ITS HERE! SIPIK SK98 - A 18650 based Sipik SK68 with an XML!

SK68 was wildly successfull….

and now sipik has flushed all good name down the Shit Hole with this piece of garbage.

But, if we can salvage the great design of the rest of this light by making some mods to better heat sink, we’ve got another winner. Sucks it wasn’t better designed in the first place though.

Thank you for this, horst! I am working on my first attempt. Here’s my coin - not quite as nice as yours, but I think it’ll work:

I pressed thermal paste between the driver and the smoothed side of the coin, and then some paste along the ridge inside the pill. The coin is not a tight fit inside the pill, but is retained by the ridge - just doesn’t press fit. I’m attempting to use the original plastic washer to pressure fit it all down like it originally fit, but the extra mm taken up by the coin prevents this. I sanded down the inner ridges of the plastic washer until everything sits almost flush again, but cannot get it to press and stay. I applied a small amount of Gorilla Glue to the edges of the plastic and held in place until it seemed to stick. I spread some thermal paste onto the thread of the pill and screwed it back into the body of the SK98. I have not yet inserted a 18650 and turned it on. :slight_smile:

I feel like it’s a bit of a hash job, so I have a couple of questions: Is the coin pressed against the bottom of the driver with thermal paste enough to whisk away a significant enough amount of heat? Or does the fit against the inside ridge of the pill have to be solid? I understand that it’s optimal to have everything solid within the pill to transfer heat into the pill, then into the body of the light… but if I have applied some thermal past and there’s at least some substantial contact within the pill, can I get away with it not being tight?

In other words, how will I know if I’ve heat sinked this thing adequately?

Thanks again!

Ahhh, gotcha. That is awesome and makes much more sense. Yeah, my coin is just pressed up against the star (sorry, I said “driver” in my prior post), and both are resting on top of that ridge.

I did turn it on for a few and it seemed to be transferring heat into the body almost immediately. But I like your diagram and would feel better if mine were a bit more solid. I’ll disassemble and try again, if not with the coin then some foil. And replace that washer as well. I’ll let you know how it goes. Thanks again!

I love this stuff. Thanks for helping me out with my first ‘mod’. I’m actually without a working soldering iron at the moment, so I have to put this little job on hold for now. But I was thinking of just doing the foil trick instead anyway. Do you think the stock driver will hold hold up with good heat sinking? Also, do you put any layer of non-conductive material between the foil and driver in the pill to protect from any impact knocking it out of place and hitting the driver circuitry?

Haha. Okay. I think I might have read Match’s thread once, but I need to again, it appears.

Damn… so maybe I’ll save this fix til I get a good replacement drive. I do like the rest of the Sipik design and do wanna salvage this light. Thanks again for the help. :slight_smile:

Does the 18650 version throws as far as the 14500?

You have a Sipik branded one?
Does the sliding mechanism feels solid?
It has the weak points, but some users here report the sk98 being fried by itself, i have a sk68 unbranded which becomes hot quite fast but it doesn’t selfdestruct, that’s worse than just a weak point :p.

Sorry for all my questions but i want an upgrade for my sk 68 and the trustfire z8 xm-l 14500 won’t do it so know i’m looking for an alternative for my sk68 which is the light i’m having the best time with.

Where did you buy your driver?
How do i access the star and driver? I manage to remove the lens but then i can’t figure out how to losen the rest and i don’t want to break anything :).

appreciate your help!

Does this unscrewing works the same as the sk68, because I don’t manage to get to unscrew the pill of the sk68. Due to receiving an underperforming trustfire z8 I have received a coupon of 7$ from t-mart for a Sipik branded sk98. That would bring the price down to 6,5$.

If i would keep the direct mode driver and just fill the pill with aluminium foil would that be sufficient not to fry the light?

Tmart says they haven’t received customer complaints so far…

I received my Ultrafire clone a few weeks ago, and this light was from a seller on Ebay called “Bobotoway”. The torch itself is great, although it arrived in a crumpled cardboard box, undoubtedly a cause of rough shipping.
The torch does not have the same overheating problem as the Sipik SK98, but still there is a hollow pill. I put some heat transfer compound around the base of the star, to improve heat transfer. I have been using this torch for 1-10 minutes on high every day for the last few weeks, and so far so good.

Of course the less heat produced, the less powerful the torch is, but still, this thing is bright!

- Ultrafire C8 XM-L U2

- Ultrafire Sipik SK98 XM-L T6

- Generic 200lm zoomie

- Small Sun zy-s13

- Police Force random model

Likewise, I got my UltraFire SK98 clone this last week. Regardless of the brand of cell I put in, charged to 4.2v, i’m getting over 2.5A on high. I tried SolarForce V3s, TrustFire Flames, and my crap UltraFire red 3000mAh.

And it is bright as hell and the head and body heat up almost immediately. I’m feeling pretty positive about this beast of a zoomie compared to the sk98. I do not think this is direct drive at all, otherwise my UF Reds would have tripped their protection circuit early like they did with the SK98. And that’s probably a good thing for an XM-L T6 in such a small package.

Now I have a special purpose for those lame UF cells. :slight_smile:

I got my Sipik 98 today from Tmart! Had a 60% coupon so i only costed like 6$.

first impressions (compared to sipik sk68 clone):

+

very bright and wide flood
i like mode spacing

-

zoomed it’s not as bright as sk68 clone, led image seems warped (rounded)
led or retaining ring (can’t figure out which one) isn’t centered well

I don’t know yet if my light will melt but i can tell that the pill feels very light, i can’t seem to remove the plastic retaining ring so i can’t see the heatsinking.

Ok managed to open it and there is no heatsinking AT ALL

post pics if you can.

this is how it looks like, i’ve made an aluminium ‘core’ out of foil and hopefully this will add some heatsinking.

how do i stick aluminium to aluminium? superglue doesn’t seem to get the job done :d

After scratching the surface of the star it now sticks :d. After 30 seconds of use in high i’ve opened the head again and the aluminium i sticked to it is blistering hot, so i guess my unorthodox system works :d.

I think the ‘sk98’ configuration is pretty much done for if one goes by the number of offerings on the Chinese form of ebay (there’re only 9 total SK98 link) versus the 5 or so pages for the SK68 link.

how do i remove the driver so i can fill up the entire pill? It doesn’t seem to be soldered to the pill but it sits very very tight.

this is how i fixed it now, the volume of added aluminium is about 1,5-2x that of the star, but as you can see it doesn’t contact the pill => rest of flashlight so all the heat goes to the clump of aluminium.

UPDATE: i managed to get the driver out, it was just stuck very very hard

I’m going to fill up the empty space between my added aluminium and the wall of the pill with some more aluminium instead of desoldering the driver and making an entire new aluminium disc.

I have another question: can the plastic of the wires melt when in contact with the added aluminium?