Second Generation Silver Plated High Current Beryllium Copper Springs and 95+CRI SST20!

Me too

Received mine.
Thank you

@shirnaks and MikeMacD, I shipped tours last Wednesday, so should take about 1-2 weeks more before you guys receive.

@808Hi, seems you have the fastest US postal service. :slight_smile:

:+1:

thanks

The rest of the new orders will be shipped tomorrow.

I’m also in the plan of making a 3rd gen spring with one very nice differentiation.

Basically, we will be using multi-layer plating!

It will be a nickel-copper-nickel plating.

Just to make sure people aren’t worried, this isn’t an downgrade from the silver plating.
In fact, it’s an upgrade.

That is because the TOTAL layer thickness of the silver is around 17-20um as I wanted it to be. I could have gone thicker at 20um+ as initially specified or even higher as Pirx, but the cost per spring became a bit prohibitive. So that change was mostly done for lower contact resistance along with slightly higher conductivity.

However, with a nickel-copper-nickle plating, it can be changed quite easily.

With a total layer thickness of 50um(25um per side, which is easily doable since we can use the whole surface area of the spring wire), we could get a massive, relatively to the nickel and silver plating, performance boost.

It would be akin to adding 0,130mm of thickness to the existing 1,0mm BeCu wire, but without the thickness impacting full compression height.

We would be gaining a 27% gain in terms of conductivity.

I am also going back to the old design, with only a tweak to the top diameter to get more conical compression.
Otherwise, that would mean we would go from an approximate resistance of 9mOhms down to an impressive 7,1mOhms.

Other than that, I have some other good news, but I’ll be writing about it later on.

Thanks for the update! :+1:

I’m interested in the 3rd gen springs

Excellent.

On another note, I shipped the springs orders today, which included yours, but went after 5PM, so will be sent tomorrow.

I will also try to an experimental electroplating process to plate lights with different variations of metals.

If it actually works, then I have a nice opportunity for a copper plated Thorfire TK15, BLF Q8, FW3A, etc.

That would just be dope, especially since the copper/nickel/silver layers could be as large as 50um thick, which would make for a super durable coating.

I could also try chromium, but I don’t want La Sureté du Québec kicking on my door, and myself to die of cancer a few years later.

What about a batch with gold plating. Any idea the price?

The cost would be:
Oof

But, it would be a nice idea for a much more expensive spring.

Nickel-copper(50um)-Gold plating for the best setup possible.

According to Engineering Toolbox, both Copper and Silver have better conductivity than Gold. The only advantage Gold has is that it doesn’t tarnish or corrode.

Also, when not tarnished/corroded, a silver plating is actually better in terms of contact resistance and conductivity.

Gold would be the best option for no oxidization or resistance to sulfur degradation(tarnish), but would be prohibitively expensive for “small batches”, since there is a MOQ for gold salts used in electroplating.

Something like this would be dope though, although I would not like to see the cost per spring at that point:
Flash nickel-Silver(50um)-Gold(10um)

Hopefully mine will show up this week. Already have a project awaiting them. I’m excited. Ever priced a braided wire spring? Bet those would be high. Would look awesome in a custom light though.

Actually, no, but the work involved probably makes the cost prohibitive, especially in developed countries.

On that point though, the best we can get in terms of springs contacts, for now, are dual BeCu multi-layer plated springs, meaning we are limited to 20-23A of current.

I’ve been looking into other solutions that can handle even higher currents, but designing one that can fit a standard flashlight and multiple cell sizes will be very challenging, and I’m venturing into completely new territory.

Even then, just asking if multi-layer differential metal plating was available for electroplating to the spring company made them surprised, and they had to go and ask the electroplating company directly.
The response itself was even more surprising since they said very few companies, let alone individuals, do different metal multi-layer electroplating, since it’s mostly reserved for very high performance stuff, and most companies prefer using the standard nickel/silver/gold plating.

Back on track, just designing the current springs took a lot of time, math, research and effort, so this next one would be the real challenge.

If I could manage to do something like this myself, then it would make bypasses a thing of the past.

What do you mean by this?

A design that can equal spring bypasses even in the most extreme of cases, that can fit standard flashlight tailcaps, driver side tailcaps, etc.

Even dual BeCu springs hit their limit at extreme currents(23A+), and spring bypasses become worth it if you have the battery and light setup to push past that.

Meaning with a 20700/21700, it becomes viable again to use spring bypasses,

I want to equal spring bypasses in every way possible. That is my goal!

This isn’t my final goal though. I didn’t exactly tell people here that I’m not only looking to make springs for flashlights, and
I’m designing something else too which does use springs, but something that ends up being more… impressive.

Received mine, thanks Blue!
Will be in for some gen 3 when available, look forward to following your exploits in getting to that stage.

I think that’s a fair description of the lights you’re designing these springs for :smiley:

Yes, but they were surprised I was doing it for flashlight springs.

What most companies do is just straight up doing multiple baths.

It does end up in thicker platings, but can get extremely expensive, and plating time becomes slower as the layer becomes thicker.

Doing multi-layer differential plating is something that can be used to bypass that, but being more complex and requiring more calculations, apparently, most companies don’t bother doing this, except for very high performance stuff as mentioned before.

Seems like flashlights spring are going on the bleeding edge :slight_smile:

Mine arrived! My wife was standing there and tried to confiscate some of them because they are so pretty, saying she could make something out of those. I bought her off with the promise of a new flashlight. (She didn’t know that one of the FW3A’s on my list is for her anyway)

My wife and daughter both agreed they’re very pretty… almost jewelry. But, when I asked my wife if she wanted a couple of them to wear as earrings, she didn’t hesitate to turn down the offer. She’s not really into “unusual” or “interesting” jewelry. Oh well. :laughing: