Hello Im new to the forum names Baz from Australia , Im not a flashaholic yet I own a couple a led lensers for use hunting a hocus-focus great for around camp and a P14 that I use for spotlighting does a great job shoot critters out to 100yd's ok .. I wanted an AA led for general camp use instead of the Hocus-focus with its 3x AAA's so I recently purchased a mxdl sa-3 or aka sk68 from ebay it came with charger and a pair of 14500 batts ...bright little torch has good focus flood to throw great candle and is adeqete with alkaline batts for my use .
I had done some reading here and over at CPF , DX reviews ect before making purchase so I wasnt expecting the light to be problem free ie : poor soldering dirty dry threads ect , but apon recieving it I was impressed it throws more usable light than my Hocus-focus and I prefer the slide focus over the twist focus it use's 1 AA instead 3 x AA's I couldnt be happier bargain .
Until it died up the bush while using a 14500 , was goin fine nice and strong then dead ..lol..I thought oh well ya get what pay for ..when I got home I pulled it apart to find the negative wire on the led had came off due to poor soldering Im guessing
$ 17 later after buying a soldering iron its all good .
Im new to Li-oin batts and I had read over on CPF the dangers of them exploding prehaps I was luckie if the positive wire had off came loose and shorted to the body while the flashlight was on could that have caused an explosion ? and turned it into a pipebomb
It looks like it *could* be from poor soldering at the factory. Although, it does look like the die may have heated up a lot. (the brown area extends into the negative lead) Maybe running it on 14500 for extended periods is too much to ask because it isn't adequately heat sinked. As a guess, i would bet running AA's if you're using it for a long time would prevent this from happening in the future :). Or, if you're skilled in machining or more clever than i, you could figure out a way to make it disperse the heat to the body a little quicker. Just food for thought.
yeah it gets quite hot using the 14500 Im guessin enough to lift the solder , I'l rack the brain see if I can figure a way of better heatsinking ... if not my plan is to use it on Alkies and carry the 14500's with me in the bush and only use them for short periods when stronger light is required
any thoughts on improving the heatsink on this light is appreciated
MY guess is NO ..Not without making the head considerably larger .. seems to me that Match wrestled with this question . Since the head and the body are seperated there's no real way to transfer the heat to the body.Certainlty noway to do it cheaply . So if you plan to carry a spare battery .. why not have a nice battery holder to carry it in .. a second light :P
see how easy it is to justify your need to buy another light ?
That sure does look like it cooked itself. I'd say your best bet is to get an actual Sipik SK68 and not a cheap MXDL clone. The "real" one (Sipik SK68 - it's still a copy of another light) has excellent build quality and a solid heatsink and not the hollow one yours has. Notice on the pill on yours that behind the emitter star there is no aluminum and the star just rides on the edge? That is why it overheated like it did and melted the solder connection. Your emitter is probably not as bright as it once was either.
You can get the Sipik for under $10 and the pill is solid and it works VERY well at maintaining heat. I upgraded mine from an XR-E Q3 (nod to vectrex ;) ) to an XR-E Q5 and some arctic silver paste and replaced the single mode driver with a stronger driver with 3 modes and the entire light gets warm as the heat is sucked away from the emitter. It's a rock solid light. Unfortunately, the MXDL lights have a deserved reputation as poor flashlights but some of them do make excellent hosts for custom lasers.
I'd say your best bet is to get an actual Sipik SK68 and not a cheap MXDL clone. The "real" one (Sipik SK68 - it's still a copy of another light) has excellent build quality and a solid heatsink and not the hollow one yours has
" Oils aint Oils " Postie showed this morning with a Sipik SK68 that I order from DX a couple a weeks back , your exactly right JohnnyMac , it has a solid heatsink better quality o rings but apart from that machining and build quality seems about the same .
Sure wish I had of read this post last night before purchasing another 2 of these clones off ebay labeled ultrafire , It will be interesting to compare them when they arrive , @ $7.60 AU delived will make excellent gifts .
The sad thing is...like you said... the differences can be very small and yet can be very important ..the tail ... the pill ... the threads .. the driver ..it might save them a whopping 1.65cents and turn a decent light into garbage .
I just bought SIPIK SK68 from Manafont, what do you think i should expect in terms of output and throw in comparison to Romisen RC29 single mode or torchlight C78.
there branded Ultrafire and I am happy to report they are indentical to the DX Sipik SK68 same build with the better pill and @ $ 7.50AU including delivery a bargair
I have two Sipik SK68, and on both, the emitter wasn't glued to the dropin/screw-in at all.
A tiny drop of silver arctic will fix that in no time, though; I just wanted to let you know, in case you didn't know already. I'm glad I took the torch apart completely - could have fried the emitter for sure. The Sipik's driver pulls 1.05A @ 1.32V from alkalines. Works fine with eneloops, as well. Haven't had any opportunity yet to try 1.7V AA lithium primaries, or 14500 Li-Ion rec's.
I own a couple a led lensers for use hunting a hocus-focus great for around camp and a P14 that I use for spotlighting does a great job shoot critters out to 100yd's ok .. I wanted an AA led for general camp use instead of the Hocus-focus with its 3x AAA's so I recently purchased a mxdl sa-3 or aka sk68 from ebay it came with charger and a pair of 14500 batts ...bright little torch has good focus flood to throw great candle and is adeqete with alkaline batts for my use .
prehaps I was luckie if the positive wire had off came loose and shorted to the body while the flashlight was on could that have caused an explosion ? and turned it into a pipebomb 
