If you leave the stock D1’s fet you’ll be OK whatever battery you use , even VTC5A (lower ir i know) .

Is there something unusually fragile about the 7135 chips after they have been added to driver boards?

I’ve now had three of them fracture when flashlights were dropped a few feet onto a wooden floor.

Each time, the chip on the spring side of the driver apparently took the impact transmitted from battery tube to retaining ring to the side of the chip closest to the edge, and the 7135 broke.

A couple of these were cracks without any obvious separation until I poked at the chip after the third one broke and I could see the problem. But they fell apart under slight pressure.

These were drivers where I“d just tightened the retaining ring down and it pressed on the 7135(s) on the spring side of the driver

I consider this my fault for not notching the retaining ring to go around the component, which I used to do regularly.

(discussion and pictures of that in prior thread: http://budgetlightforum.com/node/35761 )
Lesson learned. Now I have to learn how to solder these itty bitty components, which so far I’‘ve tended to mess up.
Or buy new drivers ….

Can I just heat up that broken 7135 and pull it off the board, and have a functioning 4×7135 driver?
Or am I in danger of melting something else important?

Not sure what the little rectangular thing between the 7135 and the ground ring is – part of the 7135 or another component?

Part of the 7135, it is the same metal as the middle pin on the opposite side. If you have a hot air gun with a small nozzle you can use that to heat the component and remove it. If you only have a normal iron you can just blob a bunch of solder across all 3 pins and remove it then clean up after.

It will work fine as 4×7135.

Hm. I pushed the broken bit back toward the middle of the board, and cranked the retaining ring down past it to contact the ground ring — and the flashlight works again.

So, could I have just filed off the corner of the 7135 to clear the retaining ring?

Obviously I have no idea what’s inside these little black boxes.

It’s a mystery to me why the light still works even though part of this 7135 is broken off. I’d guess I’m just getting the other four 7135 chips working and this one not doing anything.
No magic smoke leaking out, anyhow.

Looks like there’s enough room toward the center of the driver that that 7135 could be positioned further from the edge so the retaining ring doesn’t hit it. But that might disconnect whatever contact is being made by that rectangular piece on the ground ring side, I guess. Fiddlesticks.

Is there a picture anywhere of the innards of a 7135 so I could try filing off those endangered corners on other drivers before I install them, to clear the retaining ring, and know how deep it’s safe to go?

You shold file the inside of the retaining ring larger

Or use a Dremel to cut the edges of the 7135 round so there is some distance between the black compound to the retaining ring

Your pictures show the 7135 already damaged by the retaining ring so they are under static pressure, a bump gets at top a big dynamic pressure and they crack

Yep. I’d been notching the retaining rings for a while. As pictured here, in the prior thread about this:
http://budgetlightforum.com/comment/1049267#comment-1049267

That approach has the annoyance of having to “de-twist” the driver wires, then fit the driver into the retaining ring, then twist to tighten. The retaining ring in that picture isn’t fully screwed in.

Someone somewhere suggested it was reasonably safe electrically to just let the retaining ring press down on the top of the 7135s, so I tried that for a while — and when I dropped the flashlights, this was the result.
I know, “then don’t drop the flashlights” is the conclusion.

I’m wondering how much of the innards of the 7135s is at risk if I start rounding off the corners, as those would be easier to file than the retaining rings.

Got the D4 heads today Richard, thanks for doing that for me, you are the man for sure.
Anything I can do for you just holler, maybe wash your truck.? Buy the plane ticket from WA and I’m on it.. ha ha,
Always will be loyal to Mt. no matter what..!

Hank, you can probably do some of both for a good result…. file out the retaining ring a bit AND round off the corners of the 7135’s. The little box with the brown middle is the capacitor, allowing the retaining ring to touch that ground side of the cap is ok.

