Jacob A60 owners, a little attention!

Last week I had two A60, let’s call them #1 and #2.

The #1 had a tighter hotspot than #2 and pulled 2.15A rising fast to 2.4A.
That was a bad sign (could be a thermal problem and the road to self destruction).
Lumens measurement was 360 fading fast to 240!

The #2 pulled a steady 2.1A and was 350 lumens fading to 330.

I disassembled #1 at the LED end. The plastic capsule around the LED had previously been removed (there was pressed a hole in it) perhaps for adjustment?.
The cooling was castatrofal, the star sat loose on a 7mm black piedestal, 0.5mm high. I thought it was a piece of metal but it was two layers of self-adhesive plastic rounds meaning the star had no cooling at all!
There was some traces of white paste that could indicate that the star had previously sat directly, with paste, on the pill.

Now what is that?

Plastic!!!

What I don’t understand is why would someone put anything beneath the star unless it can’t reach the bottom of the reflector? For an optical adjustment I would put something between the star and the reflector.
Perhaps an answer will show when I clean up and mount the LED properly, without plastic in between and look at the hotspot. After all I have the #2 to compare to, the one with the bigger hotspot. Perhaps it too needs adjustment of the reflector position, in due time…

EDIT: Yep! After removing the plastic and mounting the star properly the hotspot grew the 10-20% to become the same size as the A60 #2 (and a bit uneven). I am now convinced that it is necessary to put 0.5 mm of metal beneath the star as the reflector cannot be moved closer to the LED. The factory must have had some ugly hotspots and made that quick and very dirty solution to the worst of them.
Also, without the spacer, the star is not pressed against the pill and overheating could be the result.

The one I played with at weekend had no “spacer” for want of a better word under the star, just the anodized light engine base (funnily enough, the keygos ke-5 has exactly the same set up, has a direct drive xm-l and I don’t remember seeing many threads about them burning out…).

I just sanded back the anodizing on both lights, new diamond thermal paste (because that’s what was available locally) and reinstalled the led’s.

If I’m honest, I’m unconvinced the anodizing causes that much issue, but what do I know?

In case anyone missed my thread.

Based on their track record reported here in other threads, all Jacobs should be carefully looked at in regards to the LED mounting. Mine wasn't bad, same as gords, and I did the same thing he did - removed anodizing and used quality thermal paste. I also upgraded to an R2 emitter and did the "resistor mod" to get the stupid driver to reset to high (default) mode after 2-3 seconds of being off, rather than switching to the next mode.

I think/suspect thr newer versions are better mounted because the early bought ones had the plastic, while it seems like a couple bought more recently didn't have it.

Also, other threads/posted mentioned removing the plastic changes the vertical height of the LED mount, which may adversely affect the beam pattern - not sure of the details. You may want to check the other thread postings - BLF search for Jacob or A60.

Hi,

Sorry for posting to an older thread, but figured it’s better than starting a new one. I know there’s the main review thread, but this one seems to be about mal-performing A60s?

Anyway, I got one that was partially dedomed, and was only showing about 25Klux, so I put in a new XR-E emitter, and now it’s only showing about 22Klux :(. Actually, I “killed” the partially dedomed emitter, which is why I had to replace it.

On the one I have the star is sitting just on a small bit of paste, so I was wondering if the lack of a disk might be the problem (i.e., causing the 22Klux vs. ~50 klux)?

If that’s the problem, should I try to put a small metal disk under it? I’m thinking that maybe filing and sanding a copper penny (U.S.) might work?

Thanks,
Jim

P.S. I’m only getting 0.8 amps tailcap current. Is that normal for the stock driver?

Hi ohaya,

If you have a look at this image, it's the Jacob A60 1 meter from a wall and it will give you a rough idea of what to expect when the hotspot is focused properly.

It's the top left image you want. (I just grabbed it quickly from my review thread)

Hl.

The hotspot on mine looks similar to the top-left image (at 1 meter), but it’s just very. I take my lux measurements at 39 feet (11.887 meters, I think), and as I said, it’s only about 22 - 25Klux (vs. > 50 lux) now.

Edit: Hmmm. I see from your review thread that you were getting 2.1 amps on high? That seems like a problem for mine, where I’m seeing only ~0.8 amps!

