When end I purchased this light, I recognized the back end of the driver. It was an AMC 7135 based driver I was familiar with.
...but when I pulled it out, it wasn't what I expected.
I'm sorry for the lousy pictures.
As you can see, there aren't any 7135 chips. It is set up in three sectors which can each run their own LED, or linked as one, like this setup.
The light seem bright enough, not great, but OK. I pulled the driver and hooked it up to a single XM-L and got a reading of 1.75A.
1.75A running five XM-L2 in parallel is pretty sucky. I guess it's just the amount of emitters that create the illumination.
Each of the three sectors has an R560 resistor with an empty pad beside it. Is there something I can do to the resistors to increase the output? It uses 4 x 18650.
As you can see, I was surprised when I pulled it and found no chips. Even the traces are the same as the chip based driver.
If anyone can help, I'd like to give this torch a little more life. I know the cells are in parallel, so there's a limit, but 1.75A divided by five emitters just doesn't turn my crank.
Howdy, I modded this same light not long ago. I got it from yupard on ali-express during that cyber Monday deal. I bought a T6 and they sent me the XM-L2 I didn’t complain that’s for sure. Good company.
I Re-flowed onto sink pads and doubled the wires. I ran an extra set of wires to each emitter from the L2- and L2+. So it’s full parallel from both L1 and L2.
I’m now getting over 4,000 lumens with sony batteries.
I actually did have it modded using a resistor mod as well. But I messed up and shorted something on it and killed the L3 part. You can treat each of the L’s as a separate driver.
If you want to try the resistor mod it’s the little resistors that you mess with. There are three of them that are all basically the same.
Also you could of course wait for someone like comfy who might have a better way or can explain it better.
This was just what I did and I messed it up on the first try. Although the two sets of parallel wires is working great and it wasn’t too hard to do.
All the components look to be there for the other 2 unused channels to be functional, so use them! Try jumper wires, from the LED- pad that's being used now, over to both the other unused LED- pads. (L2- to L1-, L3- to L1-).
See how that does, then if you want more get rid of the three limiting resistors. Or just one, or two...
Use two of the empty pads where there's no resistors, no need to remove the old ones. Since they're all joined together and in parallel, one jumper will do the same as six (as long as the one jumper is fat enough to carry the current).
No! Wrong! they're in parallel before the three FETs, not after... so each FET will need its own jumper across its own set of resistors. That's good, if you want to fine tune the current. Back to what I said earlier, treat them separately, each one you jump will give a little more current.
I removed one R560 resistor and jumped with 20 gauge copper pin. It started at 3.8A and kept climbing. I disconnected at 4.2A because my LED was just hanging in air and getting too hot.
I don’t know why it just kept climbing.
Ive got four cells in parallel driving five LEDs in parallel, mounted on a single aluminum board.
What would be a reasonable current to strive for within reason.
I bought the same light as 18sixfifty.. I had a few pictures of it, but I cant remember all details. One of the pictures showed that I added 2xR100 on each empty spot (6xR100 total). I believe all resistors on the board were in parallel btw.
After mod emitter current was around 10-12A (divided on 5 emitters) peak with 4x NCR18650 . Up from around 3,9A stock.
Im pretty sure I had less resistance (more than the 6x R100 resistors in parallel) at one point, but there were some flickering issues on low/medium and current was not much higher..
I only paid 30$ for the light. I was thinking about doing a full rebuild with the better 5 XM-L reflector (the one you have bought too), copper pill, better driver and most standard stuff.. But for a simple "stage 1 mod" ,30$ + AR lens + copper braid + a few resistors + wires and some decent thermal paste. Its pretty decent for what it is and the little effort and money put in it. I did not try and improve the memory (faster reset time) but that is probably in easy fix too.
If the back is glued, here is one way to easily get it off..
Unscrew all four screws at the back. Put in two long screws (about 3 cm). Put the two screws in the vise. Two strap wrenches.. Not a scratch and great leverage!
Thanks RaceR86 I haven’t done the tailcap spring mod yet. I might just do it that way. Although I don’t know that I’m really going to bother. 4,000 lumens Is pretty good and even with the copper sinkpads it’s pushing it because there isn’t that much heatsinking. I like that I can run it for a long time on high.
I picked mine up for $30 too and I think it was really a steal. Especially getting the XM-L2’s. Even with the sinkpads I’m under $40 and it really has a nice beam profile. That Yupard dealer has some pretty cool stuff. He even has a small lantern that runs off a single 18650. I might just have to pick one up.
No, I meant, are you testing with a single LED or all 5? Adding more LEDs divides the current between them, and at lower current the Vf is lower, which means you'll pull more total current through the driver with no other changes.
