My memory of the numbers was way off, my bad.
Looking back through the thread, I don’t see any mention of M4DM4X changing wires, only ZozzV6. Any chance M4D M4X didn’t do a wire swap and could push that 433 even farther? That’d be fantastic.
Okay, the video. It’s long, so I can’t remember all it’s details. Lol. I prefer pictures for easy reference.
I see he was using some average cells, LiitoKala 5000mah black and a Shockli 21700 (maybe 4000mah black?). I bet it would meet the lumen rating if it had better cells with less voltage sag at higher amps. Something like a 40T or P42A, etc… Still, 4100lm-4200lm is not far off from the 4500lm spec.
FET drivers are sensitive to the total resistance in the circuit. He got higher amps using those average batteries by reducing the resistance in the led wires. The batteries also cause resistance. Keeping the stock wires and swapping to better cells will also cause a reduction is total resistance and boost amperage and lumens.
Better cells plus bigger led wires give even bigger amperage and lumens. You have to be careful here to not damage the led. It’s quite possible Astrolux erred on the side of caution to keep people from burning up leds and blaming the manufacturer for defective products.
I haven’t done anything to mine and got 415Kcd. Numbers on my meter are about 10% higher than they should be so about 380Kcd. which is same as M4DM4X’s with the FT03S reflector.
Why would your lux meter read high?
That Sofirn 21700 the M4X used is pretty decent, but there are better cells. I bet it can be pushed further.
Well my FT03 SST40 got a bit over 250 which seems a bit high. Most people’s numbers are lower and if you look at the beamshot on wikilght.de the M3XS-UT which is rated at 250 seems more intense than the FT03. GT mini also measured around 150 as far as I can remember. For some reason I only got 76k with my L16. Apart from the L16 my numbers seem a bit higher than they should. I heard that a different sample of the same meter can produce different readings cause they’re not calibrated perfectly… unless it’s expensive I guess. Also the Uni-T 383 seems to be more a bit more sensitive to cool light.
I decided to do some not-so-calibratd runtime testing using Zak.Wilson’s ‘ceilingbounce’ app on my Android phone.
My setup is very simple, since I don’t have an integrating device like a lumens tube.
setup: Flashlight was placed in a flat surface pointing at the ceiling, in a small darkened room, and with the ‘ceilingbounce’ app recording the ‘runtime’, until I manually stopped it several minutes later.
Both the FT03S SBT90.2 and the FT03 XHP50.2 were tested separately. The 26650 batteries I purposely chose higher IR 26650s (I measure around AC IR 30mOhms for this “higher-IR” 26650, where a Liitokala Lii-50A26650 would have AC IR [using YR1030 meter] around 15-18mOhms).
FT03S SBT90.2 (calibrated the thermal sensor to room temperature approximately, which I guess is around 28 degrees Celsius here in our tropical country at this time of the year). I set the Anduril thermal threshold to 60 degrees Celsius
*(the ‘glitch’ near the 9th minute mark is due to my touching the flashlight which moved it a bit)
~
FT03 XHP50.2 5700k (didn’t adjust thermal control settings for NarsilM; I forgot to check how far from the correct room temperature is the stock temperature readout)
comment:
The FT03S lumens graph seems to mirror M4DM4X’s graph — there is a big sudden drop initially (around 30 seconds or so), but it recovers and maintains it for sometime before gradually dropping again after a few minutes.
(after the testing which I manually stopped — the flashlight was very very hot and almost untouchable for my hands)
On the FT03 XHP50.2, there is a big drop at around 3 minute mark (maybe this is the stock default setting?)
(when I manually stopped the test, the flashlight was just warm)
I wouldn’t try to discount your results. I lot of folks here, including myself, use a LX-1330B which according to Djozz’s test reads higher than the 383. As long as your measuring distances, technique and math are correct, I’d use the results it gives you. I typically use 10 meters, at 30 seconds (when possible) and move the meter around in the hotspot to find it’s highest reading. Some people dont wait 30 seconds and other people my set their meter to record the highest reading. I find both those techniques to give higher than normal results.
BTW, I also measured 148Kcd on the GT mini.
Very cool. You can basically see the results of two different thermal software designs. Which is better? You be the judge. Lol
TK says the max you can set the temp to is 70°C. If you do 41+ clicks, it will only register 40.
So if you want 75°, you set the max temp to 70 and the ambient temp 5 degrees cooler than actual.
I thought to compare with my XHP50 when I received mine.
.
Yep. On my XHP50 I get a little over 14A with Golisi 26650/4300.
Maybe you dhould really ask Texas_Ace for his opinion. Isn’t he the one who designed this Texas Avenger driver?
So I was getting this “yoyo” thermal throttling as posted by Martin (M4D M4X) and I adjusted the temperature configuration to 1ºC (ambient) and max at 70ºC (40 clicks above the set 30º). I re-ran a test using a ceiling bounce and a phone’s app.
My lumens are from a set standard alkaline Rayovac flashlight - not calibrated but for my comparison use it suffices.
Only a selected Lux readings are converted. The multiplier used is 3.663 if you care to make a graph.
I decided ok to stop at the 2 minute mark - I want to test drive atop buildings tonight.
The figures are much more steady than before (I had set the upper limit to 75º which is really 70º as this is the max in Anduril).
The average (μ) excludes ‘on start’ (O/S). The major difference is in tricking the ambient temp to 1ºC.
I’ll have further test with other cells. The iJoy is a high drain cell that my MiBoxer C12 measures at 30 mOhms. Naturally I had a fresh cell to test with, terminated at 3.86 volts.
EDIT (10:33 PM):
Totally misleading. I thought I was using a full cell. When I tried to reproduce the results, they were a shame. The values are in Lux.
Again have the ‘yoyo’ effect. So I must have not stored the light fully charged as I always do.
So sorry for the misleading workaround. Although I know that at lower battery capacity the numbers stack up.
Very cool, so by tricking and maxing out the thermal limits you end up with maybe a 90°C max temp. How hot was the body at 2 minutes, barely able to hold?
It’s good to see it run 2 minutes with no real stepdown. (the first 10 seconds are mostly the led heating up which reduces efficiency).
Now on the flip side, if you set the brightness to top of ramp, will the body heat up excessively? I guess you’d need to manually adjust the output when it started to feel too warm.
I don’t know for sure this driver is based on his design, but I assume it is. Keep in mind he had nothing to do with the building or layout of this FT03S driver, though. He also uses NarsilM and not so much Anduril. I don’t think he’s going to be able to add much, but I’ll see if he has time to look it over.
I did give the people on the MF01 mini thread the details of this light since they had a similar issue. There are some smart folks there. 
The light wasn’t overly hot at 2 minutes - 52ºC (see note at bottom of table). As for top of ramp, I’ll be checking those figures later. I always hold my lights, so not to worry about overheating. Besides, if accidently left on, worst case scenario is some 90ºC which is still safe for the light, although I’ll need some gloves to turn off.
Thanks for posting this! Very useful. I’ll do that when I receive mine.
I opened the light when it was hot (63°C) and it made a pss sound like some pressure was being released. Is this normal? Hope it’s not the battery.
If you didn’t get some pretty bad smells, it shouldn’t be the battery. I’m not an expert though.
Here’s what TA replied:
So the odds it’s the FET getting really hot and causing the issue depends on the particular FET being used. I dont know what model it is.
Otherwise, it’s just the non specific version of Anduril that is being and it’s reacting too quickly not letting the body of the light get hot.
If early Turbo stepdown is bothersome you can always set the max to 70° and then set the ambient to less than normal all the way down to 1° if necessary.