I present you with Giggles, the most hardcore BLF thrower in the World.

LED Flashlights – General Info 18650 Flashlights
88

I have been working on an XHP70 version of Giggles for awhile now. I first tried a normal XHP70 but it has a bad cross in the middle of the beam and the performance was just ok. Not worth keeping in the light it was so ugly.

I just got my first xhp70.2 thanks to Lumintop and here are the results:

I just posted the XHP70.2 P2 4000k test here: XHP70.2 P2 4000k Output test by Texas_Ace - it's over 9000!! lumens and still going strong!

It was so powerful that for the first time my my CPU heatsink could not keep up. The results above ~18A I think could have been slightly better with a better heat sink.

I also played with the focus some as well and it can be improved, although the prototype mcpcb needs a wire running on the surface and that keeps me from getting the reflector any lower. In testing with the external LED I think the beam would be improved some by lowering the reflector a bit more.

That said even with the reflector setup like it is now, it is still perfectly usable. The middle of the hotspot is just a bit darker at range.

Now for what ya’ll really want to know, what are the numbers?

As you can see from the above thread, the lumen output at 5A is just over 7,000 lumens! (more on a cold start)

I have a 40mohm sense in it right now that gives me a max of 6A in turbo and 4.8A at the top of the ramp. At 6A it is almost 8000 lumens!

The driver does get properly hot at 6A. 5A looks like it will be ok long term though. he nice thing is that the Narsil thermal regulation can act as a safety for the driver in this situation if the thermal calibration is not reset too high.

Measured throw in my less then ideal Texas conditions are about 1250m of throw at 5A and a bit over 1300m at 6A.

Although that could change with final focusing.

Overall, I REALLY like the xhp70.2 in the GT. I will try to get some beamshots when I have some free time but it basically just looks like a larger version of the stock xhp35 beamshot at close range.

At longer range it does have a bit of a dark spot in the middle of the hotspot but not enough for me to not use it. Some focusing might improve that as well, gonna have to wait until dark to see what the changes I made today did.

I will be leaving the prototype with the XHP70.2 for sure. Although I also have an 80CRI version sitting here that I think I will try out.

As far as the parts needed, it would be much easier if lumintop releases a pre-made mcpcb or if we make some ourselves.

Right now it is using a modded version of the SD75 mcpcb, others have mentioned that maxtorch might have a better mcpcb option.

This is the design I sent to lumintop awhile back:

Then you naturally need the XHP70.2 LED. RMM has some Cree XHP70.2 P2 4000K on DTP MCPCB

And the sense resistor, a R050 2512 will put you just under 5A in turbo and be a little easier on the driver. An R047 will put you right at 5A but is a little harder to find.

89

I’ve always had a hard time calculating parallel resistor values, but am I right to think that 2 R100 stacked would give me the same value?

I’ve got R080, R100 and R120 on hand.

90

How much is this thing gonna cost? It’s a pretty insane light!

91

The GT group buy is still open. If you sign up it will cost $155 including shipping. The retail price will be about $250.

92

Hi guys, I want 1. The information on group buy is too extensive. Is there a way where you pay down payment via paypal invoice and pay balance once product is ready for delivery?

I have paypal ready, but I do not log on here much so I will not be able to see all updates.

Please make it a little simpler.

Thanks.

93

Cool thank for the heads up!

94

With the now updated China paypal fees (vs US fees we calculated at first) the total came to $157 and change IIRC, otherwise that is correct.

95

These are much larger then the normal 1206 sense resistor. These are 2512 (so they are as wide as the 1206 are long).

That said you are correct, you can stack to R100 to get an R050.

96

Simply go to the thread in the above link and ask to be added to the list. You will be added to the list on the next update (CoyoteHawk is keeping an updated list at the moment).

You will be in the 3rd batch of lights that should ship early next year. You will get a PM with the payment details here on the site when it is time to pay.

Setup your email address on your BLF account to be notified when the PM arrives.

97

Dang, the ones I have are 1206. I thought they were bigger.

It seems like I saw a picture of the driver circuit somewhere, but can’t find it. Do you have any pics?

98

Del posted several somewhere in the GT thread. I have a few of the back side of the driver, not sure if I ever took some of the front.

99

Here is the driver. That sense resistor reminds me of clown shoes. Rediculously large! Lol

Full size picture.

Here is the thread post with the picture in it.

.

100

Linky no worky.

101

Ok, my decision to slice the dome off was kind of made for me. I was trying different focus points and at some point something got on the LED and started the dome burning.

