I have not tried gripping the tube in the vice. I may give that way a try next time.
The vise on the tube with wood spacers worked great, just do not crush the tube by overtighten it
The spacers were as long as the smaller diameter of the tube so I used the full availiable lengh to hold it orientating the light horizontal
Have you managed to crush a tube to this point?
If you do the light vertical in the vise you may damage the tube if you overtighten it, the 4mm plier wood gives you a good grip when it compresses a bit and starts to make cracking noises while the knurlink of the wise punshed in it
I was far away from forces that may damage the light as the tube has flat surfaces, the soft wood starts to get compressed then you stop to tighten more
Opening my Nitecore P12 which was a beast to get open I did not crush the head witsh a aligator wrech even if I was concerned, but I did badly damage the anodisation
But the skilhunt tube is more fragile as a P12 head, so just tighten enough that it doesnt rotate while twisting the head
I did tighten the lens and round side in the small wise as I did not manage to get the switch cover off
Thanks for the feedback Lexel / LightRider. I’ll just have to bite the bullet and get them!
Hi Guys
I’ve added 2 x R200 as a resistor mod over the 2 x R082. Before the mod I’ve measured 2.7 amps, after the mod, basically the same. I made 100% sure theres contact between the resistors. Mmm, what am I doing wrong. I presume if I saw 2.7 amps before the mod, I should see around 3.6 amps after?
nothing wrong with the resistors
The inductor, resistror, diode and FET on the driver paired with the springs have quite a high resistance and the light is going practically to DD on Turbo,
unfortunately they do not use a separate low resistance FET to bypass the buck part of the driver in 1S mode,
so that its hard to get close to 3A even with a high drain cell
only way to reach full brightness is with 1 18350 like Aspire you dont loose too much capacity
For that reason I have build a TA driver with NarsilM for mine
If you wish I can build you one as well
Thanks for commenting Lexel. Interesting that LightRider claims to have bumped his current from 2.4 to 3.2 amps by adding a R100. Both R200’s in my case made no difference, started on 2.8 amps, did not move a bit. Thanks for the offer on building a driver. I have the necessary hardware to built a 21mm FET driver. I was hoping to keep some of the standard features like LED in the switch & lockout. Will just have to give that up for now. Appreciated…
I’ve done quite a few of these lights now. 3.3 was the highest I’ve ever reached. However, I can usually get 3-3.2 every time. Even with lower resistors, 3.3 is the limit.
The NarsilM in this light gives you all features you want
Thanks for adding some info LightRider 
Hi Lexel
I’ve been out of building lights for a while, again… I need to catch-up on the latest firmwares etc. Can you maybe give me a bit of background on NarsilM, or give me a link? I’m still running the traditional attiny25 based FET type drivers, in many sizes. Its important that I can program my drivers myself, thus I need an open source solution, attiny25 (not 85) would also be great, but if I need to move on, I need to move on. I think the next move would be a multi-channel setup, regulated for low modes, FET for turbo, but, I’ll have to also look into temperature compensation. Would appreciated if you shed some light on my comments.
For now I’ll just do the traditional FET driver setup in my H03.
Much Appreciated.
I wrote NarsilM and it's open source, based on what TK, JonnyC, and others have done. It's also the foundation for the Emissary D4 firmware.
It's evolved from just mode sets to full smooth ramping during the Q8 development, most enhancements coming directly from BLFer input. It continue it's evolution. V1.0 is available now, V1.1 shortly I hope. 1.1 is the baseline for the BLF GT buck driver at this point.
I've worked, and continue to work closely with DEL, who at this point, seems the most knowledgeable resource we have on driver development - the electronics design.
It requires a ATtiny85, best MCU available that is pin compatible to the 13A, and supports 1 to 3 output channels.
Thanks for some more background Tom…
(1) Will NarsilM work on the traditional FET drivers, as mentioned above, running a Attiny85 instead of 25?
(2) What do you think is currently the best (lets just say most effecient, most versatile) FET driver, multi channel, also doing temperature control? I try to keep things simple and it would be great to standardize on a single driver design, different PCB sizes. That is, specifically for DD drivers.
(3) Did anything interesting happen on the buck driver side the past 6 months? I’m still struggling to get Richard’s 26mm MTN-MAX driver going. I started to communicate with him a few months ago to diagnose the issues, but I neglected to continue the conversation. Will try to pick it up with Richard again, soon.
Appreciated…
By the way, if I may give some comments on the Skilhunt H03. I got the H03 & H03R… and, I must say the H03 is as close as spot on (pardon the pun, hehe…) to me as a headlight can get, for now, if you take quality, features & price into account. The H03R has a too intense / small hotspot. The light distribution of the H03 is very nice and wide, how I believe a good headlamp should be. It has some good internals DTP MCPCB, U4 LED, nice clicky switch. It has nice features - pistol grip, pocket clip, comfortable headstrap, robust anodizing and a good standard UI, even though I’m not going to use it. If anybody would ask me for a headlight recommendation - definitely the Skilhund H03. Its really good…
Oh boy, not enough time to answer all in detail now.
I have one of these H03's but didn't have time to mod it yet, though I am using it as a headlamp on occasion. I have a fully modded H15 though - switch on top end, 14500 size, and love it! Awesome with NarsilM and the switch LED support. It still could be my favorite small EDC, though the OTR M3 is darn close.
For 85 upgrades from 25's, there's lots of board/driver designs out there that won't work well with the 85, barely work with a 25. DEL introduced circuit design changes that much improve the drivers for both 25's and 85's. 25's are dependent on components working on the edge or outside their spec's.
But NarsilM/85 do all the typical FET only, 7135 only, FET+1, and FET+1+bank support.
NarsilM has both configurable time and temp sensing output reduction, but doesn't regulate output back up when the light cools down.
Unfortunately Richard seems unconvinced with Narsil, and told me e-switch lights have a very low demand compared to power switch lights, so, he hasn't been willing to provide it, but truthfully, his board designs are somewhat outdated anyway - he hasn't been updating his designs based on all the new R&D results DEL has done. I can't explain it all, but I'm sure time wise, it's a huge task for Richard to take on, and be able to keep up with the tech. There's more complexities with e-switch lights, specially throwing in a switch LED, etc.
Thanks for commenting Tom. I’ll do some homework on what will work for me, need to catch up from my side. Regarding the headlights… For EDC purposes, I presume a smaller version is definitely better. I prefer the switch on the H03 as you can support the light with your thumb when clicking - the lights stays kind of stable compared to the side switch. But, thats just me… theres really many things thats makes the H03 so close to perfect for me. Appreciated…
I measured 15.9mm x 1.8mm but my caliber ain’t that accurate so 16mm x 2mm is probably right.
Different sizes in different batch. I have and 15*2 and 16*2 magnets.
My HO3 NW arrived today from gearbest sale a few weeks ago. Very impressive light, havent tried the headband yet, but so far so good, great output and tint.
was just curious about the turbo lumen specs, says 1200 on box and in manual description, but runtime charts in the same manual say 900 for 18650, and 1000 for 2xcr123’s, wondering what is correct? I’m guessing 1200 is the emitter lumens and 900/1000 is after it goes through the optic?