Trustfire TR-3T6 (from Wallbuys) 2000+ lumen mod

Your calculation is incorrect, I am quite sure with that.
The point is that you can’t calculate like you did, that method should only be a rough approximation.
You get a better approximation if you calculate through the power.
P=U*I
Power=voltage*current

You mentioned a power supply, is it a adjustable experimental power supply?
If yes try this:
Plug your 3t6 on it and try to measure current on some points and multiply the voltage and current to get input power. Do that and you will see that the power is almost the same in every situation.

One often made measuring mistake are to thin wires, these add resistance to the circuit. Because of that the resulting voltage to the driver is lower.
In this case it’s a regulated driver so it will cause to high current results.

That are just my thoughts, I could be wrong too.

It IS an approximation, werner. Simple current division, assuming everything is 100% efficient, just to get a rough idea what each led is getting. This method is used for quick calculation.

Though it does seem this driver is not power regulated.

Like I said, but it is still false. :bigsmile:
We should not make speculations about the driver without knowing if the values are correct. Best would be if he measures current through the LEDs.

The driver looks for me like a smaller version of the original3t6 one, and this is really well regulated.

I have often seen wrong measurements on this forum, and every time I give a hint of redoing the measurements with thicker wires. You could try this, choose resistance measuring on your dmm and then connect your leads. If it says more than 0.0 you can’t measure current correct on flashlights.
I have done this mistakes in my beginnings, too.

+1
As most know, the numbers are just simple estimates based on tailcap current before and after mod. It gives people something to relate to.

My wires are upgraded, and should be ok. Not the typical thin stuff. Out of three sets they are the better ones (thicker, feels better and give higher readings on high current).

yes, that would be the best.

Now…
As for future plans. I have ordered a “battery-box” and a trimpot for easy adjustments when the light is dissembled. Parts are on the way… Or, they will be when they are shipped… :stuck_out_tongue: Hopefully they will be out of HK before their holiday.
Might take several measurements in the future to get a better picture of the performance with 2 or 3 batteries… Ill report back…

Still have heat tests to do with current setup… :slight_smile:

Nice!
Are your measurements with 3 batteries almost the same as mine too?

Thought Id do an unofficial light test with my phone (galaxy SII) and an app called light meter.

Same results with 2 or 3 batteries. I tried back and forth several times. So maybe the output is regulated after all…
Ill defiantly do some output measurements with a DMM in the future. :slight_smile:

Well, 1. phone sensor may not be the most accurate and 2. there isn’t much difference anyway since it’s 2.2A vs 2.4A .

I’m waiting for mine as well, $24 on WB third sale. I didn’t even plan to buy it, it just happened :stuck_out_tongue: Will do comparative measurement against yours when it arrives.

These are my “private” notes, so hope they should be easy to understand. Orange column are temperature readings (Celcius) and some voltage readings… All readings done on high. IR meter was used. Light was tailstanding on my floor. This is the modified driver with higher output.

Conclusion after testing:
-That is one tough light in my opinion! I made it shutoff three times! Usually with small breaks before it was back on.
-For me (im used to P60 light driven at 2,8-3,7amps). I would consider the heatsinking to be sufficient for high output. Almost twenty minutes on high before it reached 60C. And with a bit cooldown, the light was still warm throughout the whole body it almost did another 20 min on high.
-It has some sort of built in overheat protection that works between 60-70C. Either complete shutdown, or it steps down into medium mode and locks all modes. (Im pretty sure it was on high after changing batteries. I am aware that it is easy to change modes when the light is tail standing. )
-By looking at tailcap readings when batteries are 3,9V and 3,6V. I would say this light is regulated! :slight_smile:

This seems to be a good driver. It has some nice features and seems to be well regulated. (Looks like Werner was right about the regulation. My phone measurements was probably not that bad either.)
I plan to do simple overheating test with 3 batteries within 48hours… Might give a small report on how it goes…

This is a really nice light and for under 30$ everyone should have at least one.
The pills are quite different depending on which manufacturer you get.
Mine was quite long but didn’t touched the body so good so I added a bunch of this white rubber like thermal glue before screwing it together. Seems to me that after that the light gets faster hot on outside of the case.

Was it really a thermal shutdown or ran the battery in the protection?
You have to think of that this beast now pulls 3A and up, the lower the battery voltage the higher the current so it gets empty faster and faster…

Havent measured with three batteries only have two matched cells should be getting more of the same ones either this week or early next week.

Thanks for all your information you are giving!

Ha! Same thing here!

-Garry

To make the answer short and not based on some of my previous and hard testing ill say check here:
http://lygte-info.dk/review/batteries2012/Intl-outdoor%20NCR18650B%203400mAh%20(Black)%20UK.html
I highly doubt the batteries had problems or that the voltage was that low at 3,2A discharge. I believe they were far from their limits and that the voltage sag was not an issue at all.

I believe there must been some built in thermal protection. Since it at one point locked into one mode (medium I assume) I believe that also backs up that it has some sort of overheat protection in it.
The (limited) experience I have with overheating protections are that are not always 100% stable in the way they work.

