PD68 Review: Thorfire S70 - XHP70 Monster

You could very well be right, so Iā€™ll add:

4. The driver is a buck, and doesnā€™t have to pull as much current because the 30Qā€™s are sagging less than the BDā€™s

Thanks guys, Iā€™m waiting for the code. This light is a good price and a real ball buster to be sure.
I should probably get twoā€¦

RS.Freak bridged the Resistors and shaved the LED

he got 55.560Lux before and 108.400 Lux after the Mod (and a lot more Lumens)

-> his german review: Review ThorFire S70 [XHP70 LED] | Taschenlampen Forum

Thanks for the tip Martin

ā€¦ā€¦ā€¦ā€¦ā€¦ā€¦ā€¦ā€¦.

WOW!
If you havenā€™t gotten in on freemeā€™s groupbuy, do it.

First I bypassed both front/rear springs, then I re-did measurements of all modes with fully charged Samsung 30Qā€™s:

Low: 0.26amps
Medium: 1.28amps
High: 2.53amps
Turbo: 3.95amps

Then I took the driver out and simply dropped a blob of solder on some empty pads, bypassing the stock sense resistors, and remeasured with the same cells:

Low: 0.23amps
Medium: 1.29amps
High: 2.93amps
Turbo: 9.20amps

Now these are tail numbers on a buck driver, so the emitter isnā€™t seeing exactly that, but I would guess the emitter is probably getting about 8amps.

If you do this you will want to use top-rated batteries because the buck driver will pull even more as the cells go down. Iā€™m also going to pot the driver because I am sure it is going to get very very hot in there.

Could you take some pictures of the mods you did? Iā€™m hopefully going to get this light and would like to be able to do these mods. Maybe some before and after pictures as well if possible. Thanks!

Yes, please take pictures of the mods, I have a ton of things to learn and pictures always help :slight_smile:

Also, any chance you could make some before / after beamshots? With such a big increase of amp draw, turbo should show some differenceā€¦ Although I suppose it will hard to know whatā€™s from this mod and whatā€™s from the shave.

Well I already potted the driver, so I canā€™t really get good pictures if it anymore, but I can maybe draw a picture of what to do, itā€™s very simple.

I only have the original beamshots I took of the stock light. I can take the modded light to the same place and do a new beamshot, but we donā€™t have snow anymore so that will skew it.

Sorry, before/after stuff didnā€™t cross my mind because I donā€™t normally do beamshots at all.

What and how did you pot driver? Did you heat sink the FETs? Glop some thermal epoxy on? Inquiring minds need to know, how the proā€™s heat sink buck driverā€™s?

Whatever you think of my modding ability, I am the opposite of a pro at potting, mostly because I almost never do it. The only other times Iā€™ve ever done it was for long-term physical durability, not heat.

I just know that buck drivers get very hot at high amperages, and I know that almost anything is better at moving heat than air. So I stuffed it full of Duct Seal. Itā€™s probably terrible for this application, but still better than nothing.

is there a way to mod this light in a slightly less aggressive manner? I mean no blobbing all the resistors together creating a huge hot rod but to exchange them for higher output but still descent battery time? Mine is on the way and I am already thinking of tuning it.
Thanks!

Sure, you can add another resistor that has the same value. It should increase the current, though I donā€™t know the math so canā€™t say how much.

Try using the light first. Even in stock form it is very very bright. I would have also liked to de-tune it a bit from where I have it now, but I didnā€™t have any low value resistors.

Maybe my 2nd light will be tuned and I leave the first as is :wink: So same value resistor for the 3rd pads should be the way, thanks.

Ramping up for my first two reviews
The S50 and S70
Pics on the details done but too rainy for beam shots
The S50 lit up a nice part of the field next to us will try S70 after dark, canā€™t wait!
The S50 has a pill that is very easy to remove since there is no side switch.
If someone does not want a (second) side switch the S50 is easier to mod.

Is there a FET driver that will fit in the S70? Looks to me like theyā€™re all too small and youā€™d need to make up some kind of contact board with the existing driver.

With the stock driver modded doing 9A+ I donā€™t think a FET would come to play, but what you can do is get a blank board and pot a smaller FET driver on top, it works the same.

I mainly want to do it for a pure side switch UI.

Anyone know the max cell length that can be run in the S70 ?
I note from another forum a poster saying that 67.7mm cells are a tight fit which would rule a lot of cells out ?

My longest Panasonic 3400mAh 18650 can be fitted
It is tight
I will measure them later for you

Thanks very much. I have just ordered the light & want to order 26650 cells ready for it & obviously donā€t want to order cells that are to long.