Sofirn SP36, impressions of a sample

It’s definitely an “in the bag” or maybe a jacket pocket sized light. Still, the power in that package is considerable!

I digress….but….I love Sofirn lights….BUT….I’d be glad to pay extra NOT to have glue on any of them. Now back to reality.

Oh also guys. If it trips the protection PCB on the protected 18650B . I could just remove the protection PCB right? It should be fine yeah?

No offense but do you think it's reasonable to remove the PCB from those cells just to improve the situation a little bit? You still won't be able to run the SP36 at high performance. How about buying 3 good Samsung 30Q or Sony VTC6 for less than 20 bucks? I'm sure you won't regret it.

They shouldn't trip - no way you can get 6A or above out of these in the SP36.

idk the problem is i just bought 3 of those batts so yeah haha

i hope it wouldnt trip. anyways. whats the estimated lumens on turbo for 3 18650B? thanks eh

All I have is old 18650B's, well, because they are an old cell, but even new ones should not perform well in this light, add the protection circuit and it gets worse. I'd guess ~4K lumens, maybe less. Actually that's the good thing - using low capability cells in a light like less produces what you want - less amps, the driver adapts to the resistance of the cells. There's not a straight 1:1 correlation for amps to lumens. Reducing amps from 18A to 12A won't be a 33% drop in lumens, but less, maybe 25-30%. The higher the amps the less efficient these LED's become.

My math and guess may be off a bit here. Looks like djozz measured 4900 lumens, so ~4K may be close.

You could also add resistance by using thinner and/or longer LED wires.

Now I’m starting to wonder if I need to buy myself some 30Q. Will it work just fine? The flat one? I’ve searched everywhere and I can’t find the pin top here. If I use 30Q it should be able to go to max lumens right?

You have to use cells with batt+ contact surface raises, however you get there.

30Q's are great all around - price&performance, and available in BT's from a few sources. I like 35E's for their higher capacity and decent performance, not as good as 30Q's but surprising good in a Q8.

VTC6's will perform slightly better (usually), and of course the 25S and VTC5D are probably the highest performing 18650 cells around.

To get a slight bump in performance, we've been solder blob'ing (boob job) flat tops - I've measured slightly better performance than the add-on button tops, depends on the quality of the BT's - it varies.

So, my hot setup is solder blob VTC5D's (Vapcell branded), but I also got some 25S's but don't think I solder blob'ed enough to try in a Q8.

I guess I’ll wait until it came. Then use my 18650B protected. If it works nicely on turbo. I’ll prob gonna stay and just use it. That way I could prob be able to set the turbo throttling to 7minutes. Since it’s not gonna be that hot … if it trips. Prob I’ll just remove the PCB’s from the batteries. It should work fine yeah? Sorry for nooby questions. It’s just I’m new to all this hehe

I dunno if you are new to Liion batts, but removing the PC is not so simple - need wrappers, all depends on exactly how it's installed, etc.

It seems like simple enough (YouTube has peeps removing the PCB from 19650B’s) . Just basically remove it . It should be fine. Since we still have the green wrapper thingy inside the plastic wrapper that wrapped the PCB. Although it should be fine right ?

Dunno. I've only removed the entire set of stuff, but porbably is simpler way - if the vid looks good, probably ok.

Yeah. I meant the battery itself. It should be fine right? Tho I hope I don’t need to remove those PCBs because they’re really nice hahaha

You live in the US right?

Here are the steps necessary:

1. Remove the protection circuit and wrap to get a bare cell.

2. Get these 18650 heatshrink wraps:

3. Rewrap them inside. Use a heat source to make them smaller, and voilà! You’ve got a rewrapped NCR18650B.

no i live in Indonesia haha. anyways. do i need to rewrap it ? since you know … it still has the green thingy stuck to the bare metal on the battery. so it should be fine right?

Just wrap the bare metal with transparent tape if you really want to remove it.

Actually, just don’t remove the protection circuit.

The Sofirn SP36 will still be much brighter than any light you’ve got at 4000 lumens, even with protected NCR18650Bs.

yeah … i wont remove the PCB’s if the light doesnt trip the PCB’s. but if it trips it. gonna need to remove them PCB’s i guess. what i meant by “is it gonna be just fine ?” is… will the battery be fine? like i guess it should be able to sustain 7-10amps just fine right?

I don't mean to be rude at all, so please don't feel offended but maybe this whole "PCB removal" topic should be discussed separately. We've been talking about the suitability of NCR18650Bs for two pages now and I have the impression we've got stuck here and lost focus on the actual flashlight.