Solarforce S1100 teardown pics (now with MT-G2 awesomeness)

UPDATE: please see post #59 if you can halp a complete moron (me) with driver stuff

1.22 amps at the tailcap, on HIGH. What a waste. With the red loctite self-destruct feature, and every drill bit I touch breaking while trying to drill new holes, and then all the new screws I try seizing and breaking in the new holes, I think it's best if all these parts go into a box and sit in the back of the closet for a while.

Given my lack of enthusiasm with this thing, my only question is: if the original driver outputs are disconnected, and new wires tapped into the pins directly at the pushbutton and run to something sensible like a 105c, will the battery condition LEDs still function? Remember, the ON/OFF is the tailcap button, side button is only for mode changing.

edit: No, that won't work. Momentary pushbutton doesn't carry the current to feed a 105c. Nevermind. FFS.

Unless I'm mistaken the 3 batteries in this light are wired in series. So to get a general estimate of how much current is flowing to the LED multiply it times 3.

This. Approximately 3A estimated at the emitter.
The driver visually looks good for a single emitter buck driver. Ir even has a good reverse battery protection using a low side FET to improve efficiency (the component on the contact board).

So... that only applies because of what a buck driver does, not solely because of cells in series? Cause I have a direct drive light with 5 XR-Es wired in parallel and with two cells in series it pulls more than 12 amps (or at least tries to, until the springs start melting). Same cells in a parallel adapter do around 5.5 amps.

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S1100 reflector is 2.9" at the front, 2.85" deep, emitter opening is just a hair under .500". Are you guys sure this wouldn't be better for general holy-wtf-that's-a-lot-of-light flashlight duty with a MT-G2?

Any flashlight that even comes close to throwing with the almighty TN31 is far from being a waste.

I think it’s a waste to spend $122 on a flashlight only to strip its guts out and try to change it in the first place especially on a brand new flashlight.

I apologize, sincerely. I now see how selfish I was in not even considering how you would feel about taking the flashlight apart. This is something I have had to deal with my entire life, the compulsive need to take things apart and see how they work and if there are any areas that could possibly be improved. Now that you've spoken up I realize the impacts of my behavior on others and will do my best to change.

power drawn from the battery by a buck driver is a function of the voltage of the battery and the LED string. It’s easiest to work it out is by calculating the power consumed by the LED then dividing that by the voltage of the battery to get the battery current (I think that’s right). More cells in series for the same LED power = less current drawn from the battery.

I’m pretty amazed that your 5 XR-Es direct driven by an 8.4V battery are able to survive at all, let alone run at whatever amps they’re getting at the emitter. They must be pulling the battery voltage down like crazy.

Yeah, the XR-E thing blew my mind too, I don't remember if I ever checked the voltage under load but turns out it did have resistors in the circuit, it kept turning the springs into non-springy pieces of charred black metal. I didn't have much choice but to convert it to parallel cells.

Also, I've sent a PM to staff asking that this be moved to the correct subforum, I thought I had posted it in the 'flashlight modding & DIY' section... d'oh!

You can edit your first post and fix it yourself. :slight_smile:

Hope to see nice things happen with this light. Thanks for teardown pictures! :slight_smile:

The copper MCPCB is 24mm, not 20 as stated above. Though, I don't know if there is an insulator layer between the base & pad. Going to stick a XM-L2 T6 on it before it goes back together so I'll have a chance to see what's hiding under the LED.

Appears to be a well designed driver. No scratched-out info on components, either :wink:
Output current should be a wicked easy mod with the sense resistors at the edge of the board like that.

he he he, the “springs as resistors” thing did cross my mind too :slight_smile: Probably helps that XR-Es are fairly high voltage and tough little buggers too. I would have thought parallel cells would be even worse in terms of emitter current though, as voltage sag would be less and each cell would be able to provide more current.

I’m guessing that you’re going to be doing your DIY sinkpad trick with the copper star?

Nah, I'll have some actual 20mm Sinkpads in the next few days, in the end it'll have one of those, probably. But when I have the original emitter off I'll scrape off the center pad and see if it's obvious as to insulator layer or direct, just cause I'm curious and I figure others would be too.

That really put up a fight and it bit your thumb too! Glad you won the battle, you’re a braver man than me :slight_smile:

Woody

I strongly suspect the sarcasm was lost here… thanks for the tear down, looks like a well built light but they should gather up the locktite and burn it. Gluing lights together is just wrong, there’s no way I could recieve any light at any cost and not have a peek under the hood.

THANK YOU GOD!!! I MEAN GORDS…… I was about to pop a vein!!!

:bigsmile: :beer:

I also would gave a hard time not wanting to see inside this light. Thanks for doing that all of us on BLF. :slight_smile:
XM-L2 is a logical choice, especially on copper. I would bump up the current a little to, just because. :wink: