MomentumExchange's 'BEAST-DRIVER' MODIFIED TRUSTFIRE TR-J12 BEAMSHOTS!!

Slewflash - on high it heats up pretty fast, becoming very hot to the touch at around 5-6 minutes. The fins around the driver section get hot first, but pretty quickly the heat travels down the handle. The reflector is a huge chunk of aluminium screwed into the body, so Iā€™d have to say the torch handles heat pretty well. Iā€™m yet to experience the driver throttling back due to being too hot.

-ME

Theres some OUTSTANDING thermal and power analysis on this driver in the TR-J12 in this thread hereā€¦
It starts out drawing 88W (!!) at 12.5Vin for the first ~60 seconds, then power consumption drops to 25-32W for the rest of the run.

https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/9422

News: Some direct comparison shots coming between the Modded TR-J12 and my other lights (none strictly comparable but a good guide nonetheless)

- Xtar WK21

- Warm White 5-Mode P60 Drop-in (from KaiDomain)

  • Custom made 1-Mode Cold White 1500 Lumen P60 (the brightest single 18650 P60 in the world!!)
  • Hand made by vinhnguyen54 on CPF
  • Specially selected cold white XML-U2 directly bonded to a copper
  • 5.5A driver, used with AW IMR battery

Shots up in a few daysā€¦

-ME

I'm looking forward to your photos. Just remember that anything that burns up or blows up is replaceable (in the flashlight that is). I have just built a JM05 running 5 amps and keep a fire extinguisher handy. Seriously though very interesting.

It does that for the 5-LED driver too?!

I wonder why these drivers do such a thing, and the drop is it due to thermal regulation. Maybe someone can do that IR thermal scan on the components. :slight_smile:

88W is not good for 5 LEDs definitely, it is worse than the DRY plus the immediate thermal mass is still in the DRY league. Luckily there is no strobe functionā€¦ā€¦ If there is then the LEDs could fail very fast. I killed 3 this way. (the one which started it all, Sky Ray SR3800, which in my copy with the DRY driver it has much lower resistance so can quite a bit more current than the DRY).

In the DRY, you might measure 4A at the tail in steady state modes, but in strobe it goes much higher. Seems like the batteries are not taxed and can provide much more current during the ON state. Of coz thatā€™s the early 3-mode driver. Luckily this new 5-LED driver excluded the strobe mode, else it might be the same.

I am 99% sure all discussion and analysis in that thread was regarding the 5-LED driver in a modded TRJ12ā€¦ at least no one indicated anything otherwise.

whats your run time on that mode or say even 75% mode ?

I have not used it for that long on 75% mode so I donā€™t know. I tend to use 50% or lower for long runtimes (- even 5% is adequate to be honest) and the ā€˜big boy modesā€™ (75-100% of course) forā€¦ ahem ā€¦ impressing people/dominating large areas/arousing attention from neighbours several houses away :wink:

youve got me hooked, i just ordered a driver for my trj12 from KD

for $20 cant go wrong

for anyone interested edcplus is carrying 3.7ah 26650 cells for $15 a piece. A little expensive, but a good reliable us source. I picked up 3 for the new driver. They are rated at 10a discharge rate (20a max continuous)

i wonder if the 7led driver in the x100 would get too hot lol ā€¦ someone is bound to try it

photoes of burnt skin will be kool! :davie:

You are quite the strange one! :stuck_out_tongue: If I get any I shall upload them with the next lot of beamshotsā€¦

I did the same damn thing, separated the boards on accident, I dropped it and pulled the pad off on one of the spots, exactly like yours. How did you resolder it and fix it?

Itā€™s so easy to do, isnā€™t it! Just ensure that you make at least one red-to-red and one blue-to-blue connection (see the photo) between the boards by soldering a small amount of 18-20 AWG wire between them. I also pulled out the pins that attach the two boards with pliers also, and just soldered the contacts at the bottom. Donā€™t worry if the spots come off, just solder to the nearest available contact point that was touching. Good luck.

Got mine done, only pulling ~3.5 A on high, so probably messed up somewhere, lol. Gonna talk to E1320 about sending it to him to fix all my mess ups, lol.

Does that equate to 3.5A per LED or 3.5A divvied up between all 5 of them (my electrical knowledge is sorely lackingā€¦)? How is the output on high looking? How many/ which cells are you using?

Looks about equivalent to what it was before. Meh, if I have a light as bright as before with more modes and no noticeable PWM I am still mostly happy.

I do not have good soldering skill, I wonder if Iā€™m able to do this :frowning:

Yup itā€™s a really easy job, just find a tutorial online and you should be fine. The hardest bit is making the solder braid stick to the middle of the driver board.

should i get a beast driver too?

Errā€¦ duh! :stuck_out_tongue: Itā€™s up to you of course, but recommended!

-momentumexchange