Hi Hank. Random question. How do you prevent particles from getting on the reflectors/lens when you assemble? Is your lab pressurized? Any recommendations to help prevent contamination? Thanks.
I think this is the common issue for the B35AM LED itself, the MCPCB is the best that we can produce, and there is no soldering issue whatever.
The LED will not die at high current (3.6A), but the smoke will come out on turbo mode.
We plan to reduce the current of the B35AM LED, this is the only way to prevent the smoke, only that the output will be reduced as well unfortunately.
Well just received My D1 mini B35AM 4000K (cold white aux), and I can confirm that it's smoking on turbo. But to be honest it doesn't bothering me at all. It even look nice, as the smoke swirls inside the reflector.
There's a visible tint shift, from low to high mode. opple measured around 250K shift, from around 3800K on low to around 4050K on high. opple isn't very accurate, so I average it measurements (take it with a grain of salt).
Turbo - 5.6A
Moon - 7030µA
Aux off - 67µA
Aux on Low - 76µA
Aux on High - 260µA
it jumps +200µA every 8 seconds or so for brif moment, from my understanding, that's just the driver waking up to check the voltage.
And well, to be honest, it's not so smaller than my 21700 flashlights...
the beam is quite nice, but the spill diameter is rather tight compared to my other flashlights.
Well, you were right. I think it settle on the reflector, when I had it laying on my desk yesterday, so it settle on half of it for now. The other half of the reflector looks mostly OK.
Yeah that is not how the reflectors should look like. Don't Turbo B35AM guys.
Tested it for 15 minutes...
It's ok at top of default ramp, no smoke on my unit. So just don't Turbo.
But do test it and adjust the max ramp, if you have a smoke on yours.
Ps. I'm starting to look at it, as I look on the FW21 Pro XHP50.2, that can literally desolder itself if you turbo it couples of times...
Turbo is there, but don't use it if you don't have to.
Wow… I didn’t notice the smoke on the reflector first, but I see it now. I put the photos by kokosnh posted here and put it side by side and marked what I think has been caused by the smoke.
Maybe I should smoke the LED without the reflector first until the smoke stops? Does the smoke stop after a while? My D1 with B35AM is in the mail.
I think the manufacturers of these aluminum coated reflectors spray some kind of sealant on the inside to prevent the aluminum from oxidizing, and that’s what you see when you turn on the light at a high level. I have seen the same stuff on a Malkoff P60 dropin so I’m pretty sure it’s that.
Also that is the advice Hank gave me to deal with the smoking. I just kept turboing with the lens/bezel/reflector off until the smoke stopped. Set the temperature limit higher than what you actually want so you can be sure it can’t smoke again when you actually use it. I set it to 50C and then keep it at default, 45C, normally. The B35AM didn’t seem to be damaged by this at all.