Jim - we gotta stop meeting like this... . The 0.8 amps is a definite problem and probably explains the output. Been a while since I worked on a Jacob, but you really want 2-2.4 amps, but think'n stock, it does 1.6 or 2 amps?? something like that - viffer notes 2.0 amps on his, so 0.8 is really low. Maybe some really bad resistance somewhere, or could be the driver. The EZ900 XR-E's do the best throw in a Jacob, as high as in the 70's stock I believe.

My final mod on the A60 is using a Nanjg driver at 2.45A (or 2.8A) and a XP-E2 emitter w/dome - does over 100 kcd - did the same for manxbuggy1 for his, listed here at 116 kcd: https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/18214

Hi,

Sorry about “meeting”. I posted a thread earlier about being “unlucky”, so I guess I get a lot of the “problem childs” :).

I just editted my post about the 2.1 amps, so I agree. I’ll try to see if I can figure out what’s going on there. FYI, my measurement was at the battery negative with no tailcap, so the tailcap switch wasn’t in the picture.

I did remove the driver for a look-see, maybe I didn’t tighten it down enough. I’ll check that out.

Thanks,
Jim

Oops, edit above with adding:

My final mod on the A60 is using a Nanjg driver at 2.45A (or 2.8A) and a XP-E2 emitter w/dome - does over 100 kcd - did the same for manxbuggy1 for his, listed here at 116 kcd: https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/18214

beamshots including my mod'ed Jacob here: Beamshots in NH at about 240 meters

Hi,

Well, this is getting weirder and weirder…

To eliminate any body contact, etc. issues, I hooked up a battery directly to the driver spring and negative contact, going through my meter to measure current.

And, I got a whopping…. 0.72 amps :(!!

Yep, less than when the light was put together.

I’m not familiar with the stock A60 driver, but this seems like a bad driver, right?

Jim

Hi,

I may have to go that way with this one, cuz I’m going nowhere, fast, right now :(…

Sounds that way. I may have an extra stock driver laying around here... Would have to check...

jim, did you get yours from aurabuy? that’s where mine came from and it was only pulling an amp……

bell out the plus contacts and there is one on the driver that goes direct to the battery, also bell out the neg ring and move the led neg wire to there, DO NOT DO ANY FURTHER RESISTANCE IMPROVEMENTS just move the wires, you can find my pictures in the review thread that is not spasmod’s, it should instantly hot 2.45a, it will still have next mode memory, the mode group goes:-
high
off
high
off
high
off

etc

If you do not have one Tom, I still have mine that you sent back to me. I would be happy to send it to Jim.

Hi,

I got this A60 from another BLF user, so I’m not sure from where it was bought. I’ll try to find the pics you mentioned and give that a try.

Thanks,
Jim

Hi manxbuggy and Tom (et al),

I appreciate that! I also have this driver somewhere:

https://www.fasttech.com/p/1122401

How would that work with the XR-E emitter? Would a “good” stock driver?

Edit: In any event, as mentioned above, I’m going to check out gords suggestion first.

1.4a is still not 2.4a :expressionless: you want a 7 * 7135 driver, not a 4 * 7135 driver, I will be going for a nanjg at some point just to give a nice mode spread, the whole point of a jacobs though is a seriously over driven xre, no point fitting a driver thats not going to spank that emitters behind.

my posts are on aged briars a60 thread for the pictures, but you don’t need them, just bell out the + and - on the driver, ot took me ten minutes working on my vans passenger seat with practically no tools other than an iron.

Gords,

Was the post/thread you referenced this one:

?

So, just move the blue wire on the emitter side to the outer contact ring, and the red wire on the emitter side to what looks like (from the 2nd pic) one end of the resistor in the 2nd pic? And that end of the resistor should ohm out to the battery + side on the other side of the driver (i.e., the spring)?

In your post quoted above, you listed modes, but in that post in the other thread (I linked) you said direct drive, so I’m confused about that. Is there still going to be modes after moving the red and blue wires as you suggested?

Thanks,
Jim

Hi,

I got this A60 from another BLF user, so I’m not sure from where it was bought. I’ll try to find the pics you mentioned and give that a try.

Thanks,
Jim

Hi,

I also have this (like most drivers, I don’t remember why):

http://intl-outdoor.com/ld2c-3a-12-cell-circuit-board-p-732.html

Should I try that if the wire moving doesn’t pan out? Or is 3 amps too much?