Would anyone be able to identify this driver?
I got it in a AA host that contained an XPG-R5 LED. I tried swapping it for an XM-L T5 that I had laying around. It has 3 modes: H-M-Strobe. I tried it at 4V it draws 1.6~~.4~~.75 A. So I’m wondering if if it’s safe to assume this driver can handle the higher voltage of Li-Ion cells?
I couldn’t read all the numbers on the chips, CFC28 and CX2808, but casual googling gave me no good information.
I doubt it has protection, so use a protected cell, but otherwise go ahead and risk the $3 a driver board costs and see how it does. I am guessing the heat sinking to the body will have more to do with how well it works with a 14500.
Thanks for the comments. You’re an educated guesser. I got three of those, so after I make the initial post, last night I tried an XM-L2 T5 1B1 with a Sanyo 14500 cell. If I did the tailcap reading correctly, it was drawing 2.5A on high, and of course it got pretty hot after 10 minutes. On the first one, I ended up putting an optic in it, and used the XM-L T4, the one that was drawing 1.6A on high. Unfortunately I’ve misplaced my IR thermometer, but the heat with that one seemed to be about 75% of the hotter one.
Also tried a charged NiMh cell, presumably at 1.4V freshly charged, it seems to have noticeable PWM. So it sounds like a protected 14500 is recommended, I do have some Nitecore protected 14500 cells that I never had a use for, so they are good candidates. I was thinking to gift them with primary lithium cells such as the ‘Nice’ from Fasttech.
One thing I’d like to do is figure out how to eliminate the strobe and perhaps get a low mode instead.
I love the output with a 14500, but I would not gift one to a casual user, even a good protected one.
I don’t know that much about the drivers, but why would lower voltage make PWM more noticeable?
I just played with my latest sk68 clones, one NiMh, one 14500, didn’t notice PWM on either of them.