TR-J18 Issues

[Tom_E]

I got the TR-J18 from FastTech a couple of weeks ago, and I'm not very happy with this it do far. Here's why:

- for the size and amount of LED's in the head, it's fairly light weight, which is telling me it probably doesn't have much in heat sink

- on 26650's, it drops amps in one instance: on 3 batts, drops from 3.25A to 2.2A, on 2 batts, it drops from ~6A down to ~4A after running a few seconds, maybe a minute. I swapped batteries, even tried King Kong unprotected, same thing - very consistent and seems to be temperature related, like the driver has some temp sensor protection. Why is the driver getting hot though? I can tell it's temp related because if you try it again quickly, the drop happens quickly. If you let it sit a couple of minutes, it takes longer to drop. Also note the amps drop correlates to brightness drop -- very noticeable quick flicker. I haven't been able to reproduce this drop with 3 18650's. 3 EagleTac 3100's work fine, but only about 3.75A, but amps drop continuosly it seems like. Trying 2 EagleTac, the amp draw is 5+ amps and quickly shuts off - think the batteries are tripping.

- can't figure out how to dismantle the LED head area, maybe the reflector is glued?

- the driver has been changed along the way or has 2 versions - not sure if it's FastTech's source or what. Mine has a perpendicular mounted board, while the earlier, other driver has 2 parallel PCB's.

I can see why NZ Shooter is giving his away after only a few weeks and not giving any reason, after an initial posting of being blown away by it. I too was blown away after first seeing it.

I think this light can be salvaged, but I'm wondering what the best driver to use would be, and if anything can be done to beef up the heat management. Does anyone have experience with this light doing upgrades? I see KD and IO have drivers for it that should fit, in theory (7 LED's, 26mm PCB). IO's 3 mode driver is cheaper than KD's and they look to be the same exact driver. Has anyone used one of these drivers, if so, did it work out well?

Picture of the J18 head and driver - bought from FastTech, Rcv'd 12/24/2012:

[Tom_E]

Shoot - got a couple of typos there - can't seem to edit the post... Ooops, meant "3.25A", not 3.75A for the 18650 EagleTacs. Also note it drops to 2.8A, but gradually.

Also just emailed Hank at IO to ask him about that 7 LED 3 mode boost driver for this light.

[DayLighter]

@Tom E

I got the TR-J18 from FastTech a couple of weeks ago, and I’m not very happy with this it do far. Here’s why:

- for the size and amount of LED’s in the head, it’s fairly light weight, which is telling me it probably doesn’t have much in heat sink

- on 26650’s, it drops amps in one instance: on 3 batts, drops from 3.25A to 2.2A, on 2 batts, it drops from ~6A down to ~4A after running a few seconds, maybe a minute. I swapped batteries, even tried King Kong unprotected, same thing - very consistent and seems to be temperature related, like the driver has some temp sensor protection. Why is the driver getting hot though? I can tell it’s temp related because if you try it again quickly, the drop happens quickly. If you let it sit a couple of minutes, it takes longer to drop. Also note the amps drop correlates to brightness drop — very noticeable quick flicker. I haven’t been able to reproduce this drop with 3 18650’s. 3 EagleTac 3100’s work fine, but only about 3.75A, but amps drop continuosly it seems like. Trying 2 EagleTac, the amp draw is 5+ amps and quickly shuts off - think the batteries are tripping.

- can’t figure out how to dismantle the LED head area, maybe the reflector is glued?

- the driver has been changed along the way or has 2 versions - not sure if it’s FastTech’s source or what. Mine has a perpendicular mounted board, while the earlier, other driver has 2 parallel PCB’s.

I can see why NZ Shooter is giving his away after only a few weeks and not giving any reason, after an initial posting of being blown away by it. I too was blown away after first seeing it.

I think this light can be salvaged, but I’m wondering what the best driver to use would be, and if anything can be done to beef up the heat management. Does anyone have experience with this light doing upgrades? I see KD and IO have drivers for it that should fit, in theory (7 LED’s, 26mm PCB). IO’s 3 mode driver is cheaper than KD’s and they look to be the same exact driver. Has anyone used one of these drivers, if so, did it work out well?

Picture of the J18 head and driver - bought from FastTech, Rcv’d 12/24/2012:

for some reason… mine was drop to 0.56 Amp… email fast tech already told them as soon as i put 26650 batteries, problem started,and they said they have few lights were like that too, but their customer service was awesome… the sent me RMA# to miami address and sent me replacement right away.seems light the new TR-J18 is having drivers issues… WWEFans from aliexpress told me the same thing too, that his customers is having issues with TR-J18 and they sent him drivers to fix it.
seems all TR-J18 from fast tech have issues with using 26650 batteries… but if you use 18650 batteries… it’s ok, but once you used 26650 batteries… the light is pretty much toasted! just have to email them and ask for replacement

[Tom_E]

[quote=DayLighter

[/quote] for some reason.. mine was drop to 0.56 Amp.. email fast tech already told them as soon as i put 26650 batteries, problem started,and they said they have few lights were like that too, but their customer service was awesome.. the sent me RMA# to miami address and sent me replacement right away.seems light the new TR-J18 is having drivers issues.. WWEFans from aliexpress told me the same thing too, that his customers is having issues with TR-J18 and they sent him drivers to fix it [/quote]

Thanks. I followed your postings on that issue, but my issue is different, sort of. I'm thinking of swapping the driver anyway because the 3 modes (100%, 30%, 5% is near perfect), and it seems like the replacement driver would be more consistent 2.8A-3A on 3 batteries as stated here: intl-outdoor boost-7led-3-modes. It's another $18 however. I think the I-O driver would be a lot weaker on 2 batteries, but I'd probably use it with 3 anyway, and the stock driver goes nuts (high amps) anyway on 2 batteries. Who knows what the replacement driver will be, if more conservative or not.

I'd really like to know if anyone successfully took apart the head, because I'd like to check the thermal path and see if it can be improved. Also, eventually see if the LED's can be easily upgraded...

[DARCANGEL]

Tom,I recognize the driver and manafont was selling it as a 3Xt6 replacement driver for the sky ray.I will say that it's junk in my opinion and I would find something else.

[Tom_E]

@DARCANGEL

Tom,I recognize the driver and manafont was selling it as a 3Xt6 replacement driver for the sky ray.I will say that it's junk in my opinion and I would find something else.

That's odd. Hank normally has pretty good stuff, I've been happy with pretty much everything I bought there, and I've had 8 orders totaling about $400. I only saw 1 3xT6 driver listed on Manafont and it's like $6 and does look like a junk 5 mode w/flashies with a poor description: manafont triple-t6. A 3x driver has to be diffrent from a 7x driver, plus you got serial/parallel issues for both the batteries and LED's. I definitely would not trust drivers from Manafont unless they came highly recommended from others, though manu of their flashlights seem to be originals (notch above DX, LightMalls, TMART, etc.). Are you sure about this?

[DARCANGEL]

@Tom E

@DARCANGEL

Tom,I recognize the driver and manafont was selling it as a 3Xt6 replacement driver for the sky ray.I will say that it's junk in my opinion and I would find something else.

That's odd. Hank normally has pretty good stuff, I've been happy with pretty much everything I bought there, and I've had 8 orders totaling about $400. I only saw 1 3xT6 driver listed on Manafont and it's like $6 and does look like a junk 5 mode w/flashies with a poor description: manafont triple-t6. A 3x driver has to be diffrent from a 7x driver, plus you got serial/parallel issues for both the batteries and LED's. I definitely would not trust drivers from Manafont unless they came highly recommended from others, though manu of their flashlights seem to be originals (notch above DX, LightMalls, TMART, etc.). Are you sure about this?

Now comparing the 2 it doesn’t seem to be the same,they just look similar.Oops! I thought it was that one and it is rubbish.And you are right Hank has good stuff,there’s a chance the supplier changed up the drivers without notice.Good luck in your search for a driver.

[Tom_E]

@NZ Shooter

@Tom E

I can see why NZ Shooter is giving his away after only a few weeks and not giving any reason, after an initial posting of being blown away by it.

I’ll be brutally honest here. No , you cannot see why I’m giving it away. It is running, and has always run, @ 100% in all respects. As mentioned in my draw, It is 100% condition with no flaws. The reasons are personal to me, and if people don’t want to enter the draw because of that, that is fine by me, it’s going anyway :bigsmile:

I'm still in the drawing for that one, I hope?? Sorry, just not feel'n it with this light for now, it's been flaky: first the switch, then this dimming issue, and others having problems with the J18 from FastTech. Also, you gotta be soo careful on 2 batteries with this thing because it will go 6 amps and then some. The wires and nice and heavy, both springs are capped and seem pretty heavy, but, I don't know - just seems like not enough beef.