WildTrail WT90 - SBT90.2 1800m+ throw 90mm 3x 21700 With Texas_Ace driver

Huh, so bypassing springs and running high all will effect heat that much? Good to know. And honestly I am really happy / impressed with the stock numbers, I probably won’t even touch or mod this light then. I’d rather have a almost 1million CD 4500-ish lumen light that can run for 5-8 minutes not melting than picking up a 1,000 lumens and dealing with the heat. Just me. I’m sure many would rather hot rod it, but this will be a beast anyway.

Well, I dunno yet for sure, but speculating it will. I agree - stock it's pretty darn good for it's size/weight. The smaller new MF02S (SBT90.2) is 62g heavier.

For me, I'd rather tweak it for best performance with high performance cells because I'd guess you could still get 3 minutes comfortably, and you can always drop down the amps by using lower performance cells with higher capacity.

That’s a great point, so the mods and run lower amp cells or just back off turbo a little sooner. But you still get the lumens. I like it

there is also the option of simply not putting to full turbo unless needed if you are worried about the heat. Fact is that top of the ramp is enough for 98% of real world tasks and will easily keep heat in check.

Tom, I am betting even with high drain cells and bypasses that the light itself will be fine, the cells on the other hand you will want to keep an eye on, they could get a bit warm. In my test they were 75c when I pulled them. Although higher drain cells have lower IR, so they produce less heat themselves but that could be balanced out by the higher temps of the light. So hard to know till it is tried.

True, no need to peg it on turbo.

I did try the charging. The cells were near full and about 1/4 of the center ring of the carrier lights up steady, and another 1/4 blinks 4 times. I believe when it fully charged, the blinking stopped and the 1/2 of the center ring went steady red. Does that sound right? Checked the manual but didn't see any info on charging. Was wondering if the blinks means rough voltage #, like 4 volts.

Ohh, and I really like the yellow switch LED's. It's a bit brighter on one side in room light, but in the dark it lights up the entire ring well, but not 100% balanced. Think they will improve on that in production?

The carrier design is excellent. I hope they don't add those plastic rings around the positive contact brass buttons because it would prevent using stock T50's. T50's have the depressed tops but they are fine in the WT90 as-is.

Also like the standard size 46 mm driver. Just opened it, and wow, those wires are thick! Didn't check yet, but are they 14 AWG?

Also see a slot for a 2nd FET. Think you mentioned before you saw no benefit to 2 FET's in parallel? Looks like a good FET though - an Infineon, gotta check the exact model though.

The pill area is somewhat tight but enough working space for the wires. The brass driver retaining ring is done well - smooth threading, easy access to the driver.

** Hope my boss doesn't come around or read this. Got the light apart on my desk...

I didn’t pay close enough attention to the LED’s during charging to know what they mean. I did notice that they changed as the cells charged indicating things though lol. I don’t know that they have a manual for the charging on the carrier come to think of it, I was not really involved with that side of things.

I also noticed and pointed out the switch LED being uneven, they said they will look into using 2 LED’s for the switch LED in the future but no idea when this would happen. It is a minor detail that is purely cosmetic though.

They decided to go with electronic polarity protection for this light instead of mechanical. It is great in that you can just toss any cell in it but the downside is the higher resistance FET’s in the carrier to make this work.

I think the driver is technically 47mm but you should be able to use a 46mm driver in it. The wires in the prototype are 14AWG, the production version will be 2x sets of thinner wires, not sure on the thickness they will be yet, the thickest they can reasonably fit without shorting out the reflector.

Yes, they didn’t complain when I told them to use the high end Infineon FET so I did lol.

Ooops, the charging just finished and the blinking red LED turned green - makes sense.

Just noticed the threaded ring around the switch is clear plastic and their factory pics show it as well. It was threaded loose and if I tightened it, it activated the switch. Must be a prototype issue.

I looked at the switch PCB and it has 2 LED's: left one is green and much less bright, the right one is yellow and very bright. So probably just adjusting the resistors. Wonder how it will look with the green and yellow at equal brightness.

I must admit I started writing the manual with literally nothing in my hands (except for a side note that WT90 will be using NarsilM 1.3.). Since I did not have the opportunity to have a look at the actual flashlight some information might be missing, e.g. how charging and indication is actually implemented into the carrier. I will be glad to supplement any worthwhile instructions into the manual if I get to know them. However, it might be too late already in case WildTrail has finished the print job.

No prob. Most flashlight manuals don't go into detail much on charging anyway. The red blinking transition to green is the main thing, and pretty intuitive. You already listed the max amps, which I can verify.

Nah, I am not a big fan of 差不多 („cha bu duo“). In other words, I strive for ultimate perfection (typical German stereotype, lol). So, the manual should include anything that is important to know. I hope Jacky can help me to tie up these loose ends. For instance, it is still unknown what accessories will be supplied along with the WT90. As soon as I get some more details on the charging / reverse charging circuit and its indicator/blinky functions I can add another headline and some words about recharging and the powerbank-feature. :-)

BTW: I had a brief chat with Vapcell today. The Lishen LR2170LA 4000mAh battery seems to be a good and inexpensive alternative to Samsung’s 40T battery. Maybe there’s an opportunity that WildTrail can stock up some of these batteries and ship them integrated into WT90. This could be a nice option to those who like to buy WT90 with high drain batteries. Will talk to Jacky about it.

I understand, I'm 100% German heritage - father and all 4 grandparents were born there


:-) :THUMBS-UP:

I assume I have some distant relatives living in Milwaukee, WI. My mother used to be a pen pal with a family member called Irvin many decades ago. Unfortunately, she lost track of him long ago. So much for derailing this thread, haha. Sorry. :-))

Tom or TA -
Do you estimate a drop / significant drop in measurements of lumens and throw due to changing from 14awg wires in the prototype Tom is testing to the production unit? It makes me wonder why they would go with such a THICK wire thickness in the prototype and change it for production. i understand the reflector clearance aspect, but seems like an important change considering output and resistance? Maybe i’m wrong? I just know i’m never going to be changing my driver wires to increase output lol…

Depends, you'd have to do the math/science on this. Probably 2 16 AWG's would do better, but 2 18 AWG's, dunno.

Did some light mods: on 40T's fully charged, actually measured 6280 lumens at start, 5390 at 30 secs (maukka calibrated #'s), and 1027 kcd.

The mods were:

  • tightening up the carrier - screws were a little loose and the nuts on the center shaft were loose
  • added a 20 AWG bypass to the driver spring (did not do the carrier springs yet)

That's like a 6-8% bump, not bad.

That would be great! If I order the WT90, I’ll most likely get it with batteries (assuming the batteries can be shipped to my country… without too much added shipping fee)

I doubt he will be shipping batteries with the lights sadly. He tried to do this with me but it got caught in customs and returned to him.

Not that much of a difference. It arrived with some smaller wires when I first got it and I am the one that installed the 14AWG in it to see the best case scenario as they were having clearance issues and wondering the best option for the wires in a production line setup.

Fitting that 14awg was a big hassle and no way it could be done on a production line, took me like 45 mins of tweaking to get it installed and not shorting out.

That said even with the single thinner wires it came with, I surprisingly only saw minor gains with the swap, something like 5% on my tube. So 2 of the wires they had in it (they didn’t say the size) should close that gap even more.

Overall I don’t see it being a big issue in output on a stock light. Based on that testing.

Thank you for the info TA. Good to know, I just didn’t want to have to start thinking about potentially considering swapping driver wires out, i probably wouldn’t of anyway if I’m being honest.

Ehm, why did I buy these? :innocent:

That’s one too many, Jos. :-P