Roche F6 hacking

Incorrect. Tom has his resistors backwards. Yes, red LEDs have much lower Vf, but in this case the red is only on when VBAT is already significantly down, and most importantly the red appears dimmer to the eye. 1KR for the green, 470R for the red.

Am I still asleep? Did comfychair make a new post? Is comfychair really “back”?

Holy cow!!! Bout the resistors, oh boy - I've had it backward all this time? Not good... I still use the light regularly, though the old obsolete Sunwayman (forget model) is a better deal - more compact, lighter in weight - I prefer it. I grabbed a couple of the last ones from ILLUM.com a while back for a great price.

Man, I'm glad to see you back comfy!!! If I could figure how to insert a smiley face, I'd put in a couple dozen!

It’s all, a dream.

Hope you’ve been ok.

Also opps on the resistors. :-x

Woa woa woa!!! Did I miss something? I just finished installing an rgbw driver in the f6. I put in the battery and I got out my DMM to test the voltage at the led dies to make sure I had it wired correctly. However, after 15-20sec I noticed it was getting hot and before I had the battery out it was hot hot! I believe it short from batt+ to the retaining ring. It was a button top battery and when tightend I can’t see anything from stopping a short. Did I miss something? Have others had this happen? Is it only compatable with flat top? I’m wondering if I reinstalled the contact assembly correctly, but I don’t know what I could have missed? Anyway, this just happened so I needed to vent. Let me know if you have an idea of what I could have done wrong…

Here is a link to a picture. For some reason I can’t get it to show up without the link. Imgur: The magic of the Internet

I don’t really have much helpful to say, but it seems to me that a flat-top cell would be the problem cell if there was going to be a problem . Flat tops have a wider contact area.

It’s good to see you post again.

Probably a silly question, but did you remember to put the gasket back between the reflector and emitter?

Could the spring slide off the button and short the tube?

What’s hidden under the retainer? Is it a secret?

Dedicated F6 direct-fit driver? Some other driver piggybacked onto something else?

Under the retaining ring is an rgbw driver from dr jones. I added some chips to the spring side of the driver so I had to mill out some of the underside of the retaining ring. Everything is still in the same place though. Only difference is that there is an extra layer of chips under the ring.

I fit the battery tube again using a thin insulator over the retaining ring. This kept the battery from shorting. I just can’t figure out why others havnt has the same problem. As it is for me, most batteries will make a short without the insulator there so I’m wondering if I didn’t assemble correctly.

For anyone who has an f6, is the little white insulator ring that is right around the spring contact button free to push in along with the button? On mine it is. If it were held in place, it would keep the battery away from the ring. But I can’t see how it could be held in place. Even if I glued it, it wouldn’t hold the pressure of tightening the battery and tube.

Sorry, I am normally not able to read at this time of day so my writing may not be clear.
Thanks for your help!

Don’t have my F6 with me, @work, but I only use high performance flat tops in this light - would never consider using a button top, so I’m not sure how that white insulator ring works on my setup - I never had any troubles though.

I use a very very stiff spring on the driver under the stock brass button. The squat beefy Nanjg 105C spring. It’s not quite compressed far enough to get coil bind but it’s close to it. I only use flat top cells.

The anodizing on these lights is very good, so there is (or should be) no electrical connection through the threads, only through the bare non-anodized face of the battery tube and the brass driver retainer. I think you fixed the short by making sure there’s no way to get -BAT connection to the rest of the circuit.

Yes I think this did the trick. There has to be something that I changed for this to happen. Idk what though.

I was lucky. Normally I use a half drained Xtar protected battery for testing. This time however, I used a Sanyo 18650b unprotected because I gave my last protected cell away. After the event when the battery cooled down I checked the voltage. 255mv left in the cell. I completely drained the cell from a short circuit in less than 30sec. I’m thankful that nothing serious happens and I will be ordering some more protected cells.

…do you think I can revive this cell or did I ruin it for good?

Personally I’d call that cell toast and walk away.

It takes about 20 seconds to grab your meter and check between B+ and GND before you apply power the first time. You’d be amazed how many times a problem is discovered even when you ‘know’ everything is perfect.

Ok. I’ll lay him to rest like a sick family pet… Maybe I’ll keep him on my desk a bit longer. He was my best and favorite cell :-((

You’d think that ‘learning the hard way’ would eventually teach me this lesson. No luck yet. :-/

Strange, my F6s never had an issue with that, even though I used cells with a quite large (in diameter) button top, unprotected. The white plastic insulator can be pushed in. Maybe you cell was longer and pushed up with more force?

Yes. The cells are not longer, but I changed the spring in the tail and it is a much tighter fit. Maybe there is more room in stock form and the stock spring in the tail was much more loose than the driver spring. This would keep the cell from compressing the driver spring to the point of shorting out. I might have to take the tail apart again and adjust the spring. That’s not a fun task on this light, but doable. Either way, I’m now going to keep an insulator on the retaining ring. No more accidents. :-/