Can the Jacob A60 take a ‘standard’ 17mm Driver like 4X7135? Has anyone replaced the driver in this Light?
It can not.
The driver board is 20 mm across and the driver cavity above it is very shallow.
I have sandwiched a 8*7135 driver on top of original driver board for kicks but it was a pain to do it.
BTW the orig driver only uses something like 0,2A in low mode so gives very good runtimes with very fast pwm (the fastest I've seen in any budget light so far but I've no idea about how high.
Thanks Ledsmoke, I was mostly concerned with the high mode, which appears to be direct drive on this light. I need a thrower that I can leave on high for longer than 5-10 minutes without smoking it. (needs to be a reliable emergency light. I’m thinking 1-1.5 amp …yeah, wimpy) Have to decide if this A60 is worth my modding trouble/risk to make it work. I have a 19+mm board I could ‘hardwire’ 3 or 4x 7135 chips to for a single mode… (or just keep using my modded 3D mag for the thrower purpose.)
Sounds like this light needs some work to improve heat dissipation as well.
Have you tried swapping the XR-E LED? the led package dimensions are unique…. seems like swapping XM-L or XP-G may be a problem for the beam profile/reflector.
About heat dissipation in this light.
I've just modded one to XML tonight. After I read your post I thought I'd try something with the xml light.
So I made it direct drive and ran it on a panasonic 3100 mAh battery that is 4,19V from start.
I turned it on and stood it on its tail on the table. Ambient temp is 20°C.
I measured the temperature with a infrared thermometer at the fins just below the head which were hottest part.
Start temp is 20°
2 min: 55°C (Feeling warm)
4 min: 68° (Feeling hot, almost too hot to hold)
6 min: 73° (Hot hot hot - I cannot hold it)
8 min: 77°
10 min: 79°
12 min: 80°
14 min 80°
I stopped there :-)
Then I swapped the battery for a new one (old one was 4,01V now and feeling warm)
The light cooled off a little so I could hold it and then I turned it on again but I kept holding it.
Start was 38°C
2 min: 56° (warm to hold)
4 min: 59° (a bit warmer but not much)
6 min: 60° (apparently I am a good heatsink!)
8 min: 61°
Stopped there, was getting boring.
My conclusion, yours may wary, is that it has very good thermal capability for such a small light. I was pushing about 3,4-3,5 A to the XML. That is about 11 watts of power.
For those interested I get approximately 45 kCd of throw with this XML setup. Next I want to drive it at ~4,? A for kicks 
So I dont think you have to worry about the heat in this one. When it was still XR-E driven I have had it on for more than half an hour at a time several times. On high obviously. No probs.
The really big benefit of the setup that you are suggesting is that you would have very predictable runtimes and obviously lower temperatures. But that is part of what I like about forums like this. We take the same thing and make them completely different! Kudos to you for modding this light BTW. Well done !
Oh I forgot to mention this but here goes.
You will only loose very little in the throw department when reducing your max power to 1,5 A
If your unit was pullling 2,1 A on high you were probably getting about 55 kCd from it. I have a crappy 18650 battery I used in this once and it gave only 1,4 to 1,6A on high but I still got ~ 46 kCd from the light. That is still about 428 meters of throw down from 55 kCd which gives 469 meters. So your mod makes more common sense than mine does. But I have fun doing it though!
Wow, I’m so lucky for the work you are doing with this light. Thanks for the details, sounds lke heat sinking will be no problem. I don’t have the A60, just thinking about ordering one now… You have about convinced me to go ahead.
What is the beam profile like with the XM-L? Smooth, color separation, spot size, etc. How does the beam compare to XR-E? If I was going to push it hard, I would want the XM-L, or at least XP-G2 in there.
The beam profile with XR-E:
A small intensely bright center spot with a fast dropoff to the spill which is so very even and mild on the eyes yet lights up the ground around you well enough to see what is going on out to 30 meters ahead of you with a wedge of light nearly 90° wide.
With XM-L:
A wide center spot with the XML trademark darker center that eases quickly to a still intense spill that will light up the ground around you well enough to see what is going on out to 60 meters ahead of you with a wedge of light nearly 90° wide.
To me the XR-E profile is the prettiest and most useful for a thrower light.
Perfect description Ledsmoke; I can see it. I will leave the XR-E in there. just what I want, Thanks.
You are welcome :-)
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