I like this light and ordered another one to mod (and also ordered a Efest 3000mAh 26650 battery), and experimented a bit further with the driver. With both springs reinforced with copper braid, all electrical paths to the switch reinforced too, bypassed the current limiting resistors by moving the led+ to the other solder pad on the driver, used thick wires to the led (switched to a XM-L2 5B1 80 CRI, on a 20mm Sinkpad) I got 3A. Then I bypassed the Mosfed as well by soldering the led+ to the other side of it (three legs of it are in direct contact with two large via's going to the battery+ contact plate). Now I got 4.5A. so the Mosfed limits the current by quite a bit (eats up some voltage I guess) in this set-up!
So now it is a 1 mode direct drive light, and pretty much the maximum that you can get out of a single 4.2V li-ion light with a XM-L2 (apart from that I used a lower binned warmer high CRI led, which gives about 20% less light than a cool white U2 bin). I can still put a AR-coated lens in, and both the output and the beam improves if you remove the bezel (that does not fix in place anything, so you can just leave it off). The light handles the heat very well, with no large output drops over the course of minutes
I get 1040 OTF lumens out of it (with 19klux@1meter throw), on a fresh Efest 26650 IMR, not bad for a single battery 80 CRI 4000K XM-L2 light :-)
I like it, because it has a good cooling structure, the beam is not to narrow (I hate throwers) and is fits my hand perfectly.
Very good modding host.
*Because the original driver is 21mm in diameter - and I only have 20mm connection boards, I just removed every part of it with reflow, grinded the surface down to the ground material and then connected the Nanjg driver.
Takes a while, but works perfect.
I won this light in a giveaway that Pulsar ran last year. I liked it, but was dreaming about a relatively easy MT-G2 mod. Turns out, this host makes for a simple and very pocketable MT-G2 mod.
A tir from digikey, 1066-1095-ND is a perfect fit behind the glass lens. (Although one of mine had a little casting nub that I had to cut away.)
A normal 7135 driver board can get the zener diode mod and a few (4 in my case) extra stacked 7135s. I used the existing driver board as the contact plate after stripping all the components off. (I didn’t bother with kapton or even sanding the component side of the old driver, as I just epoxied the double-high 7135s onto it.)
A couple of 18350s and you’re good to go.
On high, it gets too warm to hold comfortably after about 5 minutes indoors, but this isn’t really a long runtime kinda light at the best of times.
It’s not the absolute brightest light I’ve got, but it’s got a great size/bright ratio.
Do any of you that have this also have the Defiant Super Thrower? I'm curious if the body will thread into the DST head.
I do. Please remind me if I don't report back tonight.
Thanks for the review O-L. I got on of these from the TinyDeal limited coupon. Not a bad light for $10. My wife carries a 26650 tube light in her purse (and a AAA Thrunite). She'll probably want to replace it with this guy.
LOL. Sorry, didn't notice the date of your post. I'm curious to find out though.
EDIT: Looks familar but I may be thinking of the A8. The battery tube in the OP does fit the DST and works too. Never tried to use in shorty mode til now. Petty cool. There is a mismatch in the anodized finish that the picture didn't capture.
