Could be the cells, could be heat. If I can rig up a current probe, I can stick it on the lightbox and measure current from the cell. Still can't get the meters to play nicely with Linux so that I can log more than one thing at a time.
No, I'm a Mac guy but have Solaris, Linux, Windows boxes around. Until earlier this year, I was planning to replace my Linux fileserver (with 11 year old hardware in it) with a box running Solaris and ZFS.
These days a fileserver is a lot less necessary than it used to be with cheap external hard drives and a gigabit network.
The software is not great - internally the meter appears to have some sort of strange UART in it, with a USB converter half-heartedly bolted on. The meter appears to be a rebadged Peak Tech 4390
The place I got it from no longer sells it unfortunately and has deleted the links to driver updates.
"The software is not great - internally the meter appears to have some sort of strange UART in it, with a USB converter half-heartedly bolted on. The meter appears to be a rebadged Peak Tech 4390"
Oh the old trick of a old standard serial communication system spit in the face by a half assed usb to rs232 converter... which probaby install itself each time you change the usb port. :/ (COM port 22 and counting...)
Ordered YJ J01 at the first glance. Cancelled my KD C8 order as I built my own C8 last night. It was hard to find some space in a C8 body and the pill is crushing under pressure now. I hope this 1cm longer Eastward is better. 3 modes are still High, Mid, Strobe unfortunately.
Which 18650 battery did you use to test tail-cap current and how accurate is your meter?
The reason I ask is that I have several flashlights that are claimed to be driven in the 2,500 mA to 3,000 mA range, however when I check them at the tail cap I only get 2.0000A to 2.2793A (my KD Cree XM-L T6 drop-in) with my Fluke 189 digital multimeter with fully charged TrustFire Protected 18650 3.7V True 2400mAh Rechargeable Lithium Batteries
The meter's a very battered Fluke 77 Series 3 though the leads are aftermarket DX ones. There is a place locally that would calibrate it for me. At four times what I paid for the meter! I own several meters so I can easily measure it with something else. The Fluke is the one I trust most.
The cell used was a Trustfire unprotected 2500mAh - I seem to have hit on a good batch of those when I got 6 of them a couple of years ago.
I can easily redo the measurements with different cells and meters. Might be interesting for my own confidence in them.
I finally recieved my XM-L from KD with the skyray host for 25,55USD. Did the foil trick. Left it tailstanding at full brightness on desk for about 10min. It is scorching hot! Draws 2,86A.
I think exposing lithium batteries to 60C or more is a bad idea. Maybe on my bike it will hold on high.
Which 18650 battery did you use to test tail-cap current and how accurate is your meter?
The reason I ask is that I have several flashlights that are claimed to be driven in the 2,500 mA to 3,000 mA range, however when I check them at the tail cap I only get 2.0000A to 2.2793A (my KD Cree XM-L T6 drop-in) with my Fluke 189 digital multimeter with fully charged
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You are using the stock probes and those not work at low voltage high current, usually those has 200 to 300 miliOhm and that is too much.
Try 10 cm long thick wires, mine MTE-F15 take 2,750 A with the TF flames cells from DX
I have one from long agao that serverd me really well. Not Fluke granted but probes aren't the cheapest available. I tried sticking decent gauge wire directly to test the difference. It was in the margin of error. Granted never tried anything above 1,4A untill today.
The cell was an unprotected sony 18650 i scavenged from a almost new laptop. The laptop was left at the shop when we told the guy it is beyond repair. (The laptop was thrown out of the window of a running truck). The reasony why is still unknown to me. I did thank him for the cells with a coffee tho.