Thank you very much pounder!!
any time! ;)
Thanks from agedbriar too!
i am about to get x9 too!. from what i've read, the onboard x9 driver is capable to draw max 1.7 only???
that's what I got from a trustfire flame that will do 4a on my 980l..this is using a good accurate meter with 14 awg wire as leads..it was bright still because of the size of the hotspot (bout half the size of my 980l) ..with the 2.8a driver the hotspot is brighter than my 980l, but the 980l appears have more lumens on a ceiling bounce test..as well it should given the 980l is driven harder than the x9..both are great lights but the x9 seems more trustworthy at longer run times given the regulated current of 2.8a..
well, i mean, before you mods with 2.8 driver, what's the current drawn by the onboard driver?
stock driver was ~1.7a..
so, are you actually recommending to change the driver? or should i just stick with the current driver?
not recommending anything..just stating the facts..2800mah is much brighter than the stock driver, but if you like the stock set-up then stick with it..for me it was a no brainer to swap the driver, but to someone else they might be completely satisfied stock..
pounder,
How much brighter is it visibly out 100 yards, for example?
well you know as much as me that brightness gets hard to judge when you get this bright and 4 times the lumens to our eyes appears twice as bright..well the best way I can see the difference was with my 980l..before the beam intensity was about on par with the 980l..the 980l had a bigger hotspot so accounted for the increase in brightness..now the spot intensity is brighter than the 980l..I would guess it 1.5x the lumens..so if the x9 was 600 or so lumens i'd guess it's close to 900 now..hard to explain the brightness increase in words..it's brighter no doubt..the x9 was almost identical to my xp-g running at 1.7a..so take a hard driven xp-g vs a properly driven xm-l and you have your difference..
Thanks! I was just curious what you thought of it in comparison, kind of like you explained. I don't expect you to judge lumens and such. I just meant if you were comparing it to the ~1.7A driver how much of a difference you see at 100+ yards. A lot of people are just concerned with intensity, but I'm seriously curious about throw because that's what mine (now my dad's) is used for. I'm wondering if it's really worth the hassle for a guy who isn't too familiar with flashlight modding.
well throw will be amplified because of the added brightness..with the new driver you will put more light on target at 100 yards 1.5x times as much..it's really not that hard to mod but if you're worried about it then start small on cheaper lights and get comfortable..grab a 12$ xm-l pill from manafont and put a kd driver in it..good place to start (that's where I did) I ordered the hi-low-strobe version of the manafont xml drop-in and hated the driver so I did the swap..just have a decent 25ish watt soldering iron, desoldering braid and some good flux thin solder..
Anyone contemplating a controller swap based on the low stock current readings alone, should consider the fact that due to the internal resistance of the DMM itself, the current metered with the original direct drive controller in place is lower (perhaps substantially so - depending on DMM and leads) than the current that flows in normal use (with no ammeter obstructing it).
On the other hand, the current measured with a regulated driver installed, is the same as in normal use. The DMM inclusion has no ill effect here, since the current is regulated. Thus, the actual current gain from the swap will be less than usually expected.
That being said, I have a NANJG 2.8A ready for possible swap. 
But I'll try better unprotected batteries first.
Reason I use 14 awg wire as leads…my 980l pulls up to 4.6a on my trustfire flames…no problems with innacurate readings here 
No pounder, the ammeter internal resistance is still there and is usually bigger than the leads', unless the latter are real crap.
I use the same 2.5mm2 (AWG 13-14) 0.5m leads yet from one DMM I get 2.05A, from another 1.44A, while the computed true unobstructed current amounts to about 2.2A.
The two meters connected in series yield the same reading, so it's not a matter of different accuracy.
Man I hope not…lol if my 980l is pulling more than 4.6a than I’m in real trouble! From what I’ve seen my dmm is pretty accurate but I do see what you’re saying…
Yes that could be well over 5A in normal use. 
EDIT: ... unless the battery tops out before that.
Just to put this straight.
It's not a meter accuracy problem at all. The DMM is measuring the current accurately enough. Only it chokes the current down when connected to the flashlight. The reading is right, but the current at the time of measurement is not the normal one.
This is a special case. In most other instances you do not need to think about the influence of the meter itself on the current being measured, as it's usually negligible.
my stock x9 pulls 2.4 a on fresh SF batts