I have a cheap “Digitor” DMM. In addition to checking it’s measurements against known values below 3A, I’ve also hooked it up in line while doing discharge tests with my hobby charger. At 3, 4 and 5A it matched what my hobby charger was reporting to within 10-20 mA.
What you need to keep in mind is when your making your leads low resistance is the fact that your tailcap may not be. The only way to get accurate results would be to measure it through the tailcap.
There seems to be a huge difference in what people are measuring on their HD2010's. Mine still pulls over 5 amps on both of my DMM's with a King Kong XSL. If I touch the lead against the battery as light as possible, I can get it down to around 4.70 and my leads aren't all that thick. (the ones it came with)
Foy, from all the reading I’ve done today, it seems I’ve confirmed (as well as I can from BLF forum posts) we all have the East 092 driver on the stock light. Lightmalls, Tmart, and Manafont are selling the same HD, or at least HDs with the same driver, regardless of the brand name on the body.
I charged my SolarForce V3 2600mAh cell to 4.27v and dropped it in the HD2010, and I’m getting 3.2A. I don’t have my TFF 26650s yet. I know your Kongs out perform those. But this SF V3 cell (I didn’t know before today because I didn’t have a DMM until today) is out performing my TFFs in terms of output.
I’m guessing either cell or driver variance at this point.
From memory I only got a maximum of around 3 amps from mine no matter what battery I used or DMM. I dont think with the driver in mine that if I hooked it up to the overhead wires used on the electric trains I would get a reading any higher.
Edit. Maximum I got was 2.7 amps. Just found it on Foys review.
Interesting. So how does direct drive factor into this? I was assuming the East 092 was direct drive on high… why wouldn’t it pull unrestricted? Or, maybe I don’t fully understand DD?
Yes, a clamp would be much more accurate. That's why all these tail cap readings should be used in relative terms, not absolute. Having said that, I'm quite comfortable with my measurements after getting nearly identical readings as E1320 on the same light. (his Fluke)
Alright. Well there you have it. Minus the Fluke, I agree that those results are pretty telling.
So is it a driver thing? I tried hard to get the same UF HD2010 you guys have because the reviews rock so hard. It is already awesome and I’m fully satisfied with the performance, but it is a tad lame that I can’t get the same current and output that others can, I suppose…
Or, maybe I’m just new still and my priorities are a little out of whack.