Solarforce S2200 MT-G2

Also, the PDs may hold voltage under load better meaning that less current input is needed to maintain the same wattage.

I use these Panasonic NCR18650PD cells. They are excellent! You get the best of both worlds.

I find the AW protected cells in 2600 mAh work better for me. They fit into the carrier better being a longer cell and the reviews from HJK show they actually hold voltage better under a 3A load. I got the NCR18650PDs specifically for this light, but not having a button top and being shorter are both a semi problem, so for now I’m going with the protected AW’s.

The output level in the S2200 can pretty easily be bumped!!! Thanks comfychair for letting me know how to do this. The driver board has 4 resistors in a row, in my case they were all 220 resistors. By stacking 3 of those with 1R00 resistors, the power level on my S2200 has gone up from 2.10A to 2.53A at the tail. This doesn’t sound big. I don’t know what the correlation is to the actual emitter lumens, but it’s noticeably brighter and makes noticeably more heat, quicker!!

This animated GIF shows my light in May, and tonight. Same camera settings from my G1X at ISO800, F/2.8 at 1/8 second exposure and same 97 yds to red oil drum. The pic with the white Dodge Caravan is stock, no car in the drive is the mod.

Very nice improvement! :slight_smile: Easy stacking of 3 tiny resistors that cost me .63 ea. :stuck_out_tongue:

LET ME ALSO ADD THAT I WAS WARNED NOT TO STACK ON ALL 4 EXISTING RESISTORS! IT WILL BLOW THE EMITTER!

Are you able to give step-by-step instructions on how to stack the resistors? Unfortunately, I have not done any soldering and would be glad for any advice

The resistors in question that need stacking are directly accessible, which is in itself easy and also potentially difficult. Removing the 3 screws that surround the positive spring to get to this board is unnecessarily difficult as Solarforce in their infinite wisdom decided to put threadlock on the tiny screws. I got lucky, only 1 broke. Which of course is where things started getting more difficult than they needed to be.

Once to the board, it looks like this

And again soldering a 1R00 resistor on top of 3 of those is easy, and painstakingly difficult at the same time…especially if soldering is not your cup of tea! They are 1.25mm wide and some 3mm long. On the plus side, it’s not entirely necessary to solder each one without contacting the next one in line…they’re all stacked onto the same 2 traces so soldering down one side then down the other might actually simplify it, as long as the solder stays on the proper end without crossing over.

I put one on, put the light back together and checked amperage. Gained .14A with each resistor. 3 times and I’m very happy with the result. I have no idea if more can be added, but I was warned to not stack on all 4 or the driver would go wonky and send the voltage from all 3 cells directly to the emitter and toast it’s gorgeous little self! Comfychair can elaborate on that, as I but merely followed instruction.

So see? Easy and difficult at the same time! :slight_smile: Hope this helps!

In other words, those resistors are about half the size of a grain of rice. Interesting choice for a first time soldering project. :O

I have no explanation for why my driver went instantly from nice regulated output to direct drive just from the addition of another 1/2 ohm resistor. Wish I did, never seen one act like that before.

I’ll also add that only Hi is affected, Medium and Lo remain at the same output as before.

I like it, seems a bit whiter than before, definitely brighter and when taking the trash down the lane this evening (a 267 yd walk one way) I took the opportunity to point it at a white barn that’s 610 yds away and be danged if it didn’t show the barn! I can’t say how much light was getting over there, but it sure showed it up in the pre-moon darkness. Not a beam on it at that distance, just so much light getting out there that it even went that far. :slight_smile: Not bad, says me! :wink:

Hi Dale

I just saw your S2200 in rdrfronty's Flooder & Thrower Beamshot thread, and that made me wonder: how hard is that MT-G2 really pushed in there.

If we take it that the tail reading is 2.53A, that means that the driver is roughly getting in about 4.2*3*2.53 = 31.88W. Now suppose that the driver has got really good efficiency, we can assume that the LED receives about 31.88*0.9 = 28.7W. According to Match's (https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/11018) and djozz's (https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/19600#comment-417559) measurements, that should be about 4.5A to the MT-G2, equating to about 2500 lumens, which is what rdrfronty indicated as well.

