Well, won a few cheap sk 98 little zoomie lights.
The usual sickly purple/blue fake led was in them, along with a 5mode driver that drew .78amp at tail cap on high.
So, being budget mined, had some take out xml-t6 on aluminum stars, they had to be better than the little die purple clones.
So just swapped the leds out with same driver and wires. The xml-t6 led soldered in fast, a little heat for a second or 2 on the pads and it was done. Was thinking, I’m getting better at this, lol, but….
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For some strange reason the light didn’t come on right away. Took the battery out and rechecked things then it flickered once or twice and then stayed on. To my delight, it was now 1 mode with a nice yellowish warm tint and much much brighter. This little $1.59 lite rocks. I mean I’ve never seen an xml this bright. Checked tail cap amp draw and was at 4.5 amps. How those tiny wires and 10cent driver have transformed into direct drive 4.5 amps is beyond me…
Think the polarity and low voltage protection is still working in the driver,? lol.
Nice bright warm white flood for a little lite…
Any idea what happened and caused this driver to go direct drive 1 mode…?
Probably the minus from the LED is in contact with the body of the flashlight somehow.
The plus of the LED is by default directly in contact with the plus of the battery, so you have direct drive now, only current limited by resistance of the series chain of battery spring, switch, tailcap, tube, pill, driver board and LED wires.
Those XM-Ls on alu board and probably a hollow pill (no shelf) are not a good idea for long ‘on’ time…
But i bet they are bright right now.
You know, I thought the same. Took the driver out, took the star out, can’t see anywhere the - is making contact with anything but the led star - pad…?
Put it back together, same thing 1 mode 4.5amps at the tail.
Ya it seems to get warm fast, had it on for maybe 5-6 minutes a good 10+ times, and it seems to still be fine even with the hollow pill and alum star. Maybe the cheesy switch/spring is reducing the amps down from the 4.5 amps I get on the tail amp test, thus preserving life for a little while…? Going to fill in a few old pennies in the pill and get them as tight as possible to the star board with some thermal paste in between…?
Does the driver have a designation like yn-20-5 or –3 or anything?
Cheap, has a bunch of surface-mount chip-resistors in parallel to limit current. The pads to connect the LED can be awfully close, so a small bridge from one pad to the next can in effect short out the resistors and you’ll be going DD instead of through the resistors.
Here, lookit the 2nd pic here
and see how close the “OUT+” is to the outer ring. A little too much solder, and…
There are two places where the wire can be soldered. If you use the default one you get 5 mode. If you use the other one you will have 5 modes with direct drive. Or 1 more depending of what driver you got. It is a very nice and easy mod.
But somehow you did that by accident, perhaps there is a contact somewhere.
Yes thats exactly what happened, by accident. 1 mode direct drive. Anyone know if reverse polarity and low voltage cut off still work using the other pad…?
Anyone know if pills are available for the sk 98…?
