I’ve got a gold original kinda SRK XML T6. I think it was $35 on Amazon. Now that I have a clue (Thanks to you guys) I know there are better out there. I’d like something at least as bright or a bit brighter. A little more throw, but still decent flood would be good. Less heat would be nice also. I don’t need all 3 of these. I’d prioritize them as bright, throw, heat. I see the Warrior around for $50 or so. M6? What’s out there currently that is a noticeable upgrade that will still temp my cheap old geezerly self into buying it? Or should I get some nads and just tear open what I have and see if a simple resistor mod or such will work?
Post a picture of the battery side of the driver, clear enough to show the little through-holes. We can tell you which driver it is without having to tear it apart.
Wait a little while. If we're lucky, we'll soon have a 5000 lumen SRK/M6 with great modes and a 3500+ lumen Convoy S3 with great modes. They'll be hot as hell on high though, which is to be expected with ~10 amps and up in any light that's not big and heavy.
Ok, you’re gonna make me tear it open. I can open the switch hole. Then just push at the front? I looked at a few disassembly things. Do I unscrew anything off the front besides the ring before I start shoving through the switch hole? The front unscrews, but the glass is still there and I’m not sure what to do to get it out. If Comfychair is my guide I can do anything!!!
Solder jumper wires across each set of resistors to make it direct-drive(ish), the big FETs are not very good so it won't be able to do a monster +15 amps, but it will get probably around 3A per LED with the resistors jumpered.
But it will still have the crappy non-UI with the crappy awful PWM strobe on low mode... I think you need one of these, instead:
That driver comfychair posted is one of the drivers I was talking about.
@comfychair
Is that driver ready to go? It looked like there were some minor issues. Why a 16V cap instead of a 6.3V cap? If 6.3V is okay, you might want to consider 493-3014-ND. It has much lower impedance (7 mOhm vs unrated) and much higher ripple current (5.5A vs 440 mA). I'll probably buy some this weekend. I think you're in the US, so I'd drop one in the mail for you if you want to see if it improves anything.
We're (well, Mattaus, lol, I'm just one of the crash test dummies) doing another revision with gate & pulldown resistors, with those changes it will work with fast-PWM firmwares and therefore won't whine and squeal anymore, hence big cap no longer needed on the next version.
I should be testing soon too, but my contributions will be virtually nil compared to you guys. My ultimate goal is to see it drive a trio of SST-90's at their full potential, or 10k lumens if Q bin emitters can be acquired.
So how do I get that disk out of there to solder it? I can get in the switch hole, but don’t I need to undo the front somehow? It looks like the lens is in their pretty good and I’d have to push the lens/reflectors and all that out the front by just pushing through the switch hole. And I actually read all the thread about SRK modding. It says push with an angled thing. I can do that, but I’m thinking I need more than just the front screw off ring removed? Or wait… I’m pushing down/back towards the bottom? That disk I shot a picture of has a couple of solder joints on the edge. Just push it out and break them?
The driver is not soldered in, the head of the light is aluminum. It's just pressed in, though they can sometimes be VERY tight. You can try this, and won't have to remove the switch or the bezel/lens/reflector at all:
Solder the copper rod (that's 12AWG household copper wire in the pic) vertical like that, with a really good solder joint. Take a nice heavy piece of cardboard, poke a hole in it to fit over the vertical rod, slide it down to protect the head from scratches. Then grab the rod with pliers as shown, and lever the driver up out of the hole.
More light means more heat but if you want more throw then changing to xp-g2 at a slightly lower current could give you less light, less heat, but more throw.
In my opinion the sky ray king is just a little too fat with the 4x18650 format. The solarstorm warrior feels much better in the hand and has two buttons with power meter.
The warrior can also be resistor modded. Although I never could get the bottom off to do a spring mod on it. Nice light for sure.
I like the XP-G2 mod I did as well. Lot’s of extra throw heat management was easier as well and it was still pumping out slightly more lumens than an original SRK after the resistor mods.