3.7v Emitter and an 18650. Is it possible to use a 6v boost driver?

Flashlight Modding and DIY Parts
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Hello, this is my first post and my first act in this forum may well be to make you lose some IQ points just reading this. I have played with Arduino’s but I am far from an electronics certificate. I just finished my first couple of convoy lights, and I came across UV lights for sanitary inspections. I do a lot of travel and I thought it might be cool to inspect the hotel rooms I sleep in just to know what kind of “cold case files” I am sleeping in.

My goal is to make as “powerful” a light as I can while maintaining temperatures.

I already ordered 4 emitters,
Luminus Devices, SST-10-UV-A130-E365-00 (from the datasheet, 365nm, Vf is 3.7v with a current of 500mA and an “Absolute” max current of 1A on the 365nm version).

Assuming I understand what I see in the graphs, with a freshly charged 18650 my battery is starting out on it’s tippy toes and current to radiation output is a steady downhill. I will start to lose max brightness very near initially turning it on. So I wondered if I built a triple with those emitters in parallel in an S21A host, then they could take 3 amps. Can I use a boost driver like this one, 17mm MTN-BST2 Boost Driver with the “8A IN | 3.5A OUT” option? Then if I use firmware to use only 80% mode, then my voltage should be starting around 4.8v with a fresh battery.

Could this work? Will the it be fine with just a linear driver?

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A dedicated boost driver is not what you want, a buck/boost driver is preferred. Something like this one although you don’t need the FET: Lume1-FW3X: Constant Current Buck-Boost & FET Driver with Anduril1/2 + RGB Aux
Welcome to BLF by the way.

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Unless the boost converter has a passthrough mode (unlikely) you need a Vin<Vout. So if you’re building a triple you have to put them in series.
With 1A max current the Vf will swing from 3x3.4V to 3x4V, which is similar to a 12V LED.

So normally you would choose the 1A out version, but I would ask them before ordering because their input/output listing is not very clear.

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Ahh, I missed the triple part… if the triple LEDs are in parallel I suggest buck boost, but as thefreeman wrote, if they are in series you need a boost driver to boost to 12V. That MTN boost driver can do 12V according to the description.