V10+ 5000mA driver from fasttech not so 5000?

I have the V10+ 3A driver in my Fenix TK11 with a xm-l2 u2 and it puts out a little less light than my eagletac g25c2.
When I did tests before putting it in it hit about 2.6A, however it fluctuated depending on the resistence from the dmm wires and aligator clips.
What I’ve learnt with high current drivers is that they are very sensitive to resistance in the wires etc.

How about trying to solder everything together with some nice thick wire and see what you get?
I got a 4a and 5a driver coming in soon. I’d be happy so long as they put out 3.5A+ and 4.2A+ respectively.

I have tried a XML U2 also, with the same result. King Kong shows the same numbers too.
The quality of the driver is very low, I resoldered a couple of silicone wires, between the 2 boards of the driver, because they were ready to get cut.

Got the same problem with the 3 mode 4A driver, could only get slightly over 3A out of it.
The sinkpad and higher forward voltage on the XM-L2 certainly doesn’t help but it seems to be a pretty high voltage drop in the driver as well :~

Makes me wonder where they get all these numbers from. peak current @ 4.35V on a bench psu with the driver submerged in mineral oil?

I have the 4A version in a light. (the one with ramping. Comes from IOS, not FT). I am getting more like 3A. 2,8 on a slighly used cell (Panasonic or Sanyo)
Today I just got the protected NCR18650PD from IOS. Pretty fresh of the charger I am getting 3,75A on the tail running one XM-L. Not sure how soon it falls down. Based on first impression it seem to be a much better match with the driver circuit than with the “regular” high quality protected cells.

I also have the 5A version too (3 mode from IOS)… Still not finished the light that I am going to put it in. But Ill report back some place on this forum.
Plan to use it with 5 XP-G and one 32600 battery. Should be no issues with high vf on the LEDs or the amount of juice from the battery. So time will tell.

I have seen others report lower values on these drivers too. I suspect that in a bench test with perfectly constant and high input current they may deliver as rated, but in real life they seem to perform lower to considerably lower than expected.
As Garry mentioned. VF to XM-L2, or VF in general when going for 3,5A to a single emitter is an issue that is in many cases not driver related. But in the case of these drivers, they seem to under perform in general when it comes to real life use in flashlights.

The Panasonic cells I use are CGR18650CH.
I have seen 5A+ in direct drive XML.

Hi,

Their page says:

So maybe they specifically mean only XM-L and not XM-L2?

You might open a ticket on their site and ask about XM-L2. That “geek” guy seems pretty knowledgeable and responsive.

I got these drivers in 4A and 5A on order. You "must" use low resistance batteries on a XM-L2 single cell build w straight amp regulated drivers with driving high current (over 3A). I've gotten 4.2A measured on 4.2A Nanjg drivers. Also, you have to use heavy gauge wire (~22) and check your springs. The first 15 mins or so of use on a battery is excellent output and amps. The KK ICR's and MNKE IMR's do pretty well.

RaceR86's results above is a good sign for the 4A driver - 3.75A measured on a fresh Pana PD. These type of drivers never seem to deliver the full amps as spec'ed, same for the drivers from IOS. I'd expect 3.7A from a 4A driver, and 4.5A from a 5A driver, but 2.6A is bad, really bad. Not sure what a high drain Pana battery is exactly, plus you need heavy gauge leads on your DMM - you are getting into ranges where all resistance is the enemy, you need slim to none resistance, everywhere.

I found the 4a version from ios gives 3.7a on an xm-l and 3.3a on xm-l2 using a king kong (or a Samsung unprotected/sanyo protected), 2.6a to me suggests either the meter leads aren’t so good or……they sent you the 3a version by mistake (its an easy mistake to make tbf).

Is the difference between 3, 4 or 5 amps noticeable?
I mean, can we distinguish the version from a picture?

no, unfortunately not, I think the sense resistors are different but I dont know the differences myself sorry.

Just to show how sensitive the 4A driver is to give out high output. Some more tail cap readings to XM-L on copper. Stock wires on the driver (26 AWG to LED from driver, same size or slightly smaller between the boards).
Protected Panasonic 18650PD 3,75A (freshly charged, from the charger)
Protected Panasonic 18650PD 3,6A (freshly charged, but with several hours to rest)
Protected Panasonic 18650B 3,4A (freshly charged, a few hours to rest)
Protected Sanyo UR18650F 2,6A (freshly charged, a few hours to rest)

The difference is about as expected considering that the PD generally is better, and that the 18650B has less voltage sag in the beginning compared to the Sanyo battery. Cant comment yet on the PD, but as said, the others batteries will go below 3A fairly soon (Sanyo already are from the start). I have both green (FT) and black (IOS) 18650B, and they were pretty much equal.

I assume mine and Gords driver are the same. Our high measurements are pretty equal. (Same dealer, same specs, too)
Larger batteries with low resistance and minimal voltage sag probably have a decent advantage when they are used for some time. Or batteries in parallel.
Gords, how does your behave with the larger batteries when voltage are lower? More like 50-70%?

Due to the output being so low, and not well regulated, that might be the reason IOS seem to have stopped to sell them? They started to disappear slowly not too long ago, now I cant find them anymore…

If you have a boost driver on 1 cell, do you think that cell can really deliver 5A except for a very short time? The driver would have to pull more than 5A to feed the set output voltage and then take some more current for that regulation, you end up pulling more than 5A, cell struggles since it it will rapidly deplete and voltage sag would be great, resistance becomes great since it's such a high current on such small voltage.

zeremefico

You got a typo there i nthe title, it's not 5000mAh, but 5000mA.

I have the 5A version and the only way I can get 4.7A on an XM-L2 is with a power supply set to 4.2V. I used 20ga emitter wire and braid on the driver and tail spring. I get about 4.2A on a TF flame 26650. Using 20 ga wire between the boards will probably help.
For me, I’m going back to the East-092 DD driver. I get 5.5A from that J)

What do you get at a more realistic voltage like 4.00 or 3.80V? On the power supply of course.

Dunno, but it drops down as soon as I start to drop the voltage.

Where can I get thick wire? FT has only 30 and 28 AGW

http://intl-outdoor.com/22-awg-highly-flexible-silicone-copper-wire-p-688.html

I did a 14*7135 driver and got 4900mA with the DMM in series with the standard Nanjg leads with a UR18650GM at 4.15V (offload measured). I think that driver is simply bad, too much drop in the circuit.