The 7135’s are pretty forgiving, but you have to keep from exposing the internal metal bits to the ground of the retaining ring. That retaining ring looks unusually wide, is it a shelf at the top and the sides are not that thick? You can always leave the retaining ring completely off on those brass pills and simply solder the ground ring to the brass pill on 2 sides, or 3 points, you’d just have to desolder that ground connection to remove the driver. It’d be cleaner without the retaining ring, pretty easy to do.

> do some of both

Good advice, thanks.

Yes, those Convoy retaining rings (I asked Simon to sell me extras a while back, and also got a bunch from Fasttech) have a thin cylindrical sidewall and a fairly big shelf — the shelf is the part pictured that has been notched with a file.
It overhangs the 7135s or whatever other component is near the edge of the driver.
The sidewall contacts the ground ring around the edge of the driver and clears the driver components.

Newlumen wrote:

khas wrote:

Newlumen wrote:

Hello I am trying to purchase a convoy l2 xpl hi from mtnelectronics.. I am planning to use it with 2 ×26650.. is this light came with the extension ? Or I need to purchase extension? Thanks. http://www.mtnelectronics.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=80&pr...

According to the listing the extension tube is included :

What’s Included :

Convoy L2 XP-L HI Flashlight
Battery tube extension
Extension comes with both smooth and anti-roll rings.
Lanyard
18650 conversion spacersSmooth ring and Anti-Roll ring for extension tube

This is so cool.. where can I find the lumen and lux info?? Thanks.

J-Dub works closely with Simon in the development of his Convoy lights, J-Dub doesn’t do modding himself, he’s got me and Kawiboy for that.

DB Custom wrote:

J-Dub works closely with Simon in the development of his Convoy lights, J-Dub doesn’t do modding himself, he’s got me and Kawiboy for that.

Thanks , but you’ll have to remember it’s a Ti X6 first. lol

The lathe changes one’s perspective tenfold, being able to cut threads and mate two pieces together without worrying about standards to create a one-off is one of the most fun parts about it, and of course virtually nothing stands in the way of creating whatever your need demands. Currently making a rather large heat-sink/tube extender. It’s not as glamorous as it might seem though because there is a tremendous amount of repetitive work making mounds of shavings to get where you wish to go. This translates to a lot of time standing at the lathe, cramps in the back, and sore feet. Grueling, but so satisfying in the end. (nothing fun about boring a 32650 tube) Barring the finances to buy the proper tools, one must make do with what one has…. in my case that is a large quantity of time. The lathe becomes a black hole for your extra time, absorbing you past meal times and family outings. (I’m hoping it’ll carve some extra weight off my frame, in the heat that seems so prevalent here.)

At the end of a dream project, you sit back and look at the initial investment in a host, materials, emitters, reflectors, cells, and then you start thinking about those hours… nothing budget about the process, that’s for sure! Still, hoping to build my first honest 20,000+ lumen achievement.

(If I can just remember where I was when I stopped…hate it when parts come in and I’ve forgotten why I ordered them!)

DB Custom wrote:

…hate it when parts come in and I’ve forgotten why I ordered them!

I generally either do a mod right away when the parts come in… or I wait until I don’t remember what the parts were for. I’ve got a lot of parts now.

You only THINK you’ve got a lot of parts! You should see what happened over here when I bought Old-Lumens out. Still trying to wrap my mind around what I have on hand and am constantly finding things I didn’t know I had. lol

I started making an extension tube for the massive TR-J20 last night, and when I got inside I realized I had taken a tangent with the emitters I have coming in and planned to do a different light with them, so I got started on the big extension with the wrong idea in mind. Now I will probably use it to make DBC-06. (I seem to be a glutton for punishment, 06 will be a lot of work)

That’s fair. I shouldn’t complain about a puddle getting my shoes wet… to someone who is up to their neck in a lake.

