FREEME ✌ ASTROLUX EA01 SST40 (2300lm)/ XHP50.2 (3500lm) TIR 26650/ 26350 Flashlight Group Buy - ALIVE!

You really need a clamp meter to measure amps, specially the high amps these lights do nowadays. I've had a UNI-T, think the UT210E model, the one commonly used here on BLF and had a group buy on way back. With the meter I use a 16 or 14 AWG wire to ground the batt- to the battery tube of the light with tailcap removed. If the tailcap springs are not ideal (no bypass), you'll get a bit higher reading then when the tailcap is screwed on. Another reason to add bypasses - always do better than dual springs as well.

Maybe a different optic to better blend the colors? Tonight I’m trying the DC Fix thing 2 ways. One with only the center covered and one completely covered . The center only doesn’t look to change things much concerning the hot spot but that is inside testing only. Any idea what TIR will fit?
Edit:
DC Fix leaving 1/8 inch ring around the perimeter uncovered seems a good compromise of blending without hurting throw much. Can still see a slight purple tint to the hot spot on a white wall but no green. Total coverage killed the throw too much but did produce a nice smooth beam outside.

Tom E, not sure if you're not receiving notifications, but I sent you multiple messages in the past 3 weeks about my calibration light, can you please reply?

Oops, yes - replied.


I posted about this stuff before with the Mateminco MT01, but same in the Astrolux EA01

Plumbers putty - dunno what for, I removed it all:

Hidden messages? Not sure it's a good idea but certainly out of sight for most:

All cleaned up, contact surfaces sanded smooth, MX-4 applied:

Got a little bump in output, didn't expect much: 17.8 amps on a 40T, 4810 (was 4540) lumens at start, 4381 at 15 secs (30 secs had thermal reg kick in), and 67.1 (was 65.2) kcd.

This is with the stock XHP50.2 3V 5700K, and used a bypass on the tailcap spring before and after.

Tom, could you tell me the TIR measurements please. I don’t know where to look but I would like to experiment with some different ones.

I don’t know what that is. I bought a multi meter that has two wires that look like they plug into the meter, then have alligator clips on the other end? Is a clamp meter the one that looks like a “C”clamp attached to the top of the meter itself?

Also, yes I can see the traces now in mcpcbs, and by the looks of your pictures above, the traces are very specific for this one, and how they avoid all of the post holes and cutouts., still haven’t tried to drill post holes on a standard mcpcb, but I will report back with pictures when I do. I’m still thinking about putting a CULPM1 into one of these.

I also use a Uni-T UT210E clamp meter, from reading BLF posts. :-)

However, I don't have many wires lying around. I used to use a slimmer copper wire (I think around 8 inches), which is ok for measuring around 6 Amps, but 10-12 Amps, that piece of wire gets hot.

The "thin copper wire" shown in the following:

I then 'upgraded' to a bit thicker copper wire (which is what I now use for measuring, about 6 inches long maybe), this works ok for measuring around 15 Amps or so, but higher than about 20 Amps, that piece of wire gets hot. Probably means I'm not using an adequate sized wire.

The "thicker wire" shown here:

I'm not sure what's the gauge of the wires I'm using though... What size can work for measuring more than 20+ Amps without the wire getting quite hot?

Can't check now, but I use 14 or 16 AWG, think it's 16 AWG:

As you can see, the clamp meter can work as a regular multi-meter, measuring not just amps, but voltage and resistance. I've measured up to about 30 amps. The meter comes with the black and red leads.

My EA01 killed a good Liitokala 5000mAh. It was sitting with the battery and the switch-leds on for I assume more than a month unattended and now the Liitokala reads 0 V. I’m not trying to recover that.

It appears that the light in standby consumes 5.7 mA (still after a few minutes), which is IMO too much for those two blue leds and in any case 50 times the by Astrolux claimed 0.1 mA.

So another light that always needs mechanical lockout, and I’m not good in consistently doing that :frowning:

Think someone mentioned this earlier? I recall reading it somewhere and struck me odd. Ugh - makes you wonder about the how and who configured Anduril for this light. Anduril doesn't do that high standby drain so suspect it's been altered. Also the driver design of the 7135 on pin#3 and FET on pin#5 is an odd one, and pretty sure wasn't supported with any TK config files.

My blue EA01 XHP50.2 and MT01 SST-40 are now running Anduril 2. I'll check the standby draw but pretty sure it's fine.

I don’t have a clamp meter yet. Are DMM readings worthless for these small numbers? I found the UT210 E for $39. Recommended?

Ok, I'm a bit confused. By small #'s, guess you mean the standby drain? I haven't tried my UT210E on measuring standby drain - I use another meter (another UNI-T model actually), but not sure if the UT210E can do it or not. $39 sounds like a good price - typically it's $50. Can't recall what our group buy price was on it, think about $40.

I know one guy complained the UT210E was crap, and would die on him after a couple months - more than once. For me, I've had mine for years (~4??) and no problems.

Yeah, I want to measure standby current in the EA01 since some seem to drain batteries but all I have is a DMM. It reads 1.2 ma.

Edit: I checked all my other e switch lights and none are in the ma range of parasitic drain. I would consider 1.2 ma high based on that. My only question, shouldn’t I see 2 different values when measuring drain? A higher value and a sleep value? I’m only seeing one steady 1.2 ma drain.

Got my multi meter today! No idea how to even plug the wires in the right spot! Looks like to YouTube I go… Matt smith has a video I think about it…

Which made me think…

Tom E- you should start a YouTube channel. I’d be your first Patron (patreon? the app support thing) I personally think your a top valued member here, and I greedily want you to make videos on YouTube to show us how to learn things lol. (Ok, I’ll stop a kissing). But really, you should. You know, with all the free time you probably don’t have.

Who else rips open their perfectly working brand new flashlights for testing? I second it.

Interesting - I found my post of when I got the UT210E and it was in Jan 2016! https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/37314/93

Over 5 years and still works and looks like new. HKJ review here: https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/47288

That’s good to hear. For some reason I thought the clamp method was preferred to using test leads of a multimeter for measuring parasitic drain.

Nice! Thanks Tom! I’ll check it out. Once I learn about mine.