I would not go as far as to call it a sacrifice. Just an inconvenience because UK stocks of the battery are at an all time low.
I am going to be using these charts, with a variety of labels, as needed, for any - if any - reviews I may make in the future, as I too find them full of useful information, nicely presented in one place. But I would appreciate any comments or suggestions if anything can be improved.
After some research, I will revise my assessment that the battery died due to a combination of overheating and overdischarging. It appears these batteries have a “fuse” under the positive terminal that will swell if overheated and break the contact, to prevent the battery from exploding due to overheating.
Some (not very wise people) will drill the positive terminal and using a nail with cut off point will hammer the “fuse” flat so the positive terminal will make contact and the battery will work again. I will not be taking that route, of course, but this explains what happened.
Not wanting to open a new thread, I’ll report my observation and ask a question here, if that’s ok.
(1) The reported flicker of the original RRT01 is (on mine) a sawtooth with little modulation depth, barely noticeable, like normal ripple.
(2) There’s a defect that may reveal how the driver works (if not known already): On very low output, the light starts to PWM with approx. 10 Hz like a strobe. With increasing power, the frequency raises, then at a certain point goes down again and vanishes. This all happens within 0 - 8 lm or so.
Do the recent RRT01 2020 still have this driver? I consider mine a lost cause and need a replacement.
Edit: Forget it - mystery solved. Replaced LED wires (yes!), problem went away.
I hated replacing the driver wires on my RRT-01. The driver is a sandwich of 2 boards and the bondwires are soldered to the bottom of the board in the middle of the sandwich. I found if I placed my soldering iron on the pins holding the sandwich together I could “walk” the boards apart and then get to the wire bondpads to change the wires.
Incidentally, Jetbeam does sell the drivers separately. So it is possible to upgrade the driver from your old-version RRT-01 to have the latest driver from the newest model RRT-01. The new driver is a bit higher current I think, and both are exactly the same size.
but maybe someone reading here will sell you one of theirs
good luck w your search (suggest you also place a Want to Buy ad)
fwiw, the 2020 model can also be used as a rotary only… the switch can be left ON if desired, and just dial down to standby mode. Same small parasitic drain as the 2019 model.
It is exactly as jon_slider said. I measured the parasitic drain of the 2020 and the 2019 drivers to be the same.
The 2020 model also has detents at the ends of the rotation.
just got my 2020 yesterday, but need help to identify led, because seller wasn't sure which one it is. And there's no marking on the box. I have my guess which one it is, but just need confirmation.
note it is 70 CRI 4000K 219C, not 90+ CRI
also note the negative R9 and the positive DUV… all bad things, easily remedied by replacing the LED with a 219B
I know it's big, it's like it's feeding led sub lumen power all the time, and the whole using 2020 rotary only mode is thrown out of the window.
Tried magnet, thinking maybe it's some mismatched magnet. I could turn it on, but the minimum mA was still around 85mA. So it's not that. Will try to contact jetbeam, because can't really return it to aliexpress (shipping will cost half the flashlight price).
It have problems with high current <5A, but not with low current (and 0.08A is not really a low current ). Other flashlight parasitic drain measurement are ok.
The current is high enough, that I'm able to double check it with my clamp multimeter after zeroing.
And it's correct 0.08A