[Review] 77 Outdoors D25 Headlamp (18650)

Thanks for the review and update on an excellent mod. :beer:

x2! wish I had the time a patience to fool around with doing this sort of thing.

Thanks guys! Oh, and if anyone isn’t up for flashing the firmware but is interested in doing this with their D25, I might be able to send a pre-flashed attiny412 to drop in (once I get the temp calibration straightened up… we’ll see how that goes though, because this thing doesn’t have a very good thermal path to the driver).

Wow, nice mod! Great minds think alike because I bought the same dual headlamp from this Ali store for $14 shipped. All I did was replace the LED's to 4C's for now. I use mine almost every day for bench work - light weight, easy to adjudt, easy UI for me so far, but of course I'd like to get smooth ramping in there.

I had no idea it was sold under other names, least looks the same.

How did you get access to the driver? I can't budge the end cap with the 2 notches - dunno if CW or CCW to unscrew, but either way very, very tight on mine.

Maybe they glued the heck out of mine? Cheaper source of course...

Thanks Tom! And kudos on RampingIOS, I like this headlamp 10x now. I really would like some different emitters, but my only spare XM-L2’s are cool white. I’m kinda waiting to see if anyone gets the 4000K or 5000K SST-40’s in. Those are about the only other 3V 5050 LEDs I can think of unless (outside of those crazy 3V 50.2’s). But I really don’t want to dump a bunch of money in a cheap headlamp.

  1. Unscrew the end cap with the 2 notches CCW. It’s probably just tight. Mine had no hint of glue anywhere. There is an o-ring though that might be contributing to the resistance.
  2. Desolder the LED wires
  3. Using a wooden stick or something, push on the PCBs from the battery tube area

BTW, I’ve seen tear-downs of the single emitter version too. Same/similar driver. But the LED was mounted on our typical 20mm star, makings emitter swaps simple… and optics and option (link). The simplicity of this driver kinda bugs me, though. It’s just a few current limiting resistors being PWM’ed.

Ok, thanx! Yea, scary the way some of these drivers are designed, now that I know more bout them.

I applied a lot of leverage with a decent pair of needlenose and it didn't budge - came close to wrecking the holes. I'll give it another go - maybe clamped in the vise using pine.

I started look'n at some of that review thread - interesting. What I really like bout this headlamp is super light weight even with an 18650, plenty of light, centered beam, centered weight on your head and 1-2 clicks for my mode, 1 click off.

The head strap though constantly loosens, PIA, but probably could use it with a better one.

I though it would have given off more of a wide beam but seems pretty circular - the 2 beams must converge. Does it look the same to you?

Up close (say within the first foot or so) the beam is a bit wider. But once you get further than that away from the light source, a position offset of 3/4” or so doesn’t really make a lick of difference.

Garry has a few disassembly pics at the end of his first post in this thread (as a side note, I see his switch also had a debouncing capacitor+resistor… they must have changed to software debouncing later on). There might be more pics later on, as well. Good luck with getting it apart. You’re trying with the USB cover tightened down towards the emitters, right?


I did it hard way… This is modded ak-47A with 10 step ramping firmware :smiley: :+1: :beer:

I won’t say that porting code to run on a different family of microcontroller is necessarily “the easy way”, but it certainly looks like you did choose a hard (but effective) way! :beer:

Think so... I'm at work right now, maybe in an hour or 2 can take a look. Not sure I understand the importance of having the button/driver end tightened though - maybe I didn't? Oh boy - let me look again.

What kind of driver could it be replaced with? Mine’s elsewhere at the moment, so can’t really check. :neutral_face:

Imagine any driver that takes an e-switch (eg, SP10?) might do it? “Standard” 17mm?

I don’t like resistor-type “regulation”… would be nice to have something more consistent.

Also, the “glue” that holds the mcpcb… hard like epoxy, or rubbery Fujik-like stuff? If the bezel could hold some TIRs in place, a pair of regular mcpcbs can be “floated” on the shelf with regular thermal goop (eg, AS5) once it’s cleaned.

It might not really matter, just worth a shot if nothing else is working.

I’m not sure if much will be very “drop in” worthy. I thought about designing a driver for it, but I’m not sure if it’s really worth it at the moment. The MCPCB adhesive seems to be the rubbery white stuff. I think a TIR works in the single emitter version, but not really this one. I dunno, maybe some small AAA light ones would work.

Hmm…

I just measured the reflectors: 15.9mm wide by 7.0mm tall. I haven’t shopped for TIRs much. Is something close to that available?

I tried a few more times, lot more force in a wood lined vise and nothing. Almost broke my best needlenose, and I got an adjustable spanner tool - bent the points on it, then sanded the off to get a better fit in the holes, got plenty of leverage and only accomplished some deep scratches off the holes. Mine seems to be sealed solidly, but it's still fine to use as-is.

:cry:

Stock “20mm” TIRs sometimes actually run about 21mm. I’ve only really seen 20mm and 26mm (barring triples/quads), but someone mentioned another light that took smaller TIRs.

I wonder if boring out the bezel a coupla mm would let regular TIRs fit…

Well here ya go…

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/5050-LED-Lens-Diameter-17mm-45-degrees-CREE-XML-T5-T6-U2-Lens-XLamp-XM-L/2035917021.html

Little doodads around the periphery and at the pointy end, can probably be shaved down a bit to fit the bezel nicely.

7bux (+3bux shipping) for a 20pak. Gee, that’s enough for 10 headlamps…

Eh, wotdahell. Ordered a pak of the 60s…

I was actually glancing at those. I think the diameter will be fine with a little sanding, but I’m concerned with the height. I’m curious to see what comes of them. Let us know (in a month or so!)

Wellp, with TIRs in there, I ain’t gonna need the front glass, so that’s at least a mm gone. I figure it should fit as-is for the most part.

Worst case, lap the living Hell out of the back of the replacement mcpcbs.