Driver: Best location?

LED Flashlights – General Info
1

Hi,

I could not find a specific thread for “drivers”. This one seems like my best choice!

I am a novice when it comes to the mechanics of a torch.

My question is where is the best and most common place for a driver to be placed inside the Flashlight?

I think from what I was told they are usually attached to the Head/body of the light.I am guessing that would be best for heat sinking and the dispersion of that heat.

I almost bought a high powered Modded thrower until I found out it had a 1 minute step down[!!!] on Turbo and the driver was attached alone and separately on a sink pad! I am guessing that maybe it was too big to replace the original stock driver?

I am thinking that with this design there would be no way to tell how hot the driver was getting because of how it was installed. Therefore, a very conservative and cautious 1 minute step down?

Is a separate sink pad for a driver common and could it be effective, especially for a high powered thrower pushing 7A on Turbo?

Would a stock torch ever consider the driver “alone” on a sink pad?

Thanks,Roberto

2

Post a link to the light you’re referring to so we can have a better idea .

3

It is a modded TK61vn V3.

BEWARE: I gave some constructive criticism,on the harsh side and i am not welcome on his threads anymore. However, I seemed to have ignited a constructive debate!

4

You were banned from CPF? NO!! How can this be

No one EVER gets banned from CPF!!!

<BwAAAH-HAA-HAAAA-HAAAAAA….>

Seriously, that’s almost a Mark of Quality.

You’re in a much better place now. Leave the other forum’s a-holes to their Mutual Mastur… Whatever-They-Do-With-Each-Other Society…

5

The drivers are usually in the heads. This is partly because there’s room there, plus they have to be wired to the LEDs, so the wires are shorter this way.

The “Turbo step-down” is because these batteries don’t last that long anyway and in Turbo mode you won’t get much runtime, plus the heat generated by these “cool-running” LEDs will hurt you.

You can easily get a driver that will suck every Coulomb out of your batteries as fast as the wires will carry them, but the guys who build those have learned it isn’t really all that useful after all, hence the step-down. It’s nice to be able to use your flashlight longer than a couple of minutes, even if it means backing off on the huge lumen-dump.

You never mentioned why the step-down from Turbo is a problem for you. Maybe you don’t need a hand-held torch after all…

Inquiring minds wanna know….

Dim

6

lol!!! No, not from CPF but from Vinh’s threads!! lol! 0:)

7

It is a 1 minute step down!! That is a joke for this light.The reason it is 1 minute is becuase the driver is on a sink pad and he is not confident in it because there is no way to tell how hot it is getting unlike if it was in the head The original version was only a few hundred lumens less, about 150 yards less throw and you could run turbo 10 to 15 minutes straight in the summer,as long as you want in the winter!

I walk my Siberian ~7 miles total a day,4 at night,we both love turbo as we can spot things[animals!] from hundreds of yards away! We are on hiking trails away from population,light pollution is basically non existent.

8

I’m not sure I understand any of this.

First off, every laptop battery pack comes with at least one thermistor, making temperature sensing quite easy; and thermistors are cheap N.I.B., so I can’t understand why that would be so hard for VinH to do.

Second, I don’t know this flashlight, but I do know walking and dogs; and it’s a strain to make a mile in 10 minutes even with a Siberian hauling you along. That means you’ll likely be out ~40 minutes at night. The published specs on that light claim 7.5A on Turbo, which means that the best 18650’s I have heard of won’t get you back home.

OTOH, sub-Turbo at 3.6A will still throw farther than an average dog can see at night, and the battery (ies) will last long enough you can clean his paws before letting him in the house after a brisk walk… And can’t you just click it back in to Turbo (a long press, IIRC) when it steps down if you still want Turbo?

Not arguing with you, just confused.

Dim
PS: For the money he wants, it seems like he could take 4 or 5 minutes of his precious time to modify his code for you & delete the Turbo step-down if you asked him to… Have you asked him to?
EDIT: PPS: Or you could buy the host & LEDs he’s using & bypass the driver for DD. Cheaper, solves the problem, thumb your nose at CPF a-holes, All Good. Or am I still missing something?
EDIT2: PPPS: This VinH guy may not be the sharpest bulb in the drawer. He claims “Starting from OFF: Press & Hold = Instant Momentary Turbo, let go to turn OFF” … Uh… “Hold = Instant” is an oxymoron. That’s indicative of the kind of “thinking” that went into making the light. I’d avoid sending him the huge price & build one myself.

9

Richard from Mt. electronics designed or helped design this special driver.

I always bring 2 lights with me so I am not using my primary light for the 60 minute mini hike. More like 35 to 40 minutes.Normally I would use turbo for 20 minutes or so of that 35/40 minutes.

The light is not even a consideration anymore. Again, if I was going to buy it I am not having a light w/ 1 minute of turbo b/4 step down. I believe that is because of the uncertainty of how the driver will perform as it is mounted to a sink pad, not the body or head.