Seeing that djozz's results shows that the MT-G2 increases lumens all the way to 11-12A, it made me wonder how the S2200 could perform when driving the LED say at 8A for 3500 lumen :D I wonder if the driver/MT-G2 could survive that for long?

I guess there’s only one way to find out :slight_smile:

oRAirwolf said it best, there’s only one way to find out!

I simply stacked 5 resistors, will have to double check their value to keep from lying to you but that’s all I did. Comfy advised me to leave one of the 4 bay’s alone and use the other 3 for stacking, so I stacked 3 across then 2 across those. Why 5? Because when I did my own I ran out of resistors! It works, makes very nice light, so that’s where I stopped on rdrfronty’s, at a known quantity.

Stack em up, let us know how it works! :wink:

Seems to me it was gaining .14A (tailcap amps) for each resistor. So if you’re into building skyscrapers I’d like to see macro images of that achievement. :slight_smile: If you know your electronics, I’m fairly certain different values of resistor could be use to make it easier to use less stack. I matched what was already on the board as close as I could find. The heat is more readily “visible” to the hand now on high. Not a problem at this level at all, but would start coming into play more as you saw more amperage.

FWIW, I’ve recently put an MT-G2 in a Solarforce M8 in Direct Drive. With 2 Samsung 20R cells I won’t turn it on for fear of blowing my McClicky switch…tail amperage reads 11.88A. With 2 laptop pulls it is handled by the switch pulling 7.51A. Plenty of heat, to be sure! :slight_smile:

Good luck! And remember, pics or it never happened! :stuck_out_tongue:

Oh, no need to assume anything. The emitter is pulling 6.43V. If I remember correctly the amperage at the tail was 2.61A.

So much for remembering correctly. S2200 bump seems I got 2.77A for an extrapolated 4.86A to the emitter. Seems like manxbuggy1’s came to 4.81A for whatever reason, it was done just like mine.

No, it was nothing to do with not using that particular spot, they are all in parallel. Output increased normally with each added resistor and then all of a sudden the next 1 ohm added made it go direct drive with no warning. This was on the version running a XML2 LED, I don't know if the MTG2/S2200 driver is affected by the same thing (they are physically only slightly different (values of the stock sense resistors) but use obviously different firmware).

So, it’d be ok to add resistors? Until it wasn’t ok? Then it’d cost another $18 MT-G2, right? lol

I don't know if the MTG2 is killable, at least not like a XML. I think you'd have to hit it with enough to physically shatter the die. I know they'll melt the solder and slide off the star while still happily putting out lots of light.

Ok, call me crazy but I just stacked 3 more 1 ohm resistors on my S2200 driver. I already had 5, now there’s 8 stacked for 12 total resistors. The tail amperage before I started was 2.90A. Now? Well, the crazy part…3.38A at the tail on the S2200. :slight_smile: That’s 5.90A to the emitter, by the math. Already tested the cells, they sag to 11.27V several seconds after start-up. The forward voltage of the emitter at 2.77A is 6.42Vf, so using 6.45Vf it comes out to an extrapolated 5.9A to the emitter, or some 3075 lumens, give or take.

Will have a way to measure OTF soon, thanks to some friends. I’ll be sure to post my findings.

Moar resistors!

That's the spirit! :D Is it noticeably brighter? Did the tint shift or is it still the same? Did the medium and low modes stay the same again? How long can you use it on high before it gets uncomfortable to hold?

Thanx for experimenting!

Non-answers to your good questions. Visibly brighter? Well, I think so but then I’ve been playing with a light that is making some 4000 lumens so it’s kind of difficult to say. When I turned it on close to midnight for my wife to see she said “Wow!” in that low key awed tone.

Tint is great, I don’t find the MT-G2 to have any tint issues anywhere in the power range.

It was warming, but not getting hot in the few minutes I ran it. Will have to check that again with some longer run times and freshly charged cells. Will be nice to get an OTF lumens reading when that becomes possible, someone told me a little birdie was singing a song that indicated I’d have that capability next week. :wink:

I’ll check out the heat issue, and probably figure a way to add some more mass in the pill just cause. :slight_smile: Will of course bring that info back with me.