Dexter,
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.
Looks like lightmalls has the original 9 LED driver (large capacitor), and it is cheaper than kaidomain
http://www.lightmalls.com/9-led-series-3-mode-for-three-lithium-battery-led-driver-with-low-voltage-protection
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.
Or 5x MTG2 
If this ak 47 have all the resistor there on the stock board. Give out about 3500 lumens?
*Using TF 26650
Hi Cop,
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.
Thanks Richie086 ,
guess this ak 47 should be my last light; provided the vendor wiling to open up to check if there is 3 resistor there.
“last light”
BAHHAHAHA
yeah right, but at least it should keep you happy for awhile :party:
Could you imagine that? I’d love to modify one of these with 5 of those, holy cow
That would be one bitch of a mule light J)
But what driver would you use? What would happen if you used the KD 9x LED driver?
I wonder what would happen if I only replaced 5 of the LED’s with MTG2 and left the other 4 T6’s in there all wired in series?
Yeah, last piece of light i am getting for this time round, of 4 lights :zipper_mouth_face:
Originally getting ak 47 but change it to HIDs.
My next round should be Stl v6 & BTU or TKs.
Hi folks,
Just got my newly designed KD 9x T6 drivers today. After soldering a +B spring onto one of them, tossed it into the light. A bit disappointed at the output on high mode with this new design at 5.50 amps. Using fully charged MNKE 3 x 26650’s, and assuming voltage won’t sag below 3.8 volts per cell, that’s a gross output of 62 watts. Quite a bit off from the original driver design at 8.14 amps or 90 watts.
On two cells, tail cap current on high was 5.0 amps or 38 watts.
Still, this is a huge amount of light and perhaps the driver will last longer not nearly heating up as much. I also added a bunch of the thermal foam goop they include between the driver boards, so I’m really not concerned about heat on this one to much. So I don’t think I’m going to have this one encapsulated, unless I purchase the old-style driver from the other retailer.
Anyway, I finally have a super powerful 9x T6 light with 3 wonderful modes, High-Med-Low and none of those worthless blinky modes. Aside from the lower output, it works perfectly in an AK-47 stock wired in 9S1P.
hey richie, so this new kd design is getting less amps than the stock driver?
i remember you saying you got somewhere around the 5.75amp range with the stock driver using 3 trustfire flames.
but then again, that burnt out on you right?
if you wanted to, are you still able to get the old kd design…the one you sold me that was encapulated?
Hi Ray,
The stock AK-47 driver with 3 proper resisitors on the driver puts out 5.75 amps, but the way they’ve been shipping, they only seem to do about 3.50 amps. So comparing a proper stock driver to the new KD driver, they are about the same. You won’t notice .25amps extra power. I’m perfectly fine with it as is. If these new ones ever burn out, I’ll get the same old-style design from the other retailer, the same as I installed in your light.
So you can still purchase the better old design but not from Kaidomain, but I’d have to check my links to see who has it.
Ray, here is the better old-style driver that LightMalls sells. This one should be the same as the one I installed in your light. Dave found it recently at Lightmalls. I’d have to say that huge capacitor is what makes it a super-driver…LOL
ok, i was just making sure that the 8amp drivers were still available, incase my driver goes poop.
so your getting 5.5 amps. thats still very bright. i remember when i only had 2x26650’s and that was just under 5.5 amps, and i thought that was extremely bright already.
Exactly 
Since I needed to test functionality on the second redesigned KD driver, I decided to toss it into the second AK-47 we have.
The only difference on this one, I removed the stock wires from the driver and soldered on some new, 22g Teflon coated multi-strand copper wire, and connect those wires to the 22g silver coated wire I had already installed up to the LED’s.
The driver worked as perfectly as the other 3-mode I installed in the other light, but pulled a bit more current at the tail cap at, 5.58a or 64 watts on high with 3 Enerpower 26650’s.
It’s likely the slight increase from this driver at 5.58a, compared to the other one being 5.51a, could actually be due to the better wiring on the driver. So one light is about 62 watts and the other about 64 watts. No big deal in difference and you certainly can’t see the difference except if you use a light meter.