The 93mm version of the Ultrafire C3 Stainless Steel is being shipped from Lightake for those of you interested. I just got mine a few days ago and although it did need some work I am very happy with it. It has a red driver board and if you listen really hard all the light modes are PWM so it is regulated on high and not just direct drive, well at least with NiMh. The color of the light is nice and white maybe a little greenish but i'm color blind so who knows lol. I don't have any of the early 93mm versions or a 98mm version to compair this to but I will say I did have to work on mine. The mode memory takes forever to kick in but that is fixable with a 100k bleeder resistor on the capacitor that feeds pin one of the Atmel cpu. Also I had to shave a little rubber off the post on the rubber button that actuates the clicky to keep mine from flickering from a half depressed clicky, and now it will tailstand perfectly as well as no more flickering or delay at power on. I think that shaving this post might solve the delay at power on so many ppl have because mine would also delay until I shaved down the rubber post.
Jesus! 1 month and a half to get the items... crazy...
Sounds like the one you've got is indeed the same as the old 93mm version. Let's hope the ones shipped now and in future are the same.
The startup delay doesn't have anything to do with the clicky though, it also happens without tailcap (shorting body and battery).
Welcome to BLF! :)
Welcome to BLF, BlueBeam! Thanks for joining, and thanks for the mini-review.
By the way, you can directly post the link to the light if you want to, you won't be banned for that around here. 8)
Aloha and welcome to BLF BlueBeam!
Can you show a pic of the cap mod? Seems straightforward but nice to have a sanity check before I try to attempt it. Thanks.
BTW, does a bleeder of that resistance more or less work well to fix the mode memory of these lights in general, or do you scale it according to how long the light seems to wait before it remember the mode?
I'm sorry but I can't take any pics of the mod, I already have the light assembled. If ppl have a hard time finding the cap I will take some pics though. Like I said mine is the 93mm version with a red driver board, the cap is C3 and it is near the black LED hookup wire. I used an SMD 100k ohm resistor but there is room in there for like a 1/8 watt carbon resistor if that is all you have. Anywhere between say 47k and maybe 200k would be a good value. If the light takes minutes turned off for memory to work use lower value and if it takes say one minute or less use a higher value. I wouldn't use anythink below 47k though. This mod should work in general with any light that has to stay off very long for the memory to work although the cap would be a different part number if the light used a different driver of course.
I wasn't sure I was gonna be posting anything I've just been here lurking. I'm really not a forum kinda guy by you all seem like a great bunch of folks and I have learned alot and feel as though I can contribute some useful info as well. As for the taking a month and a half to get the light it was shipped on the 28th of sep. (just checked) and I got it a week ago and it was actually a free reward from lightake for helping them solve a coding issue with their webpage!
Thanks for the welcome I'm glad to be here!
Thanks BlueBeam.
Man did I have a brain fart last night lol . Now I understand why you guys thought it took a month and a half for me to get my light. I just seen that I said September instead of October. The light was shipped on the 28th of October so it was pretty fast shipping really.
I also wanted to say that the delay problem in the Ultrafire C3 SS might also be caused by the cap #C3 which I added the bleeder resistor to. As I was solving the memory issue with my light I had noticed that C3 had 2 caps in parallel. These caps were staying charged for quite some time after the light was off so I figured they would be responsible for memory function since they were connected to the input pin of the cpu and the light had to be off for a long period for memory to work so I removed one of the caps that were in parallel and tried the light and boy did it act stupid! Sometimes it would come right on and sometimes it had a delay at turn on and sometimes it would switch modes properly and other times it would just come on in one mode after a delay and wouldn't switch modes at all. The cap I removed was 10mfd out of circuit and the total capacitance of both caps while in circuit was 15mfd. So all you guys out there with a Stainless 93mm C3 with a red driver board that has the delay this might solve your problem. And without a doubt the 100k bleeder resistor across c3 will solve slow memory function!
My old (DX) C3 SS 93mm have also the red driver, but no problem with the memory.
Remember the last mode used last only 1.5 to 2 seconds...may be a defect in this production run.
My rubber button is also shaved, although this has not solved the short delay in the On.
Is seen that all the flashlights bought in China are different. lol
Wellcome.
Hey bluebeam, are you sure it's pin 1? Pin 1 seems to be RESET or other functionality, vs pin8 which is VCC/power.
Agenthex maybe it is pin 8 I really didn't look too closely at the board or the parts really and I didn't examine it in that much detail as there are so few components. Some component manufactures mark the first pin on there IC's and some mark the last pin on there IC's and I didn't look up a data sheet on the IC. I'm pretty sure the pin in question was the one that was marked and I just figured it was pin one but as I said I really didn't pay much attention. It only took me all of 5 minutes or less to decide what approach I was gonna take to try and fix the memory issue. The cap in question though is marked on the board as c3 and if you are veiwing the atmel chip the chip will be right side up and the cap is located to the bottom left pin of the atmel near the black wire. I have found out there are at least 2 red drivers being used and a black driver with "wy" printed on it but I think it is in the 98mm version. Here is a pic of the one in my light. Notice the trace in the top part of the red if your light don't have that it is different and so my instructions won't work.
Well I don't know how to upload a pic so if someone will tell me then maybe I can be of more help.
To insert a picture, click the "picture" icon next to the anchor icon in the post box/bar. It does need to be a url, so if it's on your hard drive only you need to upload it to some free image hosting service. If can't get it to work, no prob. Your description is decent.
Thanks.
Well I uploaded a pic to freeimagehosting.net and used all 6 of there different links to post the pic and none of them will work so here is a link to where i think the photo might be veiwable lol....http://www.freeimagehosting.net/image.php?7488e5e3e6.jpg
Right click on the actual image in the browser and choose something like "copiy image location". You're probably pasting in the html page url above instead :)
Agenthex I don't have that option in my right click menu. I really am not this stupid to figure out something so simple. When I uploaded the pic to that site it gave me the code to use but none of it worked so I don't know.
Thanks for posting the pic for me though.
Is your driver the same as mine?
Ok I figured it out. There was too much info in the codes gave to me by the site so I just posted the root location.
Wow I had to pick a giant picture!
You can resize the image by going to the image posting dialog's advanced properties and using a smaller size (like 800x600).
And my driver looks the same as yours. Both my two irons are broken (missing tip on one, cable to station glitchy on other) so I won't be able to do anything until I get some parts for them.
Some of the red drivers don't have the circuit trace like yours and my light and I suspect that those are also the drives that burn up when using a 3.7 volt cell.
I'm sure you will have no problem locating the capacitor. But if you are in question about the cap location and are going to mod your light you can post the pics and I can point out the cap. I would be happy to do that! That will keep me from having to disassemble my light to take the pics.