I read this from the start and admire you for your generosity, not only on this one but for all your other mods you have done for people on this and I presume other forums. I hope all the girls at your better halfs party know that you are a very sharing BLF D__K. (Trying to keep it clean).
I try to keep it a secret because they think I am a DorK
Thanks how2. This may end up an expensive lesson in failure but I will enjoy it either way and hopefully either impress or give you guys a laugh. Cheers.
I expect pics and/or vids. If it doesn’t look like “Project X” we will all be disappointed.
Thanks for reminding my of that movie. :)
love your work that pill is sweet as !
With your assistance the battery charging is almost 100% handled now by a hobby charger. Without your help and persistance with silly questions this would probably not have happened and I would be a little richer.
I had the flashlight apart today to draw up the new pill for the driver on order. Bugger, the maximum diameter of the pill can be is 26mm, the 5 amp driver I ordered is 26mm diameter. Another has been found on ebay so without Mrs Mooses (the better half) permision has been ordered.
Here is a picture of the pill I took while I had it apart with the plastic fruit juice insulator and baking paper insulator. Surprisingly the plastic was barely marked let alone starting to melt. Hopefully this is a sign that the pill is getting rid of the heat efficiently.
Thanks for the kind words, sorry about costing you money but it is a investment you will use for years to come.
Very nice looking pill you machined up there. A little trick I’ve used over the years when soldering to something that massive…
Put the pill in your oven at about 325F (160C) at let it sit for a while so the heat soaks all the way through. Take it out of the oven (CAREFULLY!) and immediately drop the driver in and solder it. It will solder very easily. Cool it off as quickly as you can without quenching it (compressed air or a good fan).
PPtk
Thanks PilotPTK. I will try this next time which would of been this weekend but Techjunkie and a few others have told me to take the weekend of. I was almost thinking of a small blow torch to heat it with but this sounds a lot more rational and cheaper.
I was tossing up whether to post this or not, but after reading Ledsmokes little adventure into over driving an XRE led on copper I thought why not share my dissapointment.
The driver in question was advertised as 5 amps. Thinking I would get maybe 4 to 4.5 amps out of it in this light the purchase was made.
I have only used this driver for a very short period of time so will not comment on durability. A good point though is that this driver does not hum on any mode unlike the driver in the JM05 mod.
This thing puts out 6 Amps roughly at the led. Not what I was hoping for.
left to right. Stock pill and driver. Pill in this mod. Pill and 2.8/9 driver in above mod.
Driver in this mod. Double springs for positve. XML U2 2s tint led.
This reading is with 2 King Kongs in series. I was hoping for about 2 amps. Consistant reading with 2 other DMM's.
New driver on medium. 2amps output.
New photo taken at the same time as the rest of the pictures here. Old driver from above mod. 2.8 Amps output.
Last but not least, the driver from hell. After looking at this picture and comparing it with the above shot, I thought that the led I used was a different tint as the color was washed out (it was purchased at a different time so may be from a different batch) but then I noticed that the shot taken on medium was the correct color. If you compare the leaves on the plant to the left in the picture you can see the difference in brightness between the different currents.
New driver on high. 6 Amps output.
It would of been nice to have something around the 4 amp mark fior a comparison but no luck. In the future for the sake of it I will do run time temps and take shots with the light on at different intervals to check sag as I dont have a light meter.
To sum up, if this driver is reliable I would suggest that it may make a good driver in a 3 led flashlight. Current at the tailcap running two x King Kong batteries in series in this flashlight was .15 amps low, 1 amp medium, and 3 amps high.
Are those trees on fire in the last pic?lol nice design on that pill too MRsDNF,I don't know how I missed this thread but all I have to say is well done.That pill is a beast and should be able to soak up some serious heat.
Hi Bob K. Unfortunately I dont know where else that you can get this driver from. To find this one I seached for 3 mode SST 50 driver. No hassle what so ever from the shop I got it from. There is another driver that I have used that is 3 mode 5 amp. In low and med it has a slight buzz coming from it and the modes are not spread as well as this one. Its shorter but a lot larger in diameter.
http://kaidomain.com/product/details.S020121
I used this one here. Again I have only had both drivers for a short period of time so can not report if there going to be reliable or not. What was your intended use and good luck in your search.
https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/9867
I read yesterday from memory that E1320 had run this flashlight at different currents with a single cell and there was no difference in light output running it at 3.8 amps from, I cant remember what amps he was comparing it to edit (found it, post 215 and 220 https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/8279?page=4 ). Dont quote me exactly on this as I could not find it again. At 2.8 amps I would say that out walking in the bush that this light has a good usable light way past 200 meters. Stepped out at 250 long strides. I will have to see what this thing is like in comparison on the same track. I should of mentioned also that everytime you make a new pill with a different length to the standard item, a new battery tube mast be made to suit.
Nicely made pill! 8)
Copper can be a PITA to machine.
The following is a brief outline on how the torch went over a period of 1 hour on high. Starting voltage was 4.1 volts with a current draw of just over 6 amps. the camera settings were on manual and was not turned of for the duration of the test.
At the start torch temperature was the same as the ambient temp which was 12 degrees C (all temps in celsius).
At 30 minutes torch temp was 57 degrees C. A slight mist had settled in by now and stayed for the duration.
At the conclusion, 1 hour, the flashlight temp had only changed by 1 degree in the final 10 minutes which was 64 to 65 degrees C.
After 1 hour, current draw was 3 amps and the battery voltage's, 3.6 volts. When the flashlight had returned to ambient temp voltage was still 3.6 volts and current draw 3 amps. It was not until a fresh set of King Kongs were installed that current draw returned to 6.3 amps. Pictures were taken at regular intervals and all appear to be pretty much the same apart from the first picture taken at the start. I dont know if the driver kicked down to 3 amps after 5 minutes or the led output sagged or a combination of both. Everything survived to my surprise, nothing melted or blew up and as mentioned with fresh batteries output was back to as good as ever.
In all honesty I dont know a thing about the electronics. I could read about it all day and still be amazed and learn nothing. I'm amazed how people modify the circuit boards you are talking about as I look at them and everything is so small. Again I will have to plead ignorance about the SST 50 as well, not having done or read anything about them. You have probably searched on this forum so may be if you start a thread on this others may help. Not much good am I. Sorry Bob K.
The more I used the flashlight with the 6 amp driver the more disappointed I became of it. At 6 volts the current would drop back to 3 amps. I dont know if this driver would work better with 3 batteries? So eventually I replaced it with the 2.8 amp driver and have used it happily since. Not completely satisfied though I ordered another driver that I had in my JM05 even though the diameter of it is 26mm, the maximum diameter that you can make a pill and still get the battery tube to screw over it. To get around this the battery board on the driver was filed down to 25mm and the battery tube machined out to 28mm where it would overlap the pill.
The pill was machined to keep as much mass as possible. Where the reflector sits normally on the stock pill the refector can move around so to alleviate this and to again keep as much mass as possible the new pill holds the reflector in position and the 16mm LCK led XML U2 LED sits in its own recess. An IOS insulator sits across the whole lot to prevent any shorts (not shown).
High is now 5 amp, medium 2 amp and low is .04 amp. Strangely this is different to the supposedly same driver I used in the JM05 and the modes are in a different sequence. Unfortunately there will be no beam shots tonight as it is again raining here. Cheers guys.
Foy after an introduction to E1320 my torch budget IA blown out of the water…… Thanks by the way ….
I love this mod ! When will be available for purchase ?