ENEDED

Want some #'s? K- this is totally stock as-is. Threads came bone dry and they are not square, so I applied some Nyogel - only thing not stock, and couldn't stand the squeaky sound.

There are 4 modes: lo-med-hi-variable strobe, in that order. Appears to reset to lo in a couple secs.

Tail amps on one EFEST 4200 40/60 cell - measured with direct contact on the driver (14 AWG DMM wires):

Lo: 0.54A Med: 1.40A Hi: 2.4-2.5A (readings are moving around, generally go up over the first few secs)

Tail amps on four EFEST 4200 40/60 cells - measured by jumping the switch with the DMM leads:

Lo: 0.77A Med: 2.10A Hi: 3.58A (readings appear to be steadier)

On the one cell with no battery housing or tail, pretty loud buzzing. On 4 cells all closed up, but with the tailcap removed to expose the switch, the lower modes seemed silent.

Lumens on hi: 1020 @start, 962 @30 secs (my PVC lightbox)

Throw on Hi - measured indoors at 5 meters, as I always do:

163 kcd (807 meters)

Well, seems like a lot of potential. Who knows what XM-L2 LED it is, could be T6 or U2, and on a cheap alum MCPCB. Again all stock for now...

Do protected cells fit?

It fits tight with the unprotected ones, but the springs are long. It feels awkward tightening up with cells loaded - you can feel the cells brushing over the driver bumps. I'm think'n not to even try protected - no point to ever use them anyway - let me try...

163kcd at only 962lumens from a domed XM-L2 does indeed sound promising. How is the beam quality? any ugly rings?

Thanks for the info Tom E. I'd consider this a whopper. a shame i cant catch fish the size of this light. I wonder how many 18650's weight wise is comparable to a 26650?

The Trustfire protected 26650 cells fit fine, so probably all protected will work.

I measured 9.45 mm vertical clearance in the pill, between the driver/contact board and the pill top plate.

The head is a true 100 mm in diameter - it is huge.

The driver retaining ring is super thin aluminum - maybe 1 to 1 1/2 threads on it (spots seem to have 1 thread, but other spots maybe 2). Also, why they have a loose alum ring under the driver, I have no clue - guess they thought it was needed for better contact of the cells to the driver, so it raises the driver. Probably an after thought/fix. Would have been much better eliminating it, increasing the thickness of the driver PCB, and making a thicker retaining ring. The retaining ring scares me - too much fiddling I can see this thing falling apart. There are 6 holes for loosening/tightening it, and one I already tore one side out from trying to get it out - used a punch and light hammer taps to get it loose. I have no tool than can span 90 mm or so.

For the driver - all cell contact points (5 including the center) go thru a big bad diode each before the LED+ wire. Also there's fairly long traces on each side of the PCB for each cell. Probably explains some of the voltage drops, resulting amp drops - diodes and long traces.

For piggybacking a driver, those diodes can be removed and replaced with wires - that would certainly help. Might be able to jumper some of those traces as well.

Reupping the hype! :)

Looks very promising. Bit of a shame they cheaped on the threads.

edit: dangit.. Driver situation is a bummer

Well, think bout it - this light does stock about what a TK61 stock does, and the TK61 has an AR lens, copper MCPCB, maybe the TK61 is a little lower in amps. For the LED, dunno - TK61 is a U2 but not sure what this is.

My 163 kcd could be low - I measure only at 5m. I've seen as much as 10% bump measuring at 10m+.

if it stays cheap, it will be an interesting host - it has a lot of potential, but just as many issues that need improvement. I cant wait to see what an overdriven dedomed xp-g2 can do in this light.

Beam spill is wider than a HD2010, which is pretty wide.

Took out the pill top/shelf thing. On mine, it's just sitting there - no tight fit at all. The MCPCB is epoxied in - I got it off ok.

Stock MCPCB is 1.52mm thick, Noctigons are 1.55 mm - this is good.

Only got bout 2.6A on a single charged SANYO GA on the batt+ brass pad with shortest routes, diode jumpered, LED- wired direct to ground connection (no MCU). Not sure where the loss's are from, though could be the LED/MCPCB, or driver PCB design itself somewhere - maybe the board traces are thin, but they look pretty wide. This is a simple, crude driver for sure.

Looks easy to piggyback a driver in though.

The aluminum LED/MCPCB shelf is 4.0 mm at the thickest, 2.0 mm on the edge, 3.0mm thick in the middle area, and about 2.1mm thick in the center, under the MCPCB. Of course the thinnest parts are under the MCPCB and the edge that makes contact to the host/body.