I plan to check more when I try with 3 batteries… Changing modes a couple of times when it is 55C+

Werner, or anybody. Im thinking out loud now. First I assumed the flashlight had higher tailcap readings with 2 batteries (4,4A “total)
And after the mod it had higher readings with 3 battteries (7,17A total). But if we assume the light is regulated and the output to the leds before/after mod was/is exactly the same. Would not that mean that before the mod, the light/driver was more efficient when using 3 batteries. After the mod it is more efficient with 2 batteries?

Stock tailcap measurements.
2 batteries: 2,2 amps on high. (2,2×2= 4,4 “total”)
3 batteries: 1,15 amps on high, (1,15×3= 3,45 “total”)

After mod:
2 batteries: 3,2 amps on high. (3,2×2= 6,4 “total”)
3 batteries: 2,39 amps on high, (2,39×3= 7,17 “total”)

That’s the thing, the power is not consistent. Let’s convert to real power the driver is seeing (assume nominal 3.6V battery supply):

Stock:
2batt: 3.6V x 2 x 2.2A = 15.84W
3batt: 3.6V x 3 x 1.15A = 12.42W

Mod:
2batt: 3.6V x 2 x 3.2A = 23W
3batt: 3.6V x 3 x 2.4A = 25.9W

Power supplied to driver is not consistent at all. But this is the limit to what we can calculate as we cannot tell driver efficiency. The next step will need actual LED current measurements.

I received my WallBuys TR-3T6 today (moments ago). Haven't fired it up yet, but did disassemble and look it over. Seems the backside of my driver is different from the O.P.'s. I've got a white ring. Hmm. . .

Nicely packaged in a box inside a bubble envelope. Nice hefty light – more so than I expected! At work so I haven’t lit it up yet. Speed of delivery was impressive: ordered Jan 21st, Shipped (Wallbuys status) Jan 22nd, received today Feb. 6th!

-Garry

That is defiantly not the same board/backside of driver as on my light.

Ill write a more detailed “report” on my light, maybe tomorrow. Ill upload some pictures too…
In short I have had lots of fun with my light since last time! :slight_smile: But driver is now dead… Not because of the modification but because of some small soldering “debris” that short circuit a leg. Totally my fault not cleaning up the pill after cutting away soldier between the pill and the circuit board… Ill have to say, the driver in my light was really tough and a good one.
For me, its not a big issue tough, had been looking for replacement driver before even buying the light…

Thanks. I'll try to update with current draws sometime soon. I really only have 2 matched cells though.

-Garry

For testing current draw for a short amount of time that should be fine as long as they are kinda close (e.g. 3100 mah and 2600 mah), just don't do a runtime test or anything like that.

Well, I do have 4 protected Tenergy 2600's, but they are scattered around in different lights at different charge levels right now.

-Garry

As mentioned. The driver is now dead. Ill write the story. My brother will be referd to as The Doctor.

I did a high temperature with 3 batteries, and the light died after 8 min. The circuit board also had a new bad/funny smell.
I inspected the light and found out the the black negative wire got loose from the board. (probably due to all my fiddling and that stock wires are really thin)
Once the wire was upgraded to something larger the light could not switch modes. It was locked in low… Something was wrong… I checked my work several times but could not find something wrong with the wire I had replaced or anywhere else…

Away to the hospital:

On closer inspection this caused a short: (cropped picture, erea is not within depth of field since this was a random picture when I was not aware of the short curcuit)

The Doctor reported that a short-circuit killed the “largest black important thingy” (my words, not The Doctors).

Now… The Doctor who always needs to fix thing found some stuff for it and it was properly alive in no time with the ability to change modes…
The new “big black thingy”, now Frankenstein size with headsink was tested…

It was not very efficient and output on high was not more like medium… Input voltage was quite high though…

Considering the driver was now pretty useless, and I did not want the light with “low” output only or replace the fried part. It was time for some extreme over the top experimenting and testing… DIRECT DRIVE!
3 leds in series and 3 batteries! To limit current a little bit, a couple of parts on the driver curcuit was used… In the “test bench” with quite long wires it measured 5,3A. It was probably 6+ amps…

Light got assembled and it was BRIGHT!” :smiley: Went out on the porch and tried it… WOOW!.. and after 5 sec one led got fried. :stuck_out_tongue:
I had a feeling that could happen… Would hoped for 30+ seconds though…

Looking back:
The only minor complain about the light was that the leds did not have thermal compound everywhere beneath them. It was under the emitter, but not under the whole star. I suspected that when I had looked at it earlier. All the three leds are now out off the pill, and the one who got fried got of quite easy compared to the others…
(old picture before hospital visit)

To sum it up: This was the most fun Ive had with a light. In generall, not just in terms of modding. I say succsess despite the failure! :slight_smile:
This light have been through a lot of modifying! And I have improved a lot on soldering skills and gotten some more knowledge in this project…

Future plans:
Days before killing one led I had already placed an order on several leds. This light will get 3 new T6 3C XM-Ls wired in series with thicker wires. The last two stock leds (T6 cool white) will get into project lights… Currently one have found its way into a Sipik SK68.
As for driver, before I bought the light I had been looking at some stuff from intl-outdoor.
Yesterday, I placed an order for this. So 3,5A to each led coming up in the futre. Ill use the stock 26mm driver board in comination with the new driver… Due to Chinese new year it will probably take up to 5 weeks before my lights is back in business. No rush… All I know is, the future will be bright! :wink:

That’s how a work desk has to look like.

This driver will make a beast out of the 3t6, will get hot like a cooking plate