I still can not believe how bad results you got on small aspherics (worth to do test with another 1503? ). They are so bad that I would take a risk of finding replacement lenses all over the world if it will happen to me...
Cajampa you really must get yourself lightmeter man :) Although you did very good and tidy mod I think that 22awg wire is more than enough to bypass switch spring, and you don't need to bypass anything on driver if you use carobronze spring from FT. But who knows? Maybe I am wrong. I would like to see your opinion when you get lightmeter(even budget one). Because it will tell you if you are getting something or not with your mods.
I tried before with thicker wires(but of course I will admit I did not tried with currents above 4A in single cell light) and there is absolutely no difference. But problem I did encountered while bypassing with thicker spring that flexibility of main switch spring decreased(no flexibility at all) and it unnecessarily forced bottom driver spring to bend to its maximum or I used to have small dents in protected 18650 batteries which is not good.
When upper and bottom spring flex properly they works as one and handles any kind of recoil without damaging battery.
There are so many variables. A Cree bin is a few percent wide, but Cree guarantees their own measurements only within 7%, so that is on top of the bin-variation. Then the variation introduced by dedoming (which I have never measured separately but suspect is less than what is the general opinion) and quality of the reflow. Then the variation between luxmeters (not to be underestimated!), varying levels of clumpsiness of the measurers causing measuring errors, lens lottery.
Of course all variations will not be the maximum that is stated (manufacturers are careful with their claims, measurers may be have a well thought out and consistent method), but still I sometimes wonder how it can be that different people get comparable results at all.
10% variation is a job well done when measuring light!
I will someday soon, but those light meters KKW & n10sivern have cost like $30-$40, and that is about what i payed for the 1504 + XP-L on Noctigon i used.
I haven’t done enough research to know if there is a cheapie that is good enough to invest in yet.
You are right that there is less to gain at lower amp & non if you use a linear driver at a fixed amp.
But then again at higher amp on these high efficiency high Vf emitters, every little voltage gained & not lost in the circuit, from the battery to the emitter improves the output.
And i don’t agree that a carobronze spring is as good as a wire bypass, but a beryllium copper spring is almost there. To bad we only have that tiny one from IOS to chose from, i hope a full selection of copper springs in all sizes comes soon.
You are right that you can lose some spring travel but i think its worth it, for a for a max output build at least.
I used a carobronze spring, with a wire bypass, and the wire has free travel into the driver area in the pill for the led/bat + wire, but this only work when you don’t use a driver.
Are you building another one here? Because I don't see solder on a pill and driver.
And I also see that you put spacer for light to not go in over focus mode right?
You have excellent soldering skills and you are probably electrician or electrical engineer?
But anyway I would like to see driver soldered for that brass pill.
18awg wire in both spring is thick but it is probably necessary for high currents as you told.
What is expected runtime with your driver at max lux performance and lets say LG18650D1(3000mah) or similar batteries?
Edit:
I think that de doming process difference is another important thing that experienced members with right equipment could measure among same batch of same emitters bin.
We have 3 main: Gasoline, Acetone, Hot dedome.
Some guys says that gas de doming leeds to greenish tint while acetone and hot de dome not. So if tint remains cooler with other types of de deoming and since aspherics likes cool white tints I would not be surprised of performance difference between them.
I always reflow with slightly pressure to led dome.
I like hot dedome because it takes a whole 2 minutes. I’m impatient. I am also not a big fan of warm tints in throwers, just flooders. I said I was going to do a test with all 3, but I’m running low on emitters I’m willing to sacrifice. I will be making a mouser order next week, maybe I can find some cheaper BIN’s to test.
Each man that sacrifices his time and money for testing, or gathering interesting lights for all of us, or any other useful flashlights theme stuff should be considered legend...
Without you guys and plenty of other guys that could be mentioned here there would not be BLF, and lurkers like myself would never learn anything.
About 30 most experienced people here made the whole world stuck to the screens of BLF and to join conversation. Experimenting and Sharing knowledge and your own practice is something that cant be replaceable by book and generic manufacturer provided data.
[Quote=luminarium iaculator]Are you building another one here? Because I don't see solder on a pill and driver.
And I also see that you put spacer for light to not go in over focus mode right?
You have excellent soldering skills and you are probably electrician or electrical engineer?
But anyway I would like to see driver soldered for that brass pill.
18awg wire in both spring is thick but it is probably necessary for high currents as you told.
What is expected runtime with your driver at max lux performance and lets say LG18650D1(3000mah) or similar batteries?
[/quote]
No this is the same one i built before.
The reason you don't see solder is the "driver" is just pressfitted in. But it isn't an actual driver it is just an empty 17mm spare ospark board i had.
Check out the led side
http://i.imgur.com/Mbecfni.jpg
If you look at the LED - you see that it is soldered to the brass pill, there is no need to solder the bat - on the driver board to the pill. The electrons already goes through the bat - on the battery through the switch in to the tube & in to the brass pill that is screwed into the tube.
I don't have to use a led - wire or ground the driver board, because i have soldered the led - to the copper mcpcb & the brass pill ;) for maximum flow of current :D
Yes i put some tape to adjust the focus, my 1504 with the XP-L on sinkpad, is a quarter of a turn over focused when fully zoomed out in spot mode. It isn't perfect yet with those spacers but its a bit better. I will change the led to a XP-G2 S4 soon anyway.
