Trustfire AK-47 9x XM-L Driver Defect / Repair / Upgrade / Photos

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

http://www.lightmalls.com/9-led-series-3-mode-for-three-lithium-battery-led-driver-with-low-voltage-protection

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 :wink:

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.

well, i might have to order 1 of the old style from lightmalls…

I bet we could estimate (difference in) efficiency of the new KD driver and stock driver by comparing ceiling bounce readings

If you’re looking for even more output, getting the Lightmalls version is a great idea. The ceiling bounce comparison sounds interesting too.

Hi Guys,

Pix of my driver in a stock TR J18 - as you can see the driver does not have that third resistor at all - doesn’t even look like it was ever there. This light now seems to run at 50% even on high, it was fine for the first few months of usage now I suspect something has gone bad in the driver. I fortunately have 2 X TRJ18 so I simply swapped the entire tail section from the good one and that doesn’t make any difference which isolates the issue to something in the head assembly. Seems very unlikely it would be an LED issue especially as they all light up (of course as they are in series) so that leaves only a driver issue.

My partner happens to be an electrical engineer who specialised in circuit board design… so will get her to have a look (unlikely she will care to spend the time though, helping me with my “flashlight” - she already makes fun of me for my collection). Suspect as the TRJ18 it’s only 7 LED’s there was no need for the extra resistor???

http://i.imgur.com/orXD3yB.jpg

Hi Jaws, so I assume the drivers in both your J18’s don’t have that third resistor? From the photo, the +B spring looks great, so I couldn’t have gotten to hot.

The value 3R30 seems really high for a current sense resistor (3.3 Ohms). Usually it is below 0.5 Ohm, On a light like this, under 0.1 Ohm total.
What is the value of the resistor under the electrolytic capacitor (the closer black striped can)?
What’s on the other side of the driver?

Hi folks,

Don’t bother getting the LightMalls version of the 9x T6 driver unless you simply need a replacement for your stock driver. It isn’t like shown on their website photo with the old better style capacitor. It’s the same one that Kaidomain sells. I haven’t installed it in my Trustfire AK-47 yet to check output, but I’ll do that later tonight and let you know.

For now, the original high output capacitor style is officially out of production. Man, what a bummer :_(

Okay, just installed a gold plated +B spring on the Lightmalls 9x T6 high output driver, and verified it’s exactly the same output as the Kaidomain version. With 3 x 26650 MNKE cells, it’ll gross 62 watts - 64 watts or 5.60 amps at the tail cap.

Don’t get me wrong, this is huge output on a Trustfire AK-47, it just isn’t 90 watts output like the old style Kaidomain driver. But battery power will last longer and I won’t have to worry about the light hand-grenading on me.

I also just received my SoShine LIFEPO4 26650 Protected cells. I’ll see how they work on this light. I’m curious to see how the low voltage protection works with these lower voltage cells.

Not to bring this back from the dead….

But is this the KD driver being used? http://www.kaidomain.com/product/details.S020165

I have a Trustfire 9T6 which seems to be identical to the Skyray 9T6, and was considering upgrading it.

Is that driver the only real option now? The description still says 70-100w, but if its only doing around 60, that is disappointing.

Hi Bdiddle,

I’ve purchased the 9x T6 driver from 3 different vendors, Lightmalls, Kaidomain, and now the one I just received today from lck-led.com. Both Lightmalls and lck-led both show the larger capacitor older more powerful version, but they’ve all arrived in the new style (compact version) that Lightmalls sells. So don’t go by the photograph on the websites.

Unfortunately none of the 9x T6 drivers output the rated 90 watts - 100 watts installed in my Trustfire AK-47 3 x 26650 light. The drivers I received from Lightmalls and Kaidomain, both output 62 watts or 5.55a at the tailcap. I just installed the lck-led driver and that one produced 67 watts or 5.90a at the tailcap.

I’m really pissed off these retailers show a photo of a driver, but have no problem shipping a newer and less powerful version of the driver. Still, even at 62 watts, a Trustfire AK-47 outputs a huge amount of flood light. I’m really not aware of any light these days that can flood like one of these 9x T6 lights.

Here are the links to the above drivers.

http://www.lck-led.com/26mm-3000ma-driver-modes-p-962.html

http://www.lightmalls.com/9-led-series-3-mode-for-three-lithium-battery-led-driver-with-low-voltage-protection

http://www.kaidomain.com/product/details.S020165

I guess before I order an iffy driver I need to get some good leads for my DMM and get a good tailcap amp reading.

I was also considering upgrading to U3 led’s, or sinkpads……but that would be pricey and time consuming.

Did you get an AR coated lense?

The AR coated lenses available these days do not come in a large enough size for a Skyray or Trustfire 9x T6. But either of these lights produce so much output, even at 5.55a - 5.90a, an AR coated lens is really not required. But if one was available, I’d still purchase it…lol.

Also, I recall you mentioned you want to install one of these drivers in a Skyray 9x T6. It’s possible with that light a problem may arise due to it being wired in 3S2P, if I recall correctly. I can only say any of the drivers I mention in my last post to you, will work perfectly in a Trustfire AK-47 due to it being wired fully in series.

Yeah I’m aware I’d have to rewire the LED’s……that’s why I was considering just replacing them all. And then I realized I only paid $50 for mine at the Wallbuys sale and it may not be cost effective in comparison :smiley:

Personally, I think it would be worth it to rewire and change out the LED’s for better heat sinked versions. It’ll make it more efficient and certainly brighter. My Trustfire AK-47’s I’m going to leave as is, but when I get a few more dollars together, I’m going to be doing a full upgrade to my Skyray 9x T6. If you can handle the work involved, I say go for it. Just try and get it correct the first time and you’ll be really happy you made the upgrade.

I say this again: on the 9T6 the positive spring is a big limiting factor, add some copper braid and you will get 9+Amps…

Richie, a fairly newbie here. You’ve done excellent job with detailed info. Just got to look at the thread today and happy to see the work.

I order 10 of these Ak47 (unfortunate name that may trigger NSA monitoring - LOL). Sold 5 in stock form to people i work with, $80 each. I installed the KD $20 board and confirmed your observation with Trustfire 26650 cells. They’d just flash then go out. Advertised at 5,000mAh but simply don’t have the juice to run it.

I put a 12v 2.5a (before I read your info) and it’d turn on for about 7sec then the PS protection circuit trips. I bought a 5a 12v PS and it would stay on a long time, but the fins got really hot so I didn’t leave it on long. Then I pasted on the heat conductive mud from KD. It smoked when got hot.

Planning to try a few things.

What is the value of that R820 ?