So I went ahead and sliced the dome off to get rid of the burn. Not my best slice by any means, my Soldering iron died today (yay, now I have to find a replacement that will not cost a ton and get here this year) so I could not remove the mcpcb from the light and it was hard to get the razor in the right position.

Still even with a less then perfect slice the results are way different then I expected. I thought the days of 50% gains from de-doming were behind us?

Turns out they are not.

With the dome on I got 450 Kcd for 1337m of throw :wink: :wink: :wink:

With the sliced dome I got a stinking 700 Kcd for 1680m of throw!

So the GT now matches the best throwers on the market with 2x the lumens and an XHP70.2 LED!

Now for the results.

I am not sure what the lumen loss was as I can’t test the GT all put together but you can figure there is some loss, still over 6k if I had to guess.

The darkspot in the hotspot has been virtually eliminated now, only if you really look close will you notice it.

The only con to this is the tint shift, the tint shift around the corona grew significantly in both size and harshness with the slice.

Not unbearable but noticeable now compared to before when you could ignore it. White wall hunting is not it’s strong point like this.

Now it is possible some refocusing could improve this, it did with the domed emitter. Or using a cooler LED for the slice, a 5000 or even 5700k could work better but I don’t remember seeing any 5000k high bin XHP70.2’s in my searching.

I will play with the focus later and see what it does.

Wow, I am still amazed at the results, I didn’t even expect this much out of it. Goes to show what kind of performance you can expect when modders get ahold of this thing.

102

It worked yesterday, but it’s an unusual url. It does not end with a file extension like .jgp, .png, etc… Anyway, I posted a link to the post DEL made that he put the picture in. It seems to be working. If not, I’ll host it myself. :slight_smile:

Edit: Oh snap! The url changed. Maybe his host Dropbox changes the url every now and then.

103

Dropbox is funny like that. You can still ‘steal’ the link by quoting the post and copying the link text:

Note that the picture is a rev00 driver (and the only built sample is with me). Production units have rev04, not much functional difference and identical BOM though.

6 A is about as high as the stock components can take. Bottlenecks would be the inductor, FET and that sense resistor. At 6 A the FET and Rsense see about 1.4 W of dissipation each. Inductor is good for 6.5 A on paper, 5.5-6 A in that application.

For Rsense, the LED current is approximately:

I = (0.25/Rsense) - 0.15

Rsense is 0.091 ohm stock for ~2.5 A. Just stack a 1+W 0.1 ohm on top of it to get ~5 A. Garden-variety 1206s are typically only good for 1/4 W, so not up to the task.

104

Yeah, the IR gun was showing those components getting up around ~105-110c external temps at 6A, so figure higher at the junction. Still within reason but I would not use it in turbo for long periods like that.

The nice thing is that the ramp stops at 4.8A so you can use that most of the time and just use turbo, for well, turbo.

105

Nice, it’s working again. I also added a link to the full size picture if anyone wants more detail.

106

Del, since your here I wanted to ask something.

Can you briefly explain in layman’s terms how this driver works?

It has a FET, but it’s not a direct drive light. It seems to maintain a set maximum current (2.5A) as long as the voltage stays above 13.5v? This is called “in regulation”, right? Then below that voltage “out of regulation” the max amperage starts to drop. Correct?

Sorry for sounding like a newb. I missed all the early development of the GT.

107

Its a proper ‘buck’ driver.

The FET is pulsing the inductor and the inductor, by nature, outputs a DC current proportional to the duty cycle of the FET. (Not to be confused by the PWM output of the tiny85.) The inductor is the big black cube on the board, and is basically copper wire coiled around a ferrite core.

The brains of the buck operation is that small chip sitting next to the sense resistor. The tiny85 simply generates a 0-1.24 V ‘set-point’ for the buck chip. The buck chip compares this set-point with what it measures across the sense resistor and then does its thing to put out the requested amps.

Some things to note:

  • There is some PWM happening in the driver, but for most output levels the LED current is almost pure DC
  • To get to the very low modes, it does output PWM to LED (modes below 10%, or 0.25 A). This is under the control of the tiny85 when we go PWM and when we go DC, so there is flexibility here for people doing their own firmware.
  • Battery current is not same as LED current. Like for a transformer, the ratio depends on input vs. output voltage: Iled = Ibat * (Vbat/Vled) * Driver efficiency
  • Driver efficiency is around 92%, depending again on voltages
  • The FET is a p-type, not our typical n-type. It is being pulsed at up to ~600 kHz, so it also needs to be much faster than our typical ‘direct-drive’ FETs.

110C, ouch , that is getting up there. I guess the driver was not screwed down at the time? At 80 W output the driver has about 7 W of heat to shed. Screwed down into the head with the retaining ring will make all the difference.