Hey, I just noticed you’re now selling batteries on the international version of your site

It says that the buyer assumes responsibility for confiscated packages with more than 4 batteries, does that mean that if the order has 4 batteries or less, MTN electronics will refund it if it gets confiscated?
Or is there no problem with <=4 batteries? (I’m in canada btw)

Also, when you ship the batteries, I assume that you are forced to use ground shipping, correct?

Hahaha, I’m not organized, not at all, and I got some 8 compartmentalized boxes from Justin with all sorts of bits and pieces. One is dedicated to emitters, one is all driver components, copper rounds, copper sheet, MagLite parts, and a bin box with lenses, reflectors, o-rings and 2 full boxes of standard and metric o-rings as well. Epoxy, Arctic Silver, Thermal Paste, soldering equipment, a hot air/soldering station that got me hooked on hot air guns (and then it QUIT) Even a shop sink with legs for hot dipping to get a flame design or whatever, and 2 bench top drill presses as well as a portable band saw with different blades. Stuff on top of stuff on top of all my mess of stuff.

I should take inventory some day and get it all merged and organized. I’ve got DigiKey boxes holding driver parts, maybe 5 of em, and even Flat Rate post office boxes with bits and pieces. If I ever get my Mom’s clothes folding table cleared and freed she’ll probably swoon. Yep, I’ve semi-invaded the laundry room.

Seriously, when you get to the point that you yourself realize you’re adding Insane to Mad Scientist, it’s gotten bad…

See back in the right, the stacks of clear compartment boxes? Some of the stuff from Justin…

And Mom’s surger and sewing machine? Inaccessible. My bad, really meant to clear all of it up before surgery, then the day came that I had a Dr.s appointment and he said he was booked through October, but had a cancellation tomorrow, are you ready to do this? Boom! Suddenly I was plunged into months of recovery and well, my mess is still a mess.

Yeah, bet you thought I was exaggerating about the stuff on top of stuff, huh? Gotta get on top of this….

People are going to think this is the MTN fulfillment center

One time I went through my online order purchases relating to flashlights. MTN has the most orders and highest dollar figure for me by quite a high margin, followed by Banggood and then Gearbest. Sadly, I’ve bought over $10,000 worth of flashlight related items since I started here almost 5 years ago. My wife probably realizes I’ve spent a lot on lights, but even I was shocked at just exactly how much that is. Literally half of my total expenditures were at MTN.

Edit: I put the “aholic” in Flashaholic.

The “Budget” part of Budget Light Forum is actually in reference to the fact that being here will BREAK your budget!

Dale! Over $10,000 spent on this hobby!? Get some help, man!

I’d be glad to take some of that burden off your hands…

A new member recently contacted me asking if I sell my mods, might have to in order to buy Christmas gifts. Getting back up to 150+ lights again, don’t know how that happens..

I tell myself a couple grand a year ain’t so bad, I used to smoke that much in cigarettes and I hate to think how much I drank years ago. I know guys with 50 or 60 fishing poles, knives, guns even. So I’m not doing so bad, not really. And hey, when the power goes out these lights are a lot more handy than a few dozen fishing poles!

DB Custom wrote:

A new member recently contacted me asking if I sell my mods, might have to in order to buy Christmas gifts. Getting back up to 150+ lights again, don’t know how that happens..

I was talking to my brother about that light, how it starts innocently enough and then you buy 3 of these, 2 of those, one of these, build this, recreate that, before you know it the budget is blown and you’re wondering where it stops. $50 added to it yesterday after it was already doing close to 12,000 lumens. Where does it end?

So now I have 3 XHP-50.2’s to do something with… and on it goes.

DB Custom wrote:

a hot air/soldering station that got me hooked on hot air guns (and then it QUIT).

Sorry for off topic, back to MTN stuff.

Ok, so I have 2 of the 50.2’s to do something with. Just put an MTN Zener modified FET in a clear Convoy C8 with the 50.2 emitter.

Oh, it’s been a while Jason… I bought a dedicated hot air machine from Circuit Specialists.