I think the beefy one will have less resistance, but perhaps nothing significant.
…plus i made it extra difficult to put some LEDs there… :weary: :partying_face:
bumping my ignorant query:
If I were to swap in these [yellow or orange, specs differ] in place of the blue ones, I bet I’d need to change a resistor, right?
Voltage table here: https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/100-pcs-SMD-SMT-0805-Yellow-Super-bright-LED-lamp-light/1267031_1889424846.html
interested in the lighted tailcap too. 
This may help too:
Only $1.31 at the moment.
I’m pretty new here, but let me say that questions like this are not ignorant, at least not in my opinion.
The resistor value is really used to set the current through the LED. If you change out the LED to one with a different voltage drop, it means the current will also change (assuming the resistor stays the same). So in the end, it generally will still work. What you might need to do is change the resistor to get the appropriate brightness you are looking for.
Going to a higher resistor value will make the LED dimmer, and make the drain on the battery less. Of course the opposite is true as well.
You can do the following equation to estimate the drains on your battery:
(battery voltage - LED voltage drop) / (switch LED resistor + driver bypass resistor) = current
For my convoy S2+ build, I tried the following configurations using the switch from banggood linked above:
Driver bypass was 231 ohms in all cases.
1) 2k resistors for each of 2 LEDs in the tail switch (1k parallel equivalent). For a fresh battery, this gives (4.2V - 1.1V) / (1k + 231) = 2.52mA.
2) 511 ohm resistors in the tail (255.5 parallel equivalent). For the same battery, this gives (4.2V - 1.1V) / (255.5+231) = 6.37mA.
3) 231 ohm resistors in the tail (115.5 parallel equivalent). For the same battery, this gives (4.2V - 1.1V) / (115.5+231) = 8.95mA.
Using my 3400mAH battery down to nothing, this yields the following times to a paperweight: 56 days, 22 days, and 15.8 days respectively.
This isn’t exactly correct as the battery voltage will droop with use, so the current drain will be less with a partially charged battery (4.2V in the equation is actually a variable, not a constant). Maybe using 3.7 would show a more true average.
My results were that case 3 looked the best, but is pretty ridiculous in it’s battery drain. Especially if you wanted to use an 18350 instead of 18650. The 2k is really not visible with ambient light, but if the room is dark you can clearly see the blue ring.
As far as the fit in an S2+, I had to do some minor filing around 2 of the 3 switch boards I tried to use in order to fit it in. It was more taking off the imperfections in the board from where it’s mounted during manufacturing than anything else. I would say I took off less than .5mm all the way around.
I also had to change out the gasket around the “piston” of the metal S2+ switch, and replace the metal washer with a nylon one.
o’d also be interested if someone can make a couple for my astrolux’s and 2 for my uniquefire’s
hee Bas,
I have made a lighted switch for my Astrolux S41 (with stripped ano). I used a red silicon tailcap and six red leds, and a ‘fixed’ bistro driver with 470 Ohm bleeder. I can do yours one of these days if you bring/send the light to me.
Looks good. Would you be willing to do a few lights from the uk?
Not really, sorry. You know, it is a full evening work, and with tweaking even longer. If it was work, the labor would cost more than the light itself, so therefore it is hobby and should be fun, and production work is no fun.
I will post what I did with Bas’ light so you could repeat it if you like it like that.
Not a problem.
It might just be stick with the astroluxs’ own tail cap then. I can solder ok on big things i.e on RC car motor and battery wires but the tiny soldering for tail caps is too small for me.
Hi guys! I have a very noob question that makes me curious about. How does the lighted tail cap work? I mean how does the leds light up where does it get its positive terminal? Like there is no positive charge on the end of the cap but it lights up :question: btw I have convoy clear s2+.
It works pretty funny actually, you create a leak on the driver by soldering a permanent resistor between batt+ and ground, high enough resistance to not affect the efficiency of the flashlight, but low enough to allow some current flowing back from batt+ to the tail via the housing. The tail leds are parallel to the switch so when the switch is off there is a circuit from batt+ to bleeder resistor to housing to tail leds to batt-. With the switch on the bleeder resistor is a tiny source of inefficiency.
But there’s complications because in many drivers the presence of the bleeder resistor influences the timings of the user interface.
Wow thanks! I didn’t know cations can pass through the body with anions its like magic. Do you have an idea how much power does it draws? And does the resistor have chance to fail in the future and would cause fire?
There’s no “sharing” of the body’s current path. Its either negative (when the switch is closed and the main driver/emitter is on) or positive (when the switch is open and the lighted tailcap is on). As for current draw, its low. Couple of milliamps or less, and its regulated by the size of the resistor used. So its up to the builder how much current is there.
I guess every electric component has a chance to fail, and all will given enough time, but I don’t see how this could have anything to do with a fire. A failed resistor usually goes open, but on the off chance that it blows “closed” then yeah, it would be bad the next time you closed the tailswitch, resulting in a direct short. Most likely some other component would fail before a fire though, like melting the tailspring or something.