Just to address these issues so far with my opinions on it:

  • Too thin. -> Well, it's thin but really, really wide, so lots of metal, but I'd like to see it twice as thick
  • Insufficient contact with the wall. -> Again maybe, but the radius is so darn big, there's lots of 2.0 mm shelf overlap material. Screwed down would be a good solution
  • Non screw on design. -> Threaded maybe is better, all depends on how tight, how many threads, etc.
  • Not enough head room to piggy-back driver. -> it's like 9.5 mm open vertical area - fine for typical FET drivers

That shelf is pretty vast. I mean, we’re only trying to slough off the heat from a single emitter. It’s not like we’re trying to cool down a hard driven triple.

BOSS1 does look a bit smaller than we though in your coke pic, but body is still too thick to hand-held steady grip according to wkhchin81.

There is probably nothing much to improve for most buyers on for the pill, except to strip off the coating on the contact surface and cement it to the wall.

9mm head room should be sufficient but what it people want to convert into 2S2P?

Palight is one of the few companies that keeps improving there flagship models. According to their site, their current X960 model is already a 6th generation design. I am pretty sure they will work on next gen of BOSS1 very soon.

I just tried changing 4 springs from KD’s Big Spring, added braided copper along the contact points of the PCB boards, changing the LED to Noctigon’s 20mm MCPCB XP-L V6, fully charged the batteries to 4.2V. Yet the brightness I got still lower than my stock TK61. Something is not right somewhere.

I have checked using reflection from the ceiling focusing at the same area and same spot size (All using fresh batteries, with copper based LEDs):

TK61 (Stock) - 102 lux (claimed to be 1000 lumens)
BOSS1 (xp-l V6) - 85 lux
Courui (xm-l2 U3) - 117 lux (stock driver, 0 ohm resistor, EDC’s SPRING )
Small Sun ZY-T20 (xp-l Hi V3 1C from KD) - 119 lux (18x 350mA 7135 driver: HOND’s HZ-3905 ; EDC’s SPRING)
HOND’s No-name (mod to 3x xp-l Hi - 2x 1A & 1x 3B) - 276 lux (stock driver, 0 ohm resister)
Courui Mod to XHP70 N4 1C (12.6V) - 315 lux (FX-30 driver; EDC’s SPRING on cartridge; main contact point using Beryllium Copper Spring ; with machined copper base; 3x 18650 Series Cartridge )
Acebeam K60 (Stock) - 457 lux
Meteor M43 (S4) - 667 lux

Based on the numbers above, the BOSS1 after mod is still under 1000 lumens, quite disappointed! The xp-l v6 was “stolen” from my other flashlight that produces 120+ lux for the same ceiling reflection testing.

One of the leg of the main switch seems does not penetrate to the face of the battery negative base, that’s could be the last reason for the low Amp.

What batteries? It's basically a DD setup, so the batteries make a big difference. What amp reading are you getting across the switch? I'm not familiar with the KD big springs, but doing bypass's on the springs is the best way to go - any spring will never perform the same, even the best copper or copper alloy springs.

I found bypassing the diodes helped a little, not much. For one cell test, I bypassed it's diode and got maybe 0.1 more amps or so, noticeable on the meter, but not much. Maybe for all 4 cells it would be a bigger impact though.

I dunno how ceiling bounces really work as well - the BOSS1 has one intense center spot - one of the best I've seen, artifacts around the center spot are there, but not strong, no flowery pattern at all, just rings. It also has a very wide spill.

I've worked on 1-2 TK61's in the past, but don't have one now. Can you measure throw?

I don’t care hereinafter, sorry :frowning:
freeme, please delete me from the list
thank you

I am using Palight’s CaroNite 5300mAh batteries, I also tried LG HE2 (RED), both produce very similar results. Probably the spring has high resistance.

I don’t know how to measure throw, but using TK61 flashes directly to the lux meter, I got 41500; whilst BOSS1 produces 33000. Both approx. 2.5 meters from the lux meter. (my lux meter is not calibrated one: Mastech )

Done . Don't have to be sorry. I prefer this way than see people regret getting it later. BOSS1 will requires some work in order to make it shine.



I find it is harder to get accurate Lux readings for tight beam profile such as XP-L Hi. Perhaps you want to tally it with Amp readings? Anyway, driver has to go if you want higher output.

Exactly. Diodes in the power path and small traces are the biggest culprits here, I’m sure of it.

Try bypassing the driver completely, full direct drive.

Are you using flattop or button top cells? It seem that those + bumps on the driver board are set up for flat tops. How do button tops react when they encounter those bumps? I was thinking about creating a whole new board with a large copper disc soldered down for the cell contact, but then you are pretty much committed to button tops. It’ll have to be one or the other.