I do not understand all the mechanics of the electrical components. I am basically trying to understand how and why a driver on a sink pad works. I am guessing the heat will be harder to escape since it is not attached to the head/body!

Someone mentioned he should have a thermal step down on it. That makes sense. Vinh did offer to change it to a 7 minute step down but in my mind that would defeat the purpose of his uncertainty in performance to having it at 1 minute!

Sorry for the repetition!! All I know is it is a joke to have a 1 minute step down for turbo when that is the selling point and wow factor for these kinds of lights!

I have 36 torches so far in my 23 month old collection!! So I should not really worry about it!

10

It depends…

If he’s doing it to prevent overheating, there are better ways that don’t add significantly to his cost. If he’s doing it because “I know better than you do” (which would not be surprising given the originating forum), then it’s a sad, sick joke on all his customers. For an Extremely Expensive Toy.

Either way, I agree with you, that these are all Good Reasons to keep your money & look for a better torch.

And converting one to DD is the easiest mod possible. Just bypass all the circuitry with a wire. And only get batteries that can flow 7.5A, unless of course you want 8A…

11

Use a TINY25 on the driver instead of a TINY13. It has a built in temperature sensor, 2k of flash memory, and is available in a TINY13 sized package.

12

The tailwagging going on when Vinh announces a flashlight is beyond belief.

13

Mmmmmm…. forbidden donut…

14

First, thanks for the input from all of you.

I am no longer welcome to participate on his threads or get his lights anymore!! My criticism was too harsh!! Oh well! When I did that, the “Minions” with their “Biased opinions” came running to his side in droves!!!

Regardless of that I always felt the same as one of his former customers who said, “Vinhs fans ADORE him too much! ABSOLUTELY TRUE. Most of them kiss his a$$ and think he can do nothing wrong!

One thing about me is I am never afraid to challenge someone if I feel they are being evasive, BS’ing ect. On the other hand if people are determined NOT to give an honest answer, it makes no difference what effort and how many different ways I try to get them to reveal that info. I will admit I can be harsh and ruthless when I get frustrated because I hate dishonest people!

With all that said, there are several people on CPF who are also on here. Some of them are ones who adore Vinh!
That is ok because this is just something I needed to say and then I will move on and let it rest.

One thing I have noticed on here is we seem to have more freedom in our thoughts and words and it is definitely less clicky than the other forum.

I would be remiss not to say this. Vinh has always stood by his work. He always fixed or replaced a light that he sold to me. What will be interesting is now that our relationship seems to have perished and disintegrated, is he still going to honor his policy if one of my lights fails in the future??? I have “13” of them!!! :smiley:

15

That makes sense. But this is where you guys lose me because I do not know enough about the technical stuff! :wink:

16

….

(see my next post for my thought’s / feelings with a detailed explanation, note I have first hand experience…)

17


That's a pretty big cheap shot, making a lot of assumptions about someone you don't know. I hate drama, but I was a bit surprised to hear you say this. I hope that your customers and competitors don't say things about you like this.

If you could make much more money building lights than you could building drivers, what would you do? If you were smart, you would take the more efficient option and do what you can do most efficiently. What if you were so busy, that you didn't have any spare time? Every successful manufacturer I know of outsources parts.

Did you design the driver all on your own, or did you get help from others? Is it a working, proven driver? I am guessing that you have had help and feedback all along the way from others. You are the one who is sounds pretty ungrateful here. I'm glad that you've elevated yourself to the position of a "gread god".

18

Meet the guy? No never but the first (and to date only) ready to go P60 drop in I’ve ever purchased from anyone was from him when the XM-L2’s had just hit the market, I ordered a pretty standard 3-mode XM-L2 at 3A and after waiting WEEKS I received an XM-L drop in. I didnt own a XM-L2 light at this time and I was still green behind the ears so I asked on CPF how to tell the difference and what I got was pretty much verbally assaulted for doubting the guy, “what he sent me was definitely right”. This was before he had his “return policy” so after a few emails with him (cause I was getting zero help from the forum) I was told if I wanted to ship it back (on my dime) he would swap it out for an XM-L2 but it would take “a few weeks to get to cause other stuff was more important and he didnt see any issue, I had a working drop-in”. Also I would have to pay his return shipping to me as well cause he was considering this an upgrade, not him fixing his mistake.

As for my drivers, I’ve asked for help sure. I have a few people I go to for technical design help and stuff sure, very few people can do this level of stuff on their own but if I dont do stuff EXACTLY how everyone else wants it I pretty much get shrugged off, why do you think I stuck an AVR chip on my driver? Surely not cause I wanted one of those few FW’s, its cause if I want anyone to be interested in it thats what I had to do.
That specific project is still in the design / proto phase (running on my breadboard but dont even have the v0.1 boards yet) but I have other drivers, the BLF_PIC drivers out that I’ve repeatedly asked people to help testing for me, I’ve went to far as to send people these drivers I build (again out of my pocket) for free cause I could use the feedback (hell I’ve sent out whole lights to people, even paying the shipping) asking only for feedback yet no one can be bothered to even send a paragraph of their opinions.

