Well, my second AK-47 arrived today that will be used in a 2 x 26650 configuration for my wife. This one will be left in its stock form because I don’t want my wife using a light pushing the power of a KD driver in her hand. When my wife walks past our Skyray KING to use the AK-47, you know it’s because the light output is pretty incredible. However, her AK will be less bright, but will still outshine the Skyray King.
As with the other lights I received from this same Amazon.com dealer, this one also arrived in mint physical condition. Amazingly, this one had the longer brass tail cap plunger, so I didn’t have to upgrade it like on blueb8llz’s version. But it didn’t have the green GITD lens O-ring, rather the standard black version, but that isn’t a big deal. I may make the time to replace the Trustfire +B spring and add some copper desoldering braid for better contact. The Trustfire springs typically are crap and very thin.
As for the driver, on high mode with 3 x 26650 EnerPower cells, it started at about 3.45a and began to drop off from there, which I’m used to at this point with these stock drivers. Using 2 x 26650 cells, it started at about 4.15a and fell to 4a and stayed there. So this driver is also missing the 3rd sense resistor, but it’s going to remain that way.
On 3 cells, it grossed about 38 watts before inefficiencies
On 2 cells, it grossed about 30 watts before inefficiencies
All the threads were excellent and generally I have no complaints. Hopefully this stock driver will last longer being less stressed using 2 batteries. We’ll see :~
Just couple of photos of it next to my original version.
In case anyone is interested how the Trustfire AK-47’s series wiring looks under the reflector, here is a shot of it. Below that is a photo I borrowed from member, FMcamaroZ28, showing his Skyray 9x T6 factory wired in 3s3p.
Funny thing is the Skyray driver would not work in my AK-47. I’m sure the grounds where fine when I installed it, but perhaps the different wiring configurations between both lights make the drivers non-interchangeable, but I’m not fully certain.
AK-47 factory wired in series. Also, the brighter color red wire at upper right side and black wire
are what I also upgraded on my example to 22g silver wire down to the driver.
Skyray 9x T6 factory wired for 3s3p. Photo credited to FMcamaroZ28.
I couldn’t leave well enough alone on this second AK-47. So I opened the reflector and de-soldered the stock positive and negative wires and replaced them both with 22g silver wire down to the stock driver. Replaced the Trustfire +B spring with one of my heavy duty gold plated variety with some copper desoldering braid added to it. When all that was done, I mashed up some thermal conductive pad and inserted the pieces under the electronic driver components on both sides using this stuff from IOS.
Trying it with 3 cells, tail cap amps remained the same, so perhaps there is some regulation going on with 3 cells. But on 2 cells, whether using MNKE or EnerPower’s, tail cap current increased from 4 amps to 4.60 amps on high mode. Using my Trustfire 26650’s, current decreased to 3.75a.
So all of the above, or perhaps simply the two wires I replaced increased the output on 2 cells from 30 watts to 34 watts. Not great, but seems okay for the stock driver.
LOL…the KD driver outpowers the stock driver by triple the amount.
I have returned my defective k47 in exchange for a j18. Manufacturer rated at 8000 lumens but seemed to be only as bright as 3000 plus lumens only. Anyone knows how to make the light produce 8000 lumens as rated. Maybe a change in board or something?
HI Dexter, we live very close to each other…
Maybe can meet up drink tea…haha
Ur ak 47 is not defective. The numbers is printed saying that light theoretically if driven with full power can give out so much lumens.
However, the highest for ak 47 is about 6000 lumens as modded by Richie. J18 is bout 5000 lumen by Tom. All using diff type of batt to get it.
Member TomE has been doing a great job upgrading his J18. This is one thread below, but I’m sure he has a better one. Best to PM him and have him refer you to his upgrade thread.
Leif from Likedigi support, the retailer that supplies Amazon.com with the AK-47’s we’ve been purchasing, contacted me yesterday about a review I sent noting the low power issue the later models have had. I explained this is due to the 3rd sense resistor being omitted from the driver by the manufacturer.
I did tell him I’ve removed the sales link from my review on this forum due to the extremely low output power these lights have. He was very nice to deal with and promises he’ll talk to the manufacturer about this issue and get the output up to where it should be. But until that happens, the Amazon sales link will remain omitted from this review.
If I hear anything else, I’ll be sure to post about it.
Nice find. I should have the new version from Kaidomain late this week, if they aren’t good, I’ll order a couple of these from LightMalls. I noticed in the specs this driver has a 30 volt output. Should be perfect for the already wired in 9s1p like the AK-47.
The stock driver with 3 sense resistors intact , runs at 5.74a at the tailcap with 3 x Trustfire 5000mAh cells. It grossed 64 watts. I’m pretty sure that was well past 3500 lumens and is very bright. Would easily outshine a Trustfire TR-J12 or J18.
The same stock driver but with only 2 resistors, which seems to be the way they are shipping, unless the Manafont version is better, runs at about 3.5a at the tailcap with 3 x Trustfire 5000mAh cells for about 38 gross watts. I’d say in this reduced output capacity, the 38 watts is about equal to the output of a Skyray King, about 2400 lumens.
