UF HY-A64 from FT

LED Flashlights – General Info 18650 Flashlights
1

CORRECTION - The reflector I used wasn’t a C8 reflector, but rather a 36mm one from FT: https://www.fasttech.com/p/1208514.

Hi,

I just received one of these today from Fasttech (from an order):

https://www.fasttech.com/products/1700404

I was interested in it because from the FT pics, it looked like it was a mechanical side switcher (rather than electronic, so no parasitic drain), plus it looked cool in gold, and it was pretty cheap.

After I got it, I disassembled it (naturally):

As you can see, it’s not bad. As mentioned above, and confirmed now, the side switch is mechanical.

The pill is fairly roomy, albeit hollow, and it screws into the head from the battery end, so heat transfer should be ok. There’s an “attractive” alumin-ish bezel ring (not glued) and glass lens (not AR).

One bad thing is that the SMO reflector is plastic.

I wanted to mod it, and I debated what emitter to put in, but I finally decided to replace the emitter with an old XM-L I had:

At the same time, I wanted to see if I could replace the reflector.

It turned out that I have a bunch of different C8 reflectors that I bought from FT awhile ago, and one, literally, was just a drop in replacement for the original reflector (I also used one of the ‘butterfly’ type of insulators from FT)… so this light is really a kind of cheap C8 clone with a side mechanical switch and an aluminum bezel.

It’s somewhat longer than a “real” C8, because of the length that is added by having the side switch in-line with the battery tube, but not that much longer.

I really should’ve replaced the original driver at the same time (it’s press-fit into the battery end of the pill), but was kind of lazy… a job for another day.

Anyway, here’s a whitewall shot (about 1.5 meters) of high now after the XM-L:

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Does the charger port have any circuitry or is it just wired straight to the battery?

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Hi Cereal Killer,

I’m not planning to use it, so I haven’t looked at it yet. If I have time, I’ll check, and I’ll post back about what I find if/when I do that.

Sorry…

Jim

4

Beam does not look bad.
Maybe you can just mod the resistors on the stock driver?
This is Budget Light Forum after all :slight_smile:

Later,
Keith

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I was thinking about that when I had it apart, but like I said, I got lazy (just back, so getting up some steam here LOL).

That’ll be another thing on my list of things for this light… take some pics of the driver…

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A couple of more pics:

This is the front of the battery tube - the brass contact is where the spring on the driver makes contact:

This is the positive contact inside the battery tube (where the battery contacts the side switch). This is a similar arrangement to the Defiant Super Thrower (DST):

And, here’s the battery side of the driver. Note the spring is pretty long, as it has to contact that brass contact in the first pic above:

Re. the charger port, I did some ohm’ing, but not sure if it’ll help, as you can see from the pics, the switch and port area are enclosed, so I think I’d have to destroy the light to take it apart.

Anyway, I measured from the pin inside the charger port, to the positive contact inside the battery tube, and got 0 ohms (i.e., a short). I guess that it’s possible that they have circuitry on the negative side, but I think that this being shorted means that the battery charger goes directly to the battery?

Hope that that helps…

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I doubt very much there is any circuitry in the light itself for charging. It will supply whatever power you put into it straight into the battery.

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thanks for the review and i really like the design and colours of this light

unfortunately… that pill with no emitter plate :confused:

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That drop-in-thingy, with the switch and the 3mm interface, has no electronics inside.
So it’s direct connect to batt.

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Hi,

That’s what I’m figuring also. Like I said, I wan’t planning to use the port for charging, but I’m curious: If I had a cable that plugged into that port, would the battery inside the light OUTPUT ~4.2V, i.e., if I hooked that to something that could use 4.2V, could I power that something from the battery inside the light, without pulling the battery out of the light?

EDIT:

I happen to have a wall adapter from this other light:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/301161725624

and the plug fits into the charge port for the HY-A64!! I removed the battery from the HY-A64, and plugged the wall adapter in, and the light lights up, but I think that my XM-L is drawing too much current from the adapter, because the indicator on the adapter keeps changing to red and the light just does blinkies :)…

EDIT 2: I just measured tailcap current… about 1 amp on high. The FT page says 500 mA, so the stock light with that old XM-L emitter is drawing more than the FT spec :)…

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Great to see you back Ohaya. I’m not the biggest fan of gold lights, but I have to say I like this one. Not so yellow.
Thank you for the review and breakdown shots.

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Hi,

Thanks :)…

These also come in gray/grey and black…

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See how much that picks up the amperage.
As far as the charging port, those things scare me, would never use it, probably best to put some silicone in it to seal it up and forget about it.
Thanks,

Keith

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There’s also a large, thin gauge spring on the tailcap:

but I can’t see how to get that out (or put it back afterwards)?

Also, here’re some pics of the driver.

Printing on the board says “YN-20-3”.

Can this be resistor-modded?

EDIT: Some better pics of the driver:

EDIT 2:

Marking on the larger black chip is “HDI4D”. I’m assuming this is a controller?

The 4 resistors (?) are all marked with “1” then a dot, then “5”.

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Does anyone know or think that the suggestion from this post (to move the negative lead to the other pad):

might increase current?

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WHOA!! I moved the negative lead to the other LED- pad, and the tailcap current went from ~1.0 amps to ~1.6 amps!!

I’d seen posts (like that one I linked) before but, believe it or not, never had a chance to try this, so it’s pretty cool.

I did note that the modes seem a little funky now. I’m not sure, but before, it would go blinky, high, then low, and repeat. Now, it seems (again, not 100% sure) that it sometimes gets stuck in high. If I turn the light off then wait a few seconds, the modes start working again.

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Is it a hollow pill?

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Yes. I think that was in the 1st/OP…

Also, BTW, I need to correct what I said earlier about the reflector I was able to use. It wasn’t a C8 reflector, but rather this (36mm) one:

https://www.fasttech.com/p/1208514

Sorry for any confusion.

Jim

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It looks as if the internals are the same as the Ultrafire 535

Direct connect from the plug to the battery, no charge controller circuitry

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Was just looking up the driver for my ’98, a YN-20-5 (vs YN-20-3). Both 20mm, the row of (parallelled) sm resistors limits current to the LED, the 1uF cap probably provides hold-up power to detect mode-changes, and incredibly, the 3-pin doodad is apparently the control chip (+, -, out).

Pretty clever for race-to-the-bottom drivers…