Group Buy for the GearBest Ultrafire F13 - Closed?

Received my 2 in the mail today. Both worked fine, thought there was something wrong with the lens but it was plastic stick on protection. :slight_smile: When I removed the body and tailcap they threaded right onto my 3c DST which was a nice surprise. Was wanting to do that conversion for awhile, was a nice bonus.

Thanks. I’ll give it a go. Although the driver in mine doesn’t look like that. More like the one posted earlier in this thread.

all those parallel resistors ,do they effect the current ? in case we add more on top of them.

See: Group Buy for the GearBest Ultrafire F13 - Closed?

Apparently, you can move the + lead on the driver to the other output pad to get higher current…

I received my 2 today and as yours was, mine also have different drivers.
The one with next mode memory was the hotter of the 2 measuring 2.2 on high, after moving the + wire to the other output tap and performing spring braid mods, it now pulls 3.40 on high! and output drops quick (Need a sinkpad:), 1.75 on medium and .45 which is a nice low.
This light has a warmer tint than the lower output one. Did the pencil mod on the Cap and it resets real quick now. Love that Mod!

The one with the quick mode reset pulled exactly 2.0, 1.0, and .50. Talk about some spot on regulation.
After same mods as the above one, it increased to 2.82, 1.45, and .70
Output does not tank as quick as it’s hotter brother and pulls some comparable ceiling bounce numbers.
With the slightly whiter tint, it is very close to the other light in appearance of beam. Hot spot on these lights is fairly tight.

To sum up, these are very nice flashlights, the threading is much better than I was expecting and the lens are nice and clear, reflector is very nice with no flaws. Each light had the protective cover on the glass, nice touch.

Now, after a simple Noctigon upgrade, I will have 2 very nice budget lights.

Big Thanks to Old Lumens for putting this together and Gearbest for delivering the goods, even if it was aboard the slower boat from China :slight_smile:
Thanks,
Keith

OK, so one of two (so far) drivers, and the first one mentioned earlier is shown at

(where we also read “The led shelf is part of the head, no removable pill”

Hi,

How are you all getting the driver retaining ring out? I tried (want to move the + lead), but it wouldn’t budge :(!!

I had to hork the ever loving bejesus out of mine to get it loose

Not sure if they glued it in or they used a Chinese version of Arnold Schwarzenegger to put it in…but it was in there good!

I use a pair of snap ring pliers from Harbor Freight, but yes they were flexing a bit before the ring let loose.
If you do not have these or some strong tweezers you could try tapping a sharp punch tip with a small hammer on one of the dimples. The vibration of the tapping may loosen it easier.

Good luck,
Keith

Hi,

Ok, I got the ring out. I had to use a spanner wrench to do that. Here’s what I have:

As you can see, the pad where the + lead is attached is labelled “26650+”, and there’s another pad (also circled in yellow, but unlabelled).

So, to get higher current, do I unsolder the red lead from the “26650+” pad and move it to the other pad as shown in the image?

Thanks,
Jim

That’s where to move it.
I untwisted mine to make the wires as long as possible for the soldering procedure, then re twist.
Pencil that Cap while you have it apart.
Enjoy!
Keith

Thanks. I’ll give that a try when I have a chance. I had good results on a different light (this one: https://www.fasttech.com/products/1700404) with a similar mod, so it should be a good one.

This F13 is turning out to be a heck of a deal, huh, thanks to O-L and gearbest!

Yes, you can’t see the traces, but that long row of resistors, it is between the output pin of the 8 pin FET and the 26650 pad, current limiting resistors, the pad on the other side completely bypasses the resistor bank you get the FULL output that the FET can produce. If you really want better power to the emitter, then get thicker gauge wire as well.

APM9435 datasheet
[PDF](javascript:openreq(‘ANPEC Electronics Corporation 126018, 1 datasheet pdf’))

Pins 5,6,7,8 are all the drain (tied together)

P.S. When you move that wire put some heat sink compound under your star…mine came with none, it WILL get hot when you move that wire…count on it :slight_smile:

WarHawk-AVG,

Ahh. So by moving the + lead to the other pad, and bypassing that bank of resistors, it’s basically really direct-driver + the Rds for the FET, on high mode?

And yes, I was thinking that I’d go to heavier leads while I was at it, and thanks for the reminder re. adding some thermal compound under the star.

EDIT: BTW, I don’t know if it’s just with the light I have, but I’ve noticed that there’s a bit of a doughnut hole in the center of the beam when it’s up close.

Looking at the reflector and centering ring, it seems like the centering ring might be a bit too thick, so the top edge of the centering ring is almost at the same height as the top of the XM-L dome. Has anyone tried tweaking the center ring piece, or maybe tried one of the butterfly-type insulators instead, or maybe even just some kapton tape instead of the centering ring?

Some have replaced that thick centering ring with a thinner centering ring/insulating gasket

It’s DD either way. Nothing but the overall resistance of the light (including the driver) limits the current. Those resistors are there to reduce current, I simply wanted to point out that it’s DD with or without them. They don’t actually regulate the current, just reduce it.

desides that solution,i am talking if you want even more ,if there is a way to do it with those resistors.

Has anyone else notice the beam is a little weird.

The hot spot is a perfect circle, odd for a LED with a square die. And the hot spot is larger than other XM-L lights I have (both bigger and smaller SMO reflectors).

Anyhow I removed the reflector and the white centring ring. The reflector then drops a lot further over the LED. But sadly this doesn’t improve the focusing, it makes for a very defused hot spot. You actually need to elevate the reflector a bit to get the best focus, but without the white centring ring the focus is still poor, not all that tight and ringy. Makes me wonder if this lens isn’t really optimised for an XM-L size emitter and output angle.

With the white ring back in place it returns to what on a white wall looks like a good hot spot, very round, very well defined and very large. But it must be an effect of the white plastic ring causing this. Shine another XM-L light next to it and you’ll see a slightly less round smaller hot spot but much more intense (even one pulling less amps).

This translates outside, the throw on my F13 is quite poor. My Convoy M1 OP reflector easily out throws it by quite a margin.

Not sure if any of this makes any sense of not. Probably easier to see in person than words.

No, you are making sense. I did much the same experiment last night, by removing the centering ring and putting tape on the end of the reflector instead to insulate it. Just as a test, because without the centering ring, it was hard to get the reflector to center (it moved when screwing in the head). That got rid of the doughnut at close range, but the beam had lots of rings.

I noticed that the reflector has a kind of large flat area around where the emitter is, compared to other XM-L lights, which looks a little strange?

Of course, 3.7Volts anyway, with which these ‘drivers’ can’t do anything useful.
You will smoke it…