TrustFire TR-J12 Driver: Awesome news from Kaidomain

It's good to have you here, Ilshat!

can we just like stick whole bunch of copper wires in the springs and stick bunch of solder in there almost making it solid ? lol :stuck_out_tongue:

Flashlight working at maximum capacity, here are the LEDs on the thermogram of the time.

Installation on the thermal camera was by default, “factor of the black body ɛ = 0,97” “70% humidity.” I do not know what “factor of the black body” at the LEDs, torch, probably between 0.8 and 0.95. The following thermograms at different «ɛ».

I measured the currents in dependence on the heating flashlight. Household devices are not calibrated, but quite accurate.

After heating the flashlight I dropped it in cool water.

Diagram of currents from the car battery 12.5 V.

I do not know what it means 7A (7A * 12.5 V = 87.5 W) O_o

So at the ~1 minute mark, power draw drops to 31.5 Watts, and for most of the run its drawing less than 25W.

Is that the drivers thermal regulation kicking in?

Yes, it’s driver from Kaidomain

X100 doing 38W, with 2S! And its a 7 x XM-L so that’s even more efficiency. Calculated from ergotelis measurements then it could be 3800 lumens OTF in real life.

Not sure if i can stick the J12 tube into the X100 head. It looks like it though……

Looks like the X100 has something like the 7 LED driver version.

so the j12 and x100 only differs the head cause of 7 vs 5 leds ? but the x100 loooks alot brighter isnt it mayb because of the wide head or better drivers ?

5 LEDs -> 7 LEDs has a bit of advantage due to efficiency. Eff slowly goes down as you approach 3A, esp so from 2A to 3A range. (check out the graph). It is not a lot, but every bit counts for us flashaholics. :slight_smile:

Wider head maintains the reflector size (more or less) so that the hotspot size is the same but now you have 7 instead of 5…something like that.

More powerful driver - yes. Say, you have 1.7A to 7 XM-Ls now, instead of 1.6A to 5 XM-Ls.

Everything adds up. It seems that the X100 pumps out even more power with 2-cells/2S compared to 3-cells/3S. 3S gives you about 3300 lumens OTF with 33W at the tail. 2S measures 38W but no OTF measurements.

Check the Monster light X100 thread, dong changed that to the KD 7-LED driver! (41-42W)

comparison pics of modded & unmodded j12? Underwater lithium flashlight, now that’s scary!

I got my http://kaidomain.com/product/details.S020417 driver for a TR-J12, put it in………
and it is not working as advertised………. on HIGH it’s only pulling 0.4A!!!
Batteries is 3 x Trustfire 3000Mah………

Tried with 4 x Trustfire 3000Mah…… and HIGH went to 2A

Don’t know if I got a ‘dummy’………

and ideas??

Regards

Hugo

I’d suggest that your batteries are not up to the task if the driver mod has been done correctly.

try with 3 26650 King Kong batteries… you will see the result much differently :wink:

My TR-J12 came from Manafont with a blown driver, took that out and put the KD monster in it, black wire on black wire, and white from torch to red on driver…………

on HIGH only 0.4 A with 3 x 18650 3000 Mah Trustfires.

Questions, I made the wire connect correctly ??
and other ideas???

Regards

I understand this might be a necrobump, but I got the driver in the mail today and installed it in my J12. With freshly charged king kongs it didn’t seem appreciably brighter at distance than my 2800-lumen DRY-powered TR-3T6. I Tried taking a tailcap measurement [harbor freight DMM in series, 14ga leads (I know, I wasn’t expecting to see full power). At start, I’m reading just under 5 amps, about what I’m expecting for a cheap DMM in series to read. However, the current starts rolling down a steep hill, a very steep hill actually, it levels off at around 2.25-2.20 amps, half the tail draw I should be seeing.

Does this driver have an automatic rampdown built into it that takes it to 50%?

Is there a current link to the driver?

http://www.kaidomain.com/product/details.S020417

Should be the same one as earlier in the thread. Unless the thermal rampdown on mine has an incorrectly low setting. Surely that boost should generate some heat in the driver, but not that much that quickly.

Of the top of my head it sounds like battery sag but could be totally wrong.

They’re King Kongs, and according to HKJ at a 5 amps load, after ten minutes they’re still well above 3.5v. Though I just realized that in his graph the cells have different tracking characteristics, could that be at play here? Or would I be riding the white bus to the hospital at this point if that were the case? [cells now sit at 4.01, 4.03, and 4.04v after some testing]

<--- This is what I did when I read that you bought one of these. I'm sorry you wasted $19 on this driver. Another innocent victim. Heartache and sorrow lie in your future.

Joking aside, these are possibly the worst driver for reliability and consistency out there. The sting is even worse considering the price. 2 out of the 3 I've used died within a few hours. The other got stuck in the low mode and wouldn't switch anymore. I ended up putting zener modded FETs in all of them (TR-J12 & TR-J18). The output was better, the mode spacing was better, and the PWM was better. Best of all: I know the driver won't quit on me (I had to redo all 3 lights I did with the KD driver).

They call it the "Beast Driver"...but it isn't the good kind of beast!