I actually am a trained electrician, never worked as that though.
And slightly embarrassing to admit to because i am so bad at much of the basic electrical math, i was supposed to pick when i went to school for it. But at least i am certified, so i can rewire stuff & do basic installation work legally & that is always nice, when you want to fix stuff around the house.
If you thought that spring looked nice soldered, it is a trick that Dale shared, i coat the bottom of the spring in solder paste, and just reflow the spring with a heatgun ;) works great :)
I don't know how long a LG18650D1 would last, because this is fully direct drive from the battery without any protection, it is a bit dicey to run it to a fully drained battery.
The only protection is me making sure i don't let the light dim to much before i pop in a new battery, but as long as you always check the battery with a DMM after use, you quickly get a feel for how far you can drain them safely ;) You could use a protected battery, but the protection circuit eats up a bit of the max current & voltage, but at least it would be safer.
I got a "Panasonic NCR18650PF 2900mha":http://lygte-info.dk/review/batteries2012/Orbtronic%2018650PD%202900mAh%20%28Black%29%20UK.html , i could test how long it takes to get down to about 3.2v or ~80% drained, i would guess about 15-20min or there about.
One flaw with your theory Cajampa. When we talk about soldering the PCB to the pill, we are talking about under the pcb. I understand what you are trying to do, but I don’t think it’ll work like that. We solder the entire bottom of the pcb to the pill for heat transfer. All the power in the world to that LED doesn’t matter if it gets heat soaked fast. Solder is the most effective transfer medium between the pcb and the pill. Probably 10 times more effective than artic silver. As for your theory, look at it like this. You have a green light at a road intersection and it’s rush hour traffic. The intersection is the LED. If you have 8 lanes going into the intersection and only 2 lanes on the other side, traffic will only move as fast as the 2 lanes. The 8 lanes will be your solder to the PCB and the 2 lanes will be the wire soldered to the other side. Current will only flow as fast as your most restrictive element allows it to. It’s not going to speed up to a point then slow down or vice versa. It is a constant rate that the 2 lane road allows.
I just noticed that i didn’t answer your “max lux performance and lets say LG18650D1” question correctly.
The thing is when you run it fully DD like this, its only the first few seconds that is at max output, then it drops like a rock.
So a few minutes maybe 2-5min is most “fun” then it its visually shorter & shorter, when i goes under the Vf it drops a lot of output quickly.
I am only talking about high drain 18650 batteries though, you could get a 5000mha+ 26650 high capacity battery & it would last much longer, with much longer usable output. the best way & only way really to regulate a light like this is to use different batteries to do it, because the batteries is the only thing that “drives” the light.
I am not sure what theory you are referring to n10sivern.
But the only thing i have done is i have cut out the potential voltage drops from the extra resistance, from the driver, driver board ground and led - wire.
You are thinking about the circuit is to restrictive, every connection in the circuit is an intersection, and every intersection you can widen & or remove will lead to a faster journey for the electrons & less loss as heated wires.
And to continue you analogy, that is like taking a short cut over a higher speed lane, because of the less potential resistance & therefore less voltage drops on the way & therefore a total of more potential wattage that goes in to the led.
It wont get brighter than a battery hooked right up to a well heatsinked led, but it will get closer because i have cut out some of resistance in the circuit now one of the biggest limiter left is the switch for example & the unsoldered switch ground.
The less resistance there are in the circuit the more of the voltage & current the led will see, and therefore the more wattage it can consume, we are limited by the high Vf & the starting voltage of the 4.2v batteries we use.
I was referring to soldering the negative to the pill. I had a brain fart for a second and didn’t think that resistance in a circuit is cumulative but it is, so that is one piece of resistance removed.
No worries it always nice (for me) to be questioned in a friendly environment, it makes me solidify & express my own thoughts about it more clearly even for my self.
I started a thread about that. Figured some things out, did some initial tests. I would not bet my life on the accuracy, and you will have to calibrate them, but it looks like it is usable.
When there's time and motivation, I will continue testing on my smartphone luxmeter.
And what is according to the listing pictures at least is the HS1010A for $13.20
The listing description says HS1010, but they have sold 324 of it so far, so if the picture was wrong it should have been fixed by now on account of all the disputes.
What i wonder is if it is worth the added cost to get the reader on a wire instead of it being on the meter it self? Is it even possible to read the measurement while you are targeting it if it stays on the meter, it seems like it would wash out the display.
the wire is very useful. The problem with these meters is not only that the calibration is not correct (within one brand and type it can already vary), but the main fault is that the wavelength response is not correct. That said, if you stick to measuring neutral an cool white flashlights, that fault stays within a few percent.
because i am so bad at much of the basic electrical math, i was supposed to pick when i went to school for it. But at least i am certified, so i can rewire stuff & do basic installation work legally & that is always nice, when you want to fix stuff around the house.
now one of the biggest limiter left is the switch for example & the unsoldered switch ground.
it always nice (for me) to be questioned in a friendly environment, it makes me solidify & express my own thoughts about it more clearly even for my self.