Well tbh I don’t think you’d see the initial gradual throttling behavior unless your measuring current. I believe the 7135s ramp down output as they approach their ciritical temperature range so it’s hard to tell by eye if the temperatures are at the threshold. If the chips get very hot (120deg C iirc) it seems they’ll try to shut off completely and you’ll notice some flickering and larger instability in the output.
In my experience seeing as you’re running your light off 18650 cells, the voltage sag associated with that power source and the high current draw is probably enough to bring down the amount of energy that needs to be burned off by the 7135s pretty quickly after turn on. You may well be dropping out of regulation well before the 7135s start having a hard time.
I have a fairly hot Apex 5t6 running 20Amps and I don’t think the 7135s are ever taxed too hard even with realtively poor heatsinking, simply because the batteries can’t maintain a high enough voltage for very long.
It’s really a matter of looking at battery specs, taking note of their voltage sag and the vF of the Mt-g2 at that current and hooking up an Ammeter to check your current draw during the test.
If you notice your current dropping out of regulation well before you expect your cells to drop below the vF required to maintain that drive level, then it’s likely the 7135s are getting too hot.
Hot potato isn’t too relevant for me because of the handle, as long as I can keep the 7135s below critical and stop the Mt-g2s from desoldering themselves I should be alright
But tbh I’ll need to really tune in the Turbo timeout to avoid causing damage, this thing gets HOT!
Two copper tabs soldered to each slave provide a solid ground and heatsink connection to the rest of the assembly.
Very pleased with how this came together, took a while but it’s a much much better design than the first attempt. :bigsmile:
Now back to assembling this thing properly!
Well guys, this is the moment… first full assembly and test complete! :bigsmile:
Haha I’m loving it, this thing is so awesome!
And fortunately everything works as it should, no flickers or wobbles or shorts. Also delighted with the beam profile and tint, just lovely. Was worried I would see some mt-g2 ringyness at the center of the hotspot but the three intersecting beam profiles really hide all of that.
It even handles the heat surprisingly well once fully assembled and with the reflector doing it’s part in sucking some of those joules. I’ll do some runtime tests monitoring temperatures and currents and all that good stuff of course.
It’s not quite done yet though. The reflector I have in there is my spare which has some cosmetic flaws and will eventually be swapped out for a nicer specimen. Didn’t want to risk damaging the good one in a test assembly so this one acted as a guinea pig.
You’ll also notice the dark surround on the reflector, that’s something I definitely want to try and get on the final light to give it a bit of a unique look. Fortunately/Unfortunately the approach I tested on this reflector didn’t work as well as I was expecting, the vinyl material I was sticking on was too thick and wouldn’t mold well over the edges of the Oring groove so it left a bright edge and other flaws.
Need to find a method that works before I try it on the good reflector.
Moon mode
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And yes, beamshots will be happening soon.
First sleep though
How about a Group Buy? I don’t know if I can afford the price for one piece purchase, but with a GB, maybe we can get the price down to three digits! :bigsmile:
Edit: Speaking of blank cheques, did you know that most of the stuff printed on cheques is unnecessary for the cheques to be legal? You only need four pieces of information to make a legal cheque. The rest is fluff for the convenience of the banks. And, it doesn’t even have to be on paper.
Haha, reminds me of this quote, “First rule in government (or blank check) spending: why build one when you can have two at twice the price?” ( Zemeckis’ Contact ) lol
If you’re serious lionheart_2281 , once I have things finalized I’ll have a little think about what would be feasible. DavidEF there’s just so much work required on every corner of this light that I don’t think a group buy would do much to the overall cost, but I dunno maybe if a few people are interested.
And because it’s always hilariously awesome, here’s the C8 piggybacked onto the BTU again
…hell just because it’s Christmas… why not a Flashlight on a Flashlight on a Flashlight :bigsmile:
Haha it’s a silly light, my wrist is starting to complain already! Even without all the extra passengers the BTU itself now weighs 1.4kg, not exactly the most ergonomic feature for a handle light haha.
Need to get one of these steadycam rigs for it!
Insert Ice Cube meme here.
If you make more of these I’m VERY interested mate, big time.
So much work went into this one, and it’s been a pleasure following you every step of the way, I’m sure the next one you’d have done in a quarter of the time.