As for your last comment, I’m done holding my tongue around here, this place is going downhill fast, use to you could say what’s on your mind, now you gotta worry about being PC, its a shame this place is commercialized now days like CPF was a few years ago… You got it good man, you have the funding to not only mod and sell these lights but you’re able to stock up and sell all the components for people to DIY, I cant do that, my business is ONLY the built lights and with people like him us guys that actually offer a fully custom light, built to the customer’s exact specifications (instead of just having one or two options) pretty much get shit on.

I respect you greatly Richard as well as many of the other big modders around here, in fact you are one of the people who helped lead me to where I am now but I dont much care for that guy, just look how he treats his customers (my one personal experience with him as well as the very public shunning of the OP of this thread, who’s no longer aloud to buy his lights anymore). About the most custom thing he does to his lights is engrave them, when I build a light for someone I build it on an individual bases (even if they want it “just like so-and-so’s”) and so I’m able to stand behind my work I record every single setting / code tweak / every minute detail and I file it away with the customer’s info so I always have access to it (as well as the exact hex file just in case I would ever need to redo it or they wanted another one exactly like it). One final thing, at this point I’ve procured my own source code’s that I’m commercially aloud to use, either I own the rights personally or I’ve partnered with the owner (/ creator if its GNU). Who’s code does he use? His own? Cause I’ve never once seen where he credit’s anyone? The driver in his TK61, is it a BLF driver or what? Cause I noticed there isnt one pic of it, I’ve never seen him state he purchases them, just says “my driver”, I guess thats the big difference, when I say “my driver” I mean MY DRIVER (you know, the one’s who’s circuits I design, then who’s boards I design, then which I build myself, then program, all of this taking upwards of HUNDREDS of man hours), when he says “my driver” who knows what that means…

I dont like to argue with anyone (especially someone like you Richard) but whats always made this place different is the freedom’s we all have to speak what’s on our minds without having to worry about stepping on someone’s toes. I’m sorry but I’m done holding my tongue on this stuff, I’m not spreading rumours, I stand 100% behind my work and I stand behind what comes out of my mouth…

19

I also disagree with the "general contempt" over at CPF, which is why I do not sell there or advertise there on principle alone. I do find your personal experience also to be relevant--no problem with sharing that. But that isn't what you said in your initial post, and we couldn't read your mind.

The PIC drivers are technically superior, but you can't dictate demand. What you can do is continue to show everyone the benefits of the PIC drivers and then if people find it to be more valuable, then the demand will shift over to them eventually. I personally like my flashlights to be simple and predictable, so I stick with simple FW. Nesting mode groups and that kind of stuff are fun to play with but I always end up having the light do things I didn't expect it to do when I really need it.

I don't know about all of his drivers, but I have been helping with the TK61 driver, which is a HX1175B1 base with some tweaks to it (FET change, output capacitors, firmware) with a 105C piggybacked. It has had a few teething problems, that's for sure (most of them have been my fault). I wrestled with that stupid thing for over a month before getting it dialed in and have pretty much lost any hope of making money on the deal, but it was a learning experience.

As for me, I'm just a guy who likes building flashlights and learning about new stuff. I'm definitely don't know everything and owe a lot of my knowledge to BLF. I couldn't build the lights I build without the help of others and have had a lot of help along the way. I can't say I build anything that special--there is probably 200 other people on this forum that could easily built the same lights as me, and I have no problem sharing what I do with others because in the end we all benefit from it.

I started my business for a few reasons. First, because I was sick of waiting for weeks to get stuff from overseas, especially with the periodic large shipping delays. Second, because my wife had just lost her job as a nanny and was out looking for other jobs, which would mean putting our son in daycare while she worked. So we started this business, which is our family business, and we do our best to do what we can do. We are definitely not perfect and make mistakes all the time (lack of sleep and an angry toddler can do that to you! ) I couldn't do it without her--she often works 10+ hours every day filling orders and fulfilling other tasks, all while watching our son. It has been a tremendous burden on me to keep it going while still succeeding in law school (some of my friends at school said it couldn't be done--until I showed them my grades as proof), so I need all the help I can get. I known I've got my fair share of grey hairs to show for it.

Now I'm gonna do like one of my son's favorite songs and ... "let it go...let it go..."

I wish you the best of success.

Carry on!

20

It looks like the TK61 V1vn had a 30 second step down and the V3 has 1 minute? It’s always been there? Or was there another version that could do 10-20 minutes before the timed step down?