How come so called professional flashlight designers can’t come up with lights like this?? Bravo sir!
wow, that’s just amazing on so many levels! I thought that the drilling through the PCB and soldering rods in was a genius idea, given the precision needed with trying to machine the posts in the face of the heatsink. Then I saw the bonkers driver and nearly had a flashgasm. DrJones must either have tiny fingers or not drink coffee, or both, to do that kind of soldering.
Such a great idea though - both being able to select light output AND CRI/tint by powering individual LEDs, plus that’s probably more efficient than driving all four with PWM (I think?). What’s the heat output like with all four lit?
matt, efficiency wasnt really important.. ;) But of course its more efficient to light one LED only instead of four. I dont think the effect is important though, because one minute on full power will use any power you previously saved. :D
Heat output.. well, 5A at something above 3V.. thats 15W. Of course thats more than an XML, but an XML at 3A will give you about 900 Lumens OTF while this dropin should be about 1300 Lumens OTF, a little more with IMRs.. of course only for the first few seconds before the LEDs heat up and the output declines. :)
Very nicely done; thanks for sharing your results !
Very Impressive, very well done. Kudos to you and the Dr.
8)
Of course, it is more efficient to light all LEDs instead af one.
Nope, you cant drive 4 LEDs as low as one. :P
nice build ,i like your driver
The way to the best efficiency at low is to use just one 7135.
Your 3LED mode would be more efficient with 4 LEDs.
You may be right about lower modes.
Btw, I would not call this direct to copper.
Yeah, there are a lot of ways to create light more efficiently.. but thats not always as much fun. :)
What else would you call it and why?
My thoughts exactly. Bravo, you and DrJones, both!
Why not? Each LED is soldered directly to copper.
I thought again about this. You can drive 4 LEDs as low as you like, because you do it by PVM. The LEDs still get pulses of full current.
Your LEDs are soldered to the PCB.
No, there is a point where the LED wont light up. Erik flashed his popular dropins with 2 different UIs, one had a lower low that wouldnt light up all LEDs, so he sometimes used another.
They are also soldered to the PCB. But the center heatpad is soldered to copper.
Only the contacts are soldered to the ocb. The center pad, the part that counts, is soldered directly to heat sink copper. Reread the build description and have a close look at the pics. 