wire connects the driver to a momentary pushbutton switch.

My initial mod started off fine. I assembled the pill with the lumodrv driver with problem. I used a Radio Shack momentary tact switch, and built up a new switch mechanism in the tail of the light. I filed a narrow slot down the inside body tube from the pill to the tailcap. My initial idea was a wire would connect from the driver, go through the battery compartment and then connect to a ring at the tailcap. This ring would touch a probe that would extend from the switch when the tailcap was fully screwed in.

Complete failure. Either no connection, or the switch was shorting and the light would activate the moment the cap was plugged in without touching the button. I then tried different things trying to get it to work: using solder to enlarge the probe, attaching metal to the probe, removing the ring and trying a narrower ring. removing the wire and replacing it with conductive aluminum tape... nothing seemed to work.

I finally managed to get a working switch connection. But then I spent more hours trying to get it into the light. I'm not used to soldering inside a battery tube. Many hours later I finally had a working light. The light now has a narrow wire that goes up the slot in the body tube to the tail. At the tail it branches out into a metal contact that extends about a third of the way around the body tube. The wire and contact are insulated from the body with arctic alumina thermal epoxy.

It works!!! Now my Sipik58 is using DrJones' lumodrv driver!!!! I LOVE this driver. It has 2 preset modes with shortcuts to each one. And by holding the button down I can ramp up or down. It also has a strobe mode. And I love the soft touch of the electronic switch (sorta like a zebralight or spark), much better than the loud clickies.

Only downsides are that re-lubing the zoom mechanism's o-ring will be a pain (I'll have to pull up the wire contact which is held on with a tiny bit of super glue gel, then unscrew the pill. Afterwards I'd have to glue the contact back down). Hopefully I won't need to relube it. Also, because it is an electronic driver, it has a small amount of standby current draw.

I'm thinking about making another Sipik 58 with lumodrv, but this time with an electronic side switch and a clicky tailcap switch. Getting the aesthetics right on the side switch could be tricky, but on the other hand, the wiring should actually be much easier than the tailcap switch since I wouldn't have to create a mechanism to get an isolated electrical contact to a tailcap switch.

Thanks :shy:

I'm glad you like them :)

I bought it at CNQG, I've got two of them as the first one was faulty (driver not working) and Rick did not get a new driver, he sent me a new flashlight, and now I have got two, one working from factory and the other with DrJones's driver.

They look just a bit different, the second one has no brand written on it, and the chamfers on the body are slightly different, I do not see more differences.