P60 XML - which one to buy?

I’ve read that some people have used copper tape around the drop in instead of the aluminium. Is there anywhere that inexpensive tape can be bought that works ok? I know that copper tape with adhesive can be bought of ebay quite cheaply but I’m not sure if the adhesive acts more like an insulator.

I've read a little about the Manafont dropin - the main problem with it seems to be low PWM frequency? (~120Hz)

Also - how should I wrap it with aluminum foil? Any guide available or should I just try to make the most contact between the dropin and the host head? How will I know I made good job? Will I be able to run on "high" longer? How long?

So many questions... :)

It depends on whether PWM flicker bothers you or not - it doesn't worry me in the slightest. Others here are very bothered by it. It is best to try for yourself and see if it bothers you. If normal fluorescent lighting bothers you, then PWM flicker will probably annoy you intensely.

Foil wrapping. By the way, the dropin used is the Manafont one.

Take a piece of foil - the thicker the better - what we are trying to do here is fill the air gap between the body of the dropin and the body of the light with metal as it will conduct away heat rather better than an air gap. The heavy foil containers that takeaway meals are served in here are ideal. I didn't have any really heavy foil so used what i had.

Fold it over and over till you have a straight strip about 30cm long and 12-15mm wide. This is more than we will need but it isn't as if kitchen foil is expensive.

The brass part of the dropin is where the heat is generated - the LED and driver both live in there, so we particularly want to fill the gap between the brass bit and the throat of the ligh.

So we wind the strip of foil round it, starting at the base. Don't let any of it overlap the bottom of the brass bit - it might short out the cell when you switch it on. Your reward for that will be no light and a damaged battery unless the protection circuit cuts in.

The idea is that it should be a tight enough fit in the body that the dropin will stay in place against the pressure of the spring trying to force it out. There is too much material in this picture - it won't even go in to the throat of the light.

So I chop off some of the excess.

It should still require some force to shove the dropin into the body. Once it is there it shouldn't spring back out. At this point take off the tailcap and look down the battery tube to make sure no foil has got anywhere near the + contact. If it has, the dropin has to come out to have this sorted out.

Screw it all back together and enjoy!

If you are using thin material like this, every time you remove the dropin you will have to re-wrap it. This takes a lot less time than it took to write this.

Nice pictorial :

I would wrap it tighter though ..

When finishing , make it neat , and I make sure the top layer is overhanging the reflector - towards the pill - just a little so when pushing it in it does not flow forward , and then be in need of trimming . A nice tight and neat wrap . Sometimes I even glue the al-foil so it becomes a tight and near permanent feature of the pill ...

So would I normally - but not enough hands and the assistant wouldn't lend a paw. I just relied on force - use too much and cut it back till enough force shoves it all into place. Using this technique it is vital to check there is no overlap at the bottom.

I must go out and buy some heavy foil containers for the purpose, after all, what we are trying to do is fill it with metal.

Do you find any difference in throat diameters in different lights?

Wow Don - a million thanks!

You've just made me a lot more comfortable with purchasing the dropin. :)

Just one more question - how long do you think I could run the Manafont XML on high with the aluminium foil wrapping before it gets too hot? If it gets too hot to the touch it may be too late for the LED and driver or is there a "grace period" before they become damaged?

A big thanks from me too Don. I've always wondered but never wanted to ask so thanks for asking Haggai. Smile

Don thanks for the guide with photos on how to correctly foil wrap a drop in. Greatly appreciated.

I am interested into knowing that too. Will resist 1 hour torture test on HIGH while it draws more than 2,8Amps?

I do, no single host i have has the excact inner diameter. There is a slight variance withing same type/version hosts as well.

Thanks Don for the excellent pictorial guide. Alternatively I was wondering how effective will it be if we wrap it with thin copper wire. Did anyone tried this?

That was fast... ordered yesterday evening from Manafont, and now I got a shipment notice with registeration number.

Thanks Don! Can we make that post a sticky?

I got my drop in on Monday, haven't had time to do anything yet. Well, my cells, dmm are not even here yet.

