What did you mod today?

My man cave needs one as well Ck. :+1:

My man mousehole needs one too :+1:

Built my second S2+ triple yesterday. Headline specs:

Desert Tan S2+ Host
Triple Luxeon V 4000K on Led4Power MCPCB with MOSFET and NTC
LED4Power B4 driver
Carclo 10507 TIR optic
Kiriba-ru copper spacer
Both springs bypassed with 20AWG silicone wire
LG HG2 battery

My Nichia 219C triple (in the copper host in the photo) is the first torch I built from scratch, i.e. with a host and collecting all the parts together. I love it, and itā€™s a ridiculous little hot rod. But I felt I could go even further, so after some browsing of led4power.comā€™s site and these forums I saw that the Luxeon V seems like a very efficient and high-power emitter. Iā€™m a huge fan of the S2+ so I decided my next build would be a Luxeon V triple.

The results are quite amazing. It is both brighter and throwier than my 219C triple, as you can see in the photos (same camera settings for the outdoor comparison shots, including the hilariously grainy high ISO setting that I didnā€™t notice on Lightroom Mobile!). I measured 19A with my clamp meter which is roughly the same as my 219C triple, but according to the tests posted here, a Luxeon V at 6 amps is 2000 lumens! Iā€™m not sure if that really equates to 6K of real-life light output with three of them, but it is very impressive nonetheless.

I used the L4P B4 driver and their triple Luxeon V MCPCB with external MOSFET and temp sensor. This means 5 wires to the MCPCB rather than just 2 which made for some fiddly soldering, but it allows for much quicker, more granular temperature control, and more efficient heat dissipation thanks to the external FET. Itā€™s quite a sophisticated little build and it works really well. You can set the temperature stepdown threshold wherever you please with the L4P driver, so I increased it a bit since the stock 65C was quite tame :slight_smile:

All in all, Iā€™m extremely impressed with this build and the quality of L4Pā€™s hardware. Butā€¦ Iā€™m wondering if I can go even better and brighter with the S2+ hostā€¦. What say you all?

Iā€™m jealous of your soldering skills hcanning, those joints look immaculate! :open_mouth:

Iā€™m not gonna lie, they came pre-soldered from L4P, which was a nice surprise as I wasnā€™t expecting them to, nor did I pay for this service. But soldering the 5 wires onto the driver was very fiddly and Iā€™m quite pleased with the results of that (forgot to take photos so youā€™ll have to take my word for it)! My cheapy Amazon iron has done me well over the years and Iā€™ve never had any trouble soldering onto MCPCBs or anything really.

Well done L4P then :slight_smile:
And a very nice mod hcanning, this may be the hottest S2+ one can build these days.

Thanks! Iā€™d love to know if thereā€™s any way of going even hotter for my next build :sunglasses:

Jam 4 of them in thereā€¦ :smiley:

:open_mouth:

Details?!


The inside is well-illuminated :stuck_out_tongue:

Iā€™m afraid I donā€™t understand the external FET reasoning. The FET doesnā€™t typically produce heat, but the emitters on a copper star sure do. Why move the FET from the tame pcb of the driver to the hot MCPCB of 3 emitters? That seems counterintuitive to me.

So much to learn, so little timeā€¦

+1 with Dale, though I've been too embarrassed to ask...

L4P's CC drivers do result in the FET's getting hot though, just seems odd to put it on the known hot MCPCB. Obviously though it must work somehow because I'm sure L4P tests all this stuff out.

Also confused that 150ĀŗF is being called tame, if that doesnā€™t burn blisters on your hand then nothing is going to. If the light isnā€™t too hot to hold at that setting then the thermal path from the emitters is compromised.

To elaborate, I truly do know what 150Āŗ is all about, my driveway gets that hot in the summer here. It WILL burn you!

Mercury thermometer showing an actual 120ĀŗF air temperature on my front porchā€¦

So yeah, Iā€™m confused as to why one would want more heat in a small light.

The FETā€™s in L4Pā€™s driver run very hot, mind that in a 8x7135 driver the burnt off heat is shared by 8 chips, a comparable amount of heat is shed by 1 FET in L4Pā€™s drivers, and more with the modern low voltage leds and triples. So it does not really matter if the MCPCB is already say 60 degC, the heat path away from the MCPCB is so much better than from the middle of a FRP board (unlike 7135 chips, these type of FETā€™s do not have the thermal pad connected to ground but to led-minus!) that the higher temperature of the MCPCB is more than compensated by its better heat path.

Because as soon as the MCPCB hits 65c it gets throttled. So the runtime at max is lower than I know it can handle.

Oh, I fully understand all that, but with my E07 that makes 9300+ lumens set at a mere 50ĀŗC the light gets too hot to touch in 20 seconds. Throttling it down AFTER it gets too hot to hold leaves it too hot to hold for a whileā€¦ the heat dosenā€™t just disappear because the light stepped down. 25A in this one definitely makes for some heat, and this is a larger light with VERY ample cooling finsā€¦ the little tube lights have no such advantage.

djozz, the FET is a direct drive switch of course, as such, itā€™s not shedding any heat but merely passing the current through. Iā€™ve held the driverā€™s between my fingers at full power and they donā€™t burn me, the MCPCB is another story altogether, especially a triple! Granted, Iā€™m talking a standard FET driver and not Nevenā€™s. I have more than a few of his as well and never noticed the driver getting hot, I donā€™t use the external MOSFET set-up.

Of course 8x7135 regulation chips shed heat, theyā€™re regulating what would be 6-8A of current into 3A, that difference has to go somewhereā€¦

I do understand what youā€™re saying. Maybe Iā€™ll try it again at the default setting. It was definitely hot, but not as hot as I am used to from my Nichia 219C triple! I could grab it without losing layers of skin, anyway.

The question was about Led4Powerā€™s drivers, they use different type of FETā€™s in a different way, not unlike 7135 chips, in which they do not just switch on and off, but actually regulate current while burning excess power off. At max unregulated current they are not hot at all, they just let everything through like a switch does, but at half regulated current is when they get hottest.

Ah, ok, that makes sense then. Didnā€™t realize the FET was performing in that way. Thank you for that laymanā€™s explanation. (digesting it with a good Ethiopian coffee. :smiley: )