Yezl Y3 - a picture breakdown

I will try to take a pic some time today. You can get wet sandpaper at all your local hardware stores. Water keeps the paper from clogging up. It also keeps down the heat and the dust. It's really the only way I sand aluminum.

Autobody shops use it too for the same reasons. So the automotive isle at Walmart probably has wet sandpaper too.

The grinding stone is just to provide a flat grabby surface to hold the sandpaper with.

Appreciate the pics, really shows what we need to know to get started on this one.

I’m wondering if a small resistor mod might be enough to leave the stock driver in this one. Do they ALL have to run at max amps? :slight_smile: I have some R070’s on the way, perhaps replacing that R180 with an R070 would be sufficient to bump output without messing up anything. Or an R068, hmmmm. Do you recall what amperage this driver is making in stock form?

Also have to ask how you went about figuring out where to access the switch when you piggybacked the FET. Did you cut any traces or just strip the driver?

That “inny” is a PITA. I like to add copper under the shelf but it would take some serious manual labor to level that off in order to get the most out added heat sinking material, copper or aluminum either one. Sure would be nice to have a lathe, would make things like this much easier. I wonder if I could mount a lathe chuck on my drill? :slight_smile: Being able to hold a piece is the biggest issue, if I could mount it then turning it to do the work would be the easy part. Dangit, gonna have to start allocating monies to a small lathe…

Does the beam profile stack up favorably to the HD2010? I would think the deeper/wider reflector might give a slightly tighter hot spot, looking forward to that one. I’m finding myself liking a well defined hot spot, whether it’s tight or not, with less of that aura immediately surround it. I don’t mind spill, in fact I like some peripheral area illuminated, but I do like a more concentrated center area with only 2 levels instead of the usual 3. The Courui does this pretty well, and impresses me. Hope this one is similar.

Hmmm, 8mm thick shelf is probably thick enough to bore it out, thread it, and use a threaded copper insert to screw in from the inside. If a smooth wall is left on this insert to touch the walls of the pill it could really make a massive difference in the available thermal path. This would put more heat in the area adjacent to the exposed fins and get that heat out to the air more efficiently. See? Need that dang lathe! lol

Thanks again for the photo work, I think….now I’ve got too many ideas! You’re gonna cost me a ton of coin! :slight_smile:

Good point about the thickness of that shelf Dale. I will drill a hole and press in a copper plug in the center on mine.

Stock amps is ~2.50A. Beam is bout the same as a HD2010 - think I took wall shots including the Y3, somewhere... But easier to center the LED. The Y3 pattern has a clover type style around the center hot spot, very much like a HD2010.

For the switch, like I always do, is strip all parts, clean up all pads, then hunt for continuity to the switch connections. On the Y3, one switch connection goes to pin #2 of the CPU, the other goes to pin #4. For our drivers, all you need is one wire to the Atmel, one to ground. The one going to pin #4 also goes to an R4 and R5 pad. You could always wire direct to the tab on the switch, but I try to avoid getting an iron that close to the plastic switch housing.

Of course a cutout pill and copper replacement will be better, but I'm not too worried bout heat with this light. 8 mm is a huge thickness, thicker than many of my modded lights adding two pennies under the pill top, and the head threads are directly next to the pill top/shelf, and where the head screws on is where the big nice fins are. Almost perfect design. I use some good thermal grease on those threads (not electrical threaded connection) and it works great. So many lights have the fins above or below the LED - this one has them perfectly along side.

That does sound ideal, as long as an XM-L class emitter is being utilized.

I’m thinking of going with an MT-G2 at around 15A, changes the scheme of things considerably where heat is concerned. :wink:

'Dale amps' - yes, 15A is a whole different realm there. The Y3's I've gotten have been 1 cell, so been using XM-L2's, but the one I ordered is the 2 cell version, so I'm thinking of MT-G2 also. 15A with an MT-G2 is bout as much heat as 5 XM-L2's would do at 6A each (30A x 3.xA vs. 15A x 6.xA).

Lightly melt the end of a hot glue stick, glue it to the corner of a piece of sandpaper, trim off the excess sandpaper around the OD. Voila, instant sanding puck with a built-in handle.

Sweet. I gotta remember that tip. Thanks CC.

That’s IF the heat output can be interpolated in a linear fashion. The big MT-G2 at 15A is likely to be far less efficient than the 5 XM-L2’s at 6A. :wink:

(5x3A max vs 2x 3A max x5 / sq rt of n*Vf over c³)

The theoretical equivalent of the mathematical formulation represented in my last post is purely conjecture based on a triple heaping serving of steaming hot mud.

(Edit: This thread has been edited to remove descriptive text representative of my stupid mathematical formula) Sorry if anyone found it offensive.

I’ve been reading too many of ToyKeeper’s posts. :stuck_out_tongue:

Oops! Not to imply any doubt as to the integrity of ToyKeeper’s posts, merely insinuating that I am too far gone mentally to even begin to comprehend the multi-level depths of her quoted theory and mathematical genius. (crawling back under my rock now)

Was wondering where that science was coming from... Smile Pure speculation, but if a MT-G2 at 15A is less efficient than 5 XM-L2's running at the same power (ie watts), doesn't that mean more power gets converted to heat? So, maybe even worse? Think you got a room heater there, forget hand warmer.

Winner in isle 5!

Thanks Tom E. I appreciate the effort. Love the work bench cleanliness. Are the threads as others pointed out on the battery tubes the same on your samples?

Pardon the profanity in this thread. What was pointed out with the threads? I just looked at the two pieces and I wouldn't call them square - they are maybe too fine for that, but the overall quality is pretty good. They feel great when threading, but of course I got Nyogel on them.

It was reported and confirmed by another member here that the Y3 battery tubes screw onto the HD2010 battery tube.

For flattening aluminium inside a cavity I flatten the head of a bold that is about half the diameter of the pill cavity (I have a block of cast iron that I made really flat that I use as a base under sandpaper, I use it for flattening led-boards too), wrap pieces of sandpaper around that and start sanding the pill surface with that.

I take mine to my lab for lapping. A little bacon grease on it and he’s really happy! :slight_smile: