But here is the rub , the higher the initial start , the faster the output sags ... In fact it takes about 30 seconds to go from 1150 to 950 and the sag continues at a steady pace ..
If you start at 950 , it takes 30 seconds or so to get down to 870 , and after a minute your doing 840ish ....
So if you went with the higher current tailswitch , the output after a minute would be close , and possibly worse for the higher current one as it would be generating more heat ,
I thank you all for the excellent explanations of the readings from the Digital MM. I am basically electrically challenged. The information provided here helps me understand things much better!
I had something similar to start with , but its accuracy was horrible over 1A , it went into the trash ...
I then got the one pictured , and its been real good ..[ OP ]
But remember , the LEADS are cheap , and accurate measurement over 1A ? , I have some quality leads but even they are limited ...
1A is a lot of current , its enough to kill a person , so you may wish to make new leads , especially if you want to measure accurately over 2 or 3 amps ...
You can remove the wires from the leads and solder short stranded 14awg wires to the probes and connectors. You can use bigger wires as long as you can tolerate the stiffness.
That is big. What’s printed on the wire? The first time I did that I was also surprised by the results. My KD C8 read 2.8A 12awg stranded up from 2.1A stock leads.
Quick question for the experts: are there any commercially available DMM leads you'd recommend? I have these from DX, but apparently the new batch is useless for any high current applications and when I am getting people started with flashlights and explain battery safety, I'd rather be able to give them something that looks professional, even if it's inferior to DIY leads.
Can anyone point me towards good (cheap) banana plugs that I can build my own with. I have ones that are made for audio stuff, but they screw together and pinch the wire for the connection. There's no good way to solder them (even though I have) and there is way too much exposed metal just asking for a short circuit. Old's look pretty good, are there other options?
Wire is easy enough and I have gator clips I like, I'm just missing suitable plugs.
A measuring lead is a length of wire with suitable plugs on both ends. I suggest plugs of the "4mm banana" type, as they are the most standard in our part of the world and you connect them to most DMMs directly and use the "bananas" on the other end as simple probes, or fit some special attachments to them (pointed probes, alligator clips, whatever).
This is just for the picture, I'm sure you can buy them locally:
No guarantees , sorry ... I have the UT33C Uni-T multimeter , and everything in this price range seems to be similar , but the original leads were current limited past 1A , the leads I used for a long time came from a better quality analog MM , that my father used in testing TV's ...
Im going to go and buy some more wire [ leads ] in different sizes and see how they perform ... [ Later in the week ]
Can anybody help me as well. (hopefully this is still on-topic?)
I have 3 sets of leads. With all of them giving different readings.
The lowest reading test leads, I want to cut down, so short, that there is just enough wire left to connect to a flashlight.. About 20cm leads.. Do you think this is a good idea?
I guess that this helps to give me some better reading, less resistance! am I right?
Shouldn't be an issue. Most tailcaps have pretty low resistance from what i measured, even the Yezl. (when i connected them in series to measure current, and compare the current drop)
All you're doing with all of this is fooling yourself and accomplishing nothing. The crazy cheap DMMs are garbage (I owned one) and do give low readings due to crappy leads. I bought an Equus 3320 from Amazon for $15 and nowmy readings match what others are getting from quality DMMs like Flukes and such.
A good DMM comes calibrated for the leads it has and takes into account the internal resistance of the leads. By running crazy thick lead wires just to get higher readings is like baseball players using steroids and blowing the stats curves. It doesn't make your light any brighter and ruins accurate estimates of it's performance. If you are getting more than 2.8A draw from an 8*AMC driver equipped torch running a single cell than you are doing it wrong. Getting 5A+ from a light known to only draw 3.8A doesn't help anything.