direct drive on high a bit more ‘dangerous’ than the btu driver - produces more output since its direct drive but will produce a lot of heat… heat is normally bad, but since the btu is so huge it handles the heat very well… will produce more lumens, but as the voltage drops of the batteries, so will the output… good for a “wow” mode… should pull 4.5-5 amps on high with fresh batteries - if you use this driver i would use good quality protected cells, and don’t use IMR or low resistance high discharge cells, or you could fry an emitter
-pwm on low modes
btu driver:
all modes current regulated a bit safer and more linear output (3.8amps on turbo, with stepdown) - again - i would only use good quality protected cells… you could use pretty much any type of battery here as long as the cells are of good quality and the same capacity/make/age
my preference would be the btu driver personally as it makes the light more practical and still having a “turbo” wow mode…
would you be able to tell the difference in output between the dry driver on turbo and btu driver on turbo? probably only side by side… were probably talking the difference between 3000 OTF lumens and maybe 3500 which in my opinion is really negligible
upgrading the led stars to sink pads and perhaps adding more mass or changing the disc they are mounted on to copper would help with heat transfer… as might as well upgrade the leds to xml2 while you are at it and high current wires
Got a Shocker sitting at home, waiting - on a mini vaca now. It's a BTU driver, planning on the resistor mod to crank of the amps (published already here on BLF), 20 gauge wires, XM-L2 on copper stars, copper braid all springs, etc. Hoping to see 4,000 lumens and 200 kcd out of it, or really close. This is close to the ultimate setup for this light because of the BTU driver and getting higher amps out of it.
I can personally tell you even at $120 shipped the BTU is still a steal. I just got done playing with mine again outside. Throw and spill like I have never ever seen before on any other LED light I have owned. And yes I have owned a TK70. The TK70 won’t touch the BTU I got.
I don’t know if the deal ended, but I had a problem ordering last night, and was getting a popup, and PM’ed him, and he responded after “fixing” the problem. I’m not sure what he did.
This actually looks quite obtainable. Let’s look at the math:
Stock BTU is 3000 lumens, 135kcd. This equals 45 candela for every lumen.
Modded BTU with increased amps and lower resistance estimate is 4000 lumens, 200kcd. This equals 50 candela for every lumen.
What does this mean? Well, since there’s no actual change in shape between XML and XML2, if it did put out 4000 lumens, it theoretically would have roughly around 180kcd. Unless there’s some way you could change the ratio of throw to total output (by dedoming), to achieve 200kcd you would have to increase the lumens to 4444.
These are just rough calculations based on my calculated estimates. But if you could increase the amps to the LEDs I don’t see why it’s not possible, but 200kcd would require high current! Definitely over 4.5amps each emitter.
I already got 190+ kcd and 3,900+ lumens on a mod'ed DRY driver Shocker, so, really close, and I'm thinking my kcd measurements may be low because I'm measuring at only 4.3 meters. Also, general rule (from real, many upgrades) -- 20% increase in lumens means 40% increase in kcd - now don't ask me why, but it's proven in measurements done by me and rdrfronty. Also, this could be only for thrower designed lights, not sure.
Also, we are getting 180 kcd out of 3,600-3,700 lumens or so on the Shocker, again, measured by more than one person.
There's no math, just actual measured results. But, you have to consider what kcd is - it's very different from lumens (brightness, total light output). kcd is not distance directly, in fact if you double kcd, you don't double the distance, it's actually a lot less than double. It's the measurement of brightness at one small measurable point, back computed to 1 meter. So many say 10% increase in lumens isn't noticeable, and 10% increase in kcd would be less noticeable because it's less than 5% increased in rated distance (632m to 663m for example, going from 100 kcd to 110 kcd).
If you have an XML and xml2 in two identical reflectors, and both had 800 lumens would the throw be the same?
If you don’t mod it, (and for arguments sake assume that my previous calculations were correct) and decrease the output from 3000 lumebs to say 1000 lumens, then the kcd would just be 45kcd… Right?
My entire reasoning is based on that premise. I will measure this next week to confirm, unless someone else volunteers (its a 2 min experiment).