ENEDED

Driver is pretty simplistic - those 0 resistors are basically jumpers, so no restrictions coming out of the two FET's. Makes you wonder why there's no decent amps, if output is 700-800 lumens.

+1 nice taste in throwers :beer:

I like your throwers!

That driver was obviously designed to be simply a contact board for us to do driver mods. :slight_smile:

Palight has given us a blank canvas to work on



Those 2 little mosfets should deliver more power than that, I’ve used them on 10mm drivers and had at least 3A even from a 10440 cell, up to 5A from an 18650…. and that’s just one of those FET’s. Surely we can easily piggyback a better driver onto that big board and get some serious output out of the thing… Should be able to get a real 1600 lumens from an XP-L pretty easily. Even a de-domed XP-G2 in the 5-5.5A range should rock in that big reflector. Hate seeing that massive flat bottom though. Sure poses issues, surmountable but unnecessary if it was made a little different to begin with.

Could the low current be related to the high vf of xml2 ?

When the higher Vf XM-L2’s first came out, everyone was agast at the lower current that was max. Then we discovered that while the current indeed was lower, the output was almost the same or… in some cases… actually higher!

I’ve seen an XM-L2 U4 1C do 1811 lumens in an Eagle Eye X6. Tom saw 1900 before I think. These emitters are capable of making some great output, and their new efficiency allows them to do so with lower amp draw, saving your cells while still delivering.

This big hoss of a light surely can do more in the output department. And surely WILL do more, in the hands of some of the BLF members… Round 1, Tom E. :wink:

Maybe machine a collar and use the KD reflector like that TK61 mod…

Thanks for the explanation Dale.

Alex - I was hoping this reflector would work better with emitters larger than a dedomed xpg. The KD reflector works awesome with smaller dies but in my opinion has a sliding scale of awesomeness related to the size of die (e.g. big die = not awesome).

wkhchin81

thanks! could you also measure the size of the reflector?

I wonder what a dedomed Nichia 219C would be like in this beast?

Many are looking forward to buy something “big”.
(additional comparison and measurement photos: BOSS1 , cheers :slight_smile: )
See the dimensions below first before deciding to buy one:
Head OD: 100mm
Glass Dia x Thk: 90x2mm
Reflector Biggest OD: 89.7mm
Biggest ID: 85 mm (TK61 only 81+mm, sorry for wrong info initially)
Height: ~58.6mm
Base Diameter: 34mm
Protruded area: 11.1mm OD x 0.7mm height
LED ID hole: ~9mm
Driver Chamber Height: ~10mm
LED Base Plate/Pill: 4mm with 1mm depth (therefore only 3mm, see photos)
Spring Height: ~16.6mm (Wire Dia: 0.7mm)

Some comments:

  1. The Glass is too thin, once removed, it may be crack when tighten. I heard mine with some scratch sound and edge chip off.
  2. Reflector is smooth compared with TK61’s, hot spot is more even and slightly smaller than TK61’s.
  3. The driver chamber is too shallow for thicker driver.
  4. The Aluminium Pill is just 3mm, the shallow chamber limits additional thickness, but very large diameter may compensate this:).
  5. The diameter of the body is too big (72.5mm) to hold, as my hand is not big enough.
  6. Too heavy, personally prefer TK61.

Thanks for viewing (sorry for messy photos, as I taken them in a small store room).

Many thanks for all the information and the images! H)

yes thanks for all the images. Does that “pill”/plate thing screw in or how is it attached?

I’m not sure about that 3mm thickness… definitely not enough for an XHP build but maybe if it has a good heatpath to the rest of the light it would be fine for XM class?

The pill is not screwed in, just slight press onto the seat area which has been coated.
Heat transfer would be lousy. Pure copper pill can distribute better but surely will add a lot more weight to this heavyweight BOSS1!


(More photos here: BOSS1)

+1 :~

Hmmmmm, problems but solvable ones. I can see cutting a spacer ring and threading it so that the bezel would screw on and accept a much thicker emitter shelf. Perhaps even a big solid copper adapter if copper can be found in that diameter. I know aluminum can, so it’s at least correctable but the issue remains… is it worth it?

The light obviously works well as made, but to hot rod it will take some doing and some specialized equipment of sorts, like a lathe. A new shelf could be cut with a cup on the top side to embrace the reflector, gaining a doubling or tripling of essential mass for heat sinking and if done carefully actually allowing the reflector to act as a heat sink as well. This would allow leaving the external apperance as is, optimizing available space between the driver/contact board and the reflector. :wink:

I’m not altogether sold on total throw, a CBT140 would be a nice candidate for this big reflector, the XHP series would be a pita to get the “+” out of the beam. A big fat MT-G2 would be nice in there probably, so there are options that might not require going crazy on extra heat sinking, albeit new problems arise if a 6V or 12V emitter is desired.

If there’s 3 mm above the components already on the board then it’d be easy to sandwich in an FET driver that would run our Cree emitters all out, raising lumens output to much more smile producing levels. Our FET drivers are single sided, fairly easy to solder a copper sheet to an incoming power supply after first attaching the other end to the battery contact on the FET driver, this keeps it very flat, only about 2mm more thickness than the components already on this driver board. Doable. Not too difficult really. So that would get some 6A to an HI emitter, the sheer diameter of the emitter shelf would help offset the lack of thickness. If need be, a hole could be bored in the aluminum emitter shelf to show the driver underneath, easily allowing clearance then (since the shelf doesn’t screw in, this would be doable but probably not necessary)

All that remains is to mount the XP-L HI on some copper sheet material to raise it off the mcpcb so it’ll sit high enough into the lens to be in focus, should produce a nice tight spot. Should be interesting.

Anyway, those are just some initial thoughts, I’m sure Tom will show us the way in the next few days…

Yes, if you have a lathe, otherwise you are pretty much stuck with stock emitter shelf which is quite disappointing and major limiting factor in any modification…

Yeah, well, it didn’t stop me before I got the lathe… a drill and a rotary tool and I made what I needed. Threads were the only problem and that was because I didn’t have a tap and die set. Where there’s a will….