Bugger about the king kongs
I attacked the positive contact tonight. It turns out that under that nylon retainer with the brass contact in the center is a spring. I took that brass plug out of the nylon retainer and replaced the spring underneath with a longer/larger one. I also drilled out the retainer to make the hole large enough for the new spring to come through. The spring I used is a standard spring from a Solarforce p60 switch or the like.
Connection is greatly improved. King Kongs still didn't work, but I added a solder blob to all of them and now I'm ready to rock and roll.
I'm only seeing a 5% 4% drop in lux from 10 seconds to 10 minutes. :) The heat seems to stay in the head, the body stays pretty cool. That would generally worry me, but looking at the numbers (I know its only 10 minutes), it's looking good.
Did you take a peek at the driver?
I did not. I didn’t want to press my luck on the first day. Functionally, the driver is VERY similar to the one in the TR-3T6, just with more power.
For you and many on this site, it is highly unlikely. For me and some others, we usually do discharge capacity tests (on a hobby charger) on the cells so as to match them for multi-cell operation, in addition to voltage checks everytime we pop them cells into the light. And remember, you choose/alternate between 2 or 3 cell operation, so you need to check. 2 cells might be at 3.9V simply because you used them for 10 mins before, and the 3rd might be 4.09V.
The thing is, folks are selling such lights on Ebay with grey trustfires, blue ultrafires, and some even noname blue Chinese LiCo. One cell might have 1500mAh worth of juice, another just 900mAh. How not to expect an explosion?
2 cells are like 3.3A? That is no joke.
Google reverse charging too....
You can prevent a lot of incidents with just a protection circuit.
But not to worry, it is highly unlikely, but every multi-cell light esp 3 cells, i feel there must be a warning.
I set out to do a runtime test, but I just got too nervous 20 minutes in. It had dropped about 8% but the head was very hot. I just had it tailstanding with no extra cooling. At the 20 minute mark I started using a hairdryer with no heat to blow on it for a minute or so out of every five. I could get the output to get back about half of that 8%. After a blowdrying session, i tried holding the light in hand for 5 minutes and the output only dropped a fraction of a percent.
The additional cooling was evident in the output within 10 seconds, leading me to believe the emitters are very well heatsinked and the head has a good thermal path.
I could use a fan for the runtime test, but I don't know about you, but I don't have an EDC fan (or hairdryer) and I'm surely not going to hold the light for 2 hours (EDIT: 1:30 - the cells wouldn't last 2 hours), so I'm going to assume it will run for that long provided I can keep it reasonably cool.
All things considered thats pretty impressive. I wish this one had a "turbo" mode like the DRY as it seems it would handle the heat much better. On second thought screw the "turbo", I would be happy for 3A per emitter.
Mitro, 4% for 10 mins is really good. I think you have slightly lower temps than my case, that is definitely in the league of the Uniqurefire 3900 modded with foil and the Trustfire TF-3T6.
25k cd is good too, that is like the DRY in Turbo mode.
Actually my J12 at this moment is already being delivered, but nobody is at home to receive it. So need to collect it tomorrow from the PO and only test tomorrow night....but i guess i'll bring some 18650s and the DMM to play in the office.
So the S1 and J12 will be going to Indonesia soon next week for a full workout. LOL!
I ran the light for most of an hour and at any time i could blow on it and get it within 4 or 5 percent of the 10 second reading. Also, the medium is about 65% brightness, so you can still get massive output with a decent bump in runtime.
Yes mitro, the idea of such 3x and 5x XM-Ls is to get massive light output and still be able to do long runtimes without the issue of overheating.
To give people an idea on the big picture, some folks already encountered a kick down from Turbo to high in the Nitecore TM11 before 10 minutes, with this light just trailing a wee wee bit in OTF output possibly. Yes they are definitely not equal, but just a frame of reference.
59 deg C stable, before kickdown.
Sorry for so many posts, but I forgot to mention that I even fired it up on 4 C alkalines. 4Cs and a little spacer at the back means that even those who like NiMH can benefit from this light. :)
I'd like to know if it can take 4x li-on, but I'm not about to find out. :p
EDIT: I tried 4 x AA Duraloops and got a 3.3A draw to start and about 75% of the brightness of 3x li-ons. Not too shabby. Also, there is no difference in brightness (less than 0.5%) between 3 fully charged 26650 and 2 fully charged 26650s.
Music to my ears! I am planning on using 2 cells only! :)
I am absolutely floored by DX's quickness of my order for the TR-J12. In less than 72 hours from placing the order it is shipped with tracking number.
EDIT- and I cant wait to get my hands on this and to see how the driver is set up. This screams to be driven harder from what I am seeing on the reviews. I would love to have a high driving 3A each, followed by a medium at 1.5A.
Since I like flood I put some DC Fix on the lens and it now has a beam that is just about perfect for me. A huge wall of light. There is still a hotspot but it is quite diffused. The light still manages 10k cd through brute force. :)
So far I like this light a lot. I wish I'd paid $70 instead of closer to $90, but that's the price I pay for impatience. Its not a revolutionary light, but the combo of 26650's and 5 emitters just works nicely. I'm the opposite of most people here, I wish the medium was actually the high(1.3A on 3 cells) and then give me a lower medium.
By the way... the lens appears to be the same size as the big throwers (59mm), are we ever going to get some decent glass in this size? I don't want to chop up a UCLp. I'm half tempted to just pay for a run of them and then sell them myself.
if you do get a run, let me know. Im tempted
I'm not sure what's wrong with my order. My order was placed on 1-1-2012 and was thrown into their new account management system. It was then labeled as BackOrder on the 4th. I filed a support ticket for this problem. Had this happen to another recent order - waited two months as "backorder" and canceled. Not sure when they will refund me.
Anyone else order from DX? I have the "FandyFire" L1 on its way but would really like to play with this one too.
I got some trustfire flames I bought a week ago that says backorder in their new account management system.
So 2100 yours must be here now ?
I received few day ago, but my camera wasn’t here.
I will make a mini review later.
I ordered from KD first and DX.
For DX I ordered 12-31-2011 , but 01-09-2012 still in “Order Received”.
So I canceled from DX and WILL NOT ORDER ANYMORE!!!
DX is so slow that's why I ordered from manafont, but I'm in Australia so orders take around two weeks to get here from manafont over a month for DX I'm not realy a fan of KD either to be honest.