About the length of time the battery charge lasted - 40 minutes. Less if I wasn't using my hand as a heatsink. If the snow stays away I'll find out next week as I hope to be off into the wilds with the assistant to annoy the local wildlife and do some longer-range beamshots. About 1km from here.

Last time I went there was great weather every day, but as soon as it got dark, it rained every time.

I honestly don't know if that would be better or worse. You would have to be careful that the wire didn't go to places it shouldn't but a blob of solder would hold it in place. It might take a long time to wind it neatly and tightly - you would probably want to use very fine wire so you could stuff as much of it into the gap as possible. If you do try this, I would love to hear how it worked.

Make sure it is tinned or plain copper wire, not the enamelled stuff used for winding transformers and inductors - the enamel would be a very poor conductor of heat.

What we are trying to do is to replace any air gap with metal so a tightly wound dropin ought to conduct heat away from the dropin very well. Once it is wound, dipping it in solder (After masking off everything you didn't want soldered) to keep the wire in place and fill as many remaining air gaps as possible ought to give excellent results.

What does that mean? The driver would shut off the LED if it got too hot?

Oh, you just made me want to go back to Scotland... Been there only for six weeks, but it was splendid and I really want to come back to all the wonders of this land that I've seen (and tasted! :) ) and to fill in what I've missed (the Outer Hebrides, Shetland, and many isolated places I could not get to with public transportation). I really enjoyed the nature, castles, people, highland games and the taste of whisky, and I even learned to play pool (by an englishman at my hostel). Hmm... must go back there. :)

No, I'd not be very happy to let pretty much any light run a battery empty on full power without some sort of heatsinking. Your hand is good for this as your blood will take the heat around your body. Quite a lot of lights can become painful to touch of you don't let them lose heat through your hand. The Ultrafire C3 SS will become painful to hold in about three minutes on high with a 14500.

40 minutes is about as long as a typical 18650 will run one of these on high. Most drivers won't shut of on excess heat - the only ones I can think of that do are the Ra lights ones but those aren't remotely close to budget lights. Some of the more powerful Fenixes may do.

I want to do a runtime on these anyway so will charge up a cell and keep an eye on temperatures while I do so. Unfortunately I can't log temperature at the same time as output but I have some ideas for that which I hope to have time to play with next week. What I really want is a thermal imaging camera, which my brother's company would be happy to sell me - at the price of a good new car.

4530 lux at switch-on.

Temperature of head at switch-on 18.7C. This is the foil wrapping as seen in the pictures above.

At 1 minute 24.9C

3 minutes 32C - output down to 3800lux.

5:30 39.8oC

Here is the setup.

The meter on top of the lightbox is measuring microamps from the solar cell at the far end of the lightbox that I use for output and runtime measurements - it is connected to the PC you can see on the far left of the picture. The meter on the right measures lightbox lux which I divide by 892 and multiply by 160 to arrive at "my lumens".

The meter on the left is measuring temperature. There is a small thermocouple taped to the head. In theory I ought to be able to attach both meters and log data - in practice the £W@$%%$^& Windows drivers only see one meter at a time and it appears to be completely random which one.

10 minutes 50oC 3560 lux

The foil is working. Even the tailcap is getting hot. I will stop at 60oC as the internals will be getting a lot hotter. Normally I would point a large fan at the light while doing runtimes on high.

14 minutes 54oC 3500 lux

I think most digital cameras can pick up infrared (maybe you'll need to take off the internal IR filter), so you could make a "poor man's thermal imaging camera" by using a filter that passes only IR, and use time-lapse photography or even record a video of the flashlight.

You can perhaps get the temperature values by using fixed exposure settings and calibrating the gray level with a known temperature heat source and a non-contact thermometer.

But that's a lot of work and I have no idea how accurate such a device can be...

17 minutes 58oC 3420 lux

58oC is painful to hold for most people - if it is in your hand it will not get quite so hot and it probably hasn't reached LED damaging temperatures. You will know when the driver hits 160oC - the solder will melt and it will fail.

19 minutes 59.5oC 3380 lux

20 minutes 60oC 3360 lux

I switched it off at 20 minutes. In your hand it might be good for 25 minutes till it became uncomfortable to hold.

I will let the light cool, let the battery cool, recharge it and remeasure the output.