I guess that Iām the only one that is concerned about a 6A current and 24W of heat produced in the head when the battery is reversed. Say I put in a 30Q in a D4 the wrong way, close up the tail and do not check if it works and put it away. The sustainable power for this size light is about 8W so it gets hot fast. Perhaps some part on the driver will go at some point, will it break the circuitry or will it create a dead short?
I think that it would be a good idea for Hank to address this problem.
This is already known. I didnāt know it was ājustā 6A instead of short circuit. Yeah, the light protects itself, but a dangerous situation is created if you leave the light like that. I think Hank already knows as wellā¦
Youāre not the only one. I just donāt have a resolution except to consider this one of the reasons casual users should not buy this light.
Iām actually a bit surprised 6A for 10 seconds didnāt kill the light. The driver PCB is fiberglass, right? So itās not going to take much heat away from whatever component is soaking it up, nor get that heat to the head very quickly so a user can feel the warming, indicating that something is wrong.
Weāve pretty much all known since we were toddlers not to stick screwdrivers in wall outlets. We survive those little holes in the wall, perhaps we can put a battery in a flashlight the right wayā¦
I donāt think he was supposed to reveal it yetā¦ I think Hank wanted to be the one to announce his new product. But Neal can only keep a secret for about 5 seconds.
Iām hoping to do a review soon, if a D4S shows up in the mail. Iām going on a trip soon though, so Iām not sure if there will be time before I go.
I gave Hank some emitter suggestions, but I donāt know if heāll do what I suggested.
Specifically, I told him he could avoid the heat issues of the 90CRI 219c by using 90CRI LH351D instead. And I told him people would really like a 4500K version using two 4000K and two 5000K emitters.
I hope heāll make that happen, but I have no confirmation about it either way.
The reverse polarity behavior was noticed fairly early on, and I notified Hank, but I donāt think he ever fixed it. It doesnāt seem damage the driver, but it can damage the battery.
It appears to be fixed in the D4S. I checked a moment ago, and my DMM measured zero on a prototype with the battery inserted backward. The same DMM measures about 4A to 6A on a D4 with the battery in backward.
First, I just want to note that iamlucky13 currently has exactly 13 posts.
About the driver though, it does have some changes compared to the D4/D1/D1S. I donāt have a production model yet though, so Iām not sure what all the changes are.
It seems one change is fixing the reverse polarity protection.
Thanks for pointing out the previous discussion, I missed it at the time but this afternoon I did find a short discussion without much detail on reddit.
But is there someone with enough knowledge of the driver to point out in what component(s) that heat is generated?
The reason Iām concerned is that I have build D4 with 2700K 90 CRI 219C leds for a lighting enthousiast, but who is new to flashlights. His first question, by email, when he received the D4 that I sent him (with battery and charger) was : āwhat direction should the battery go?ā. He luckily had some sense that he could damage something by inserting it backwards but what direction is automatic for us is clearly not automatic for the rest of the world (he is a pretty smart guy). At that point I told him the right direction and eased his mind that the D4 was reverse polarity protected so nothing would have happened anyway (so later I had to update this story for him).
Thing is that the D4 takes such good care of the battery and the heat by means of the firmware that I did not expect it to have some silly hardware flaw that instantly makes it a dangerous light for anyone not knowledgable about the background of this light (including me even so it turns out).
The guy is smart enough to after the update use his D4 now in a safe way and so am I.
I can at least confirm that the D4S is throwier than the D4, and it has a nice beam with only minimal artifacts. It has a round hotspot, a reflector-like spill area, and then some mild extra junk outside the edge of the spill.
It also has cyan-colored aux LEDs under the optic, 16 of them, which work like tritium vials.
Itās a D4, but sized for a 26650 cell, throwier, and with some other misc improvements.
ā¦
Edit: Oh, um, my prototype uses XP-L HI 3A. Iām not sure how the beam looks with other emitters.
just ordered a Shockli 26650 fm Mtn Electronics for my Rofis MR70, almost ordered two anticipating the D4s.
Butt the D4 was picky about its battery fit, so Iāll wait a bit.
I have Shockliās, black wrapped and blue wrapped LiitoKalaās and the black wrapped LiitoKalaās seem to perform best if absolutes matter.
The Black LiitoKalaās best Efests of dark and light purple, red too. As well as Gold King Kongs and orange MNKEās and green Moliās, KeepPower 5200ās and Basenāsā¦. I, uh, have a lot of cells. The discontinued orange Powerizer LiNiMnCoās were probably the best, a short cell with high delivery. Been out of population for a while now.