Yes, my mistake, got the words mixed up, meant to say the driver but the word wouldn’t come to me so I just called everything board lol. Why is it such a pain to replace drivers but not the LED boards? I would assume it’s likely the removal process? I could imagine stubborn retainers and things like access being an issue, but other than that it should be a case of just soldering the wires off of the LED’s mcpcb, taking out the old driver, putting the new one in place and then resoldering the wires onto the pcb (3 volt, since the Catapult’s literally the only light I own that uses a 12 volt emitter, I do have a Nitecore EC4S that uses a first gen Cree XHP50, but I’m sure it’s the 3v, 5000k version). Or in the case where you’re replacing both the driver and the LED, I assume the LED already comes mounted in some mcpcb varieties u can choose from, so all you’d need to do is gut the light then drop in the new LED/pcb and solder the driver wires to the pcb then seal everything back up?
And yeah, I’d definitely appreciate a video of you doing the mod, or even just a write-up. (although after doing some writeups myself, I think a video is much easier since all you have to do is record the process and upload that, no having to upload pictures to imgur, copying links, writing down many paragraphs, organizing everything, etc) but whatever is more convenient for you!
I’ve never modified a flashlight before, never even cracked one open, in fact, but I AM handy! I’ve always been a tinkerer, I’ve taken car engines apart and repaired em, as well as taken off transmissions and reinstalled them, done other mechanical work and I was also an aircraft structural mechanic for several years in a Lufthansa MRO. All my work was on the Airbus A320 fam. (so A318’s, A319, A320’s, A321’s). They’re all basically the same, just shorter or longer and they have different door layouts (the longer one would have a door in front of the wing and another behind it vs the rest having them pretty close together) anyway that’s enough derailing, I got some new cells in today and just tried them out a few hrs ago and I’m very impressed. Could only try the 21700’s because the 18650’s didn’t work on my lights because they’re too short AND flat-tops. I think if I just solder a nice blob on the tops I should be good, though. Just need to get my soldering iron back from a friend, texted him tonight n he told me he burnt out my old one so we’ll see how quickly he gets me a replacement. Or maybe I’ll just go out and buy one tomorrow and bill him for it for being a hog hehe, I’d asked for it back several times before.
Anyway, the cells in question are Molicel P26A’s for the 18650’s. They’re INR’s rated for 2600mAh and they’re rated by Mooch for 25A. I think Sony VTC6A’s do 20A but have slightly higher capacity. I went with the Molicels cuz I wanted to try something different and they were a little over 4 bucks a pop.
The 21700’s are the Molicel P42A, 4000mAh minimum capacity and tested by Mooch at a whopping 30 amps continuous, and up to 40A at a 75* cutoff. Anyhow, I tested these in both my Lumintop D2 and my Nitecore MH10S and holy crap, after not even a minute on turbo on the Nitecore, the head got HOT as hell. Definitely not gonna wanna use these cells at full whack for extended periods of time, would likely fry most LED’s I think. Wish I had measurement equipment so I could quantify the difference and share my results here, but it’s very noticeable, specially in how hot the light gets so quickly. Maybe I’ll get the gear eventually if I’m so inclined some day. Thanks for all your feedback btw.