The drop from 250 lumens to 200 lumens is a little bit on the high side of normal, but is acceptable. I was using a lab supply for that test so battery droop is not the cause. It looks like with the star in contact with the pill, you are OK. If you have that paper spacer under the LED, lose it!
BTW, the beam is a bit ringy with a well defined hot spot. Noticeable at closer distances, fine at distance. I tried screwing the reflector out, and the rings shifted some but the hot spot did not mutate.
Here’s the plot of the Deal Extreme A60 run on high. Battery was a Panasonic 2300 mAh. Got around 2 hours out of it.
The values are the center line of the plot area. The cursor values are those in the column with the “X”. The RMS values are a statistical average of all the points in the curves. Ignore the LED numbers in the left column… those sensors were not connected.
The light started out at around 220 lumens and was at 100 lumens near the end. Without all the clip-lead connections, the light would have started at around 240 lumens. Temp peaked around 50 degrees C.
There’s quite a bit of color temperature shift with this light… peaked at 6080K, fell to 5700K at the end.
Received my second A60… replacement for the one I botched. :~ Plan on checking for the paper disc and modding as needed. Hopefully this goes better than the first. Fortunately, the lens on this one appears very clean!
i got mine the other day from dx. it did not have the paper disc.
im going to mod mine with a nw xml and a kd 3a driver. ill have to fiddle with the height of the led to see how it turns out. ill probably use arctic alumina adhesive though so i dont have to be concerned with pressure holding the led down.
Ok, I’ve been asked to mod one of these to remove the mode memory thing, and if possible, give a bit more output, ideally he wants it one mode.
The driver appears to be 20mm, I’m pretty trusting of Gary so I’ll buy that, my thought is remove driver, fit 20mm contact disk. One mode, direct drive.
Now, more output? A few members allude to the fact the driver is direct drive on high, I’m prepared to accept that too, so even adding a 3a driver, the emitter will only draw what it wants to draw, you won’t force 3a into it, right? So the next thought is to recommend he orders an xre-r2 then send me the light and emitter, I fit the contact board and new emitter, one the anodizing is removed from the pill, ideally on a 20mm board, and lap the star to the pill before using thermal compound (in my case diamond compound because that’s what I have).
Have I missed anything here? The lights intended use is as a rifle light so I don’t see it running for hours on end (heck, dd at near 3a, an hours run time will be all it can do).
Also, can someone tell me what greased lightning is chemically? I’m in the UK so the chances I can find it here is the same as you guys finding Brown sauce over there. But there’s likely a similar compound over here.
Cheers guys.
Edit, I may have the emitter wrong here, what’s the new xre emitter?
I got the XR-E R2 for it, slightly better than the Q5. According to Match's tests here, the XR-E R2 max's out at 2.1A. You could get this driver: 20mm driver from I-O, and double up the 7135's, or try to go at higher amps with a 20+17mm board/driver sandwhich but it may not payoff. I-O also has a 1 mode driver I-O 17mm 1 mode 2.8A, but that would require the 20mm adapter board.
Right now, I didn't put in the R2 yet and am wondering what to do about the driver.
I’ve already got 20mm contact boards and 2.2a drivers in bound, but if the bloke wants a single mode light, why not just use a contact board and go direct drive? It’s likely only going to pull 2a or so from what your saying and saves the complication/extra solder joints or a driver - its rifle mounted after all.
We’ll see in due time, it may be air rifle mounted, this being England, in which case if its prechargee, no recoil, Springer, worse recoil component wise than a centrefire/rimfire……
Interesting, wasn't sure about direct mode usage. Yes, I think up to 2.2 or 2.3a from what I've seen with mine with a fully charged quality unprotected battery. I decided to go ahead and do the XP-E R2 upgrade - the driver is 20.15mm at the widest, but in mine it's sitting loose - very difficult to re-assemble now because it pops out and won't stay straight. A 20mm board should fit fine but will probably sit loose like mine. I'm going to use heavier LED wires and cut to size - this will keep the driver tight and in place so I can screw down that retaining ring, also better for heat and resistance.
I am watching this one close to find out how you do it Tom. This is one of my most anxious pending mods. Your stock driver is putting out a lot more power than mine. I think mine put out about 1.9 on freshly charged Eagletac 2500mah cells. I need to try my new Keepower 3400 battery.
Use unprotected Panasonics - max power for direct drive, 5.1A w/fresh Pana 2900mAh on the stock LightMalls C8 U2!! Maybe IMR's are the only ones around that match or beat them. I got EagleTac protected 3100mAh's and they definitely don't go as high as the Pana 2900's.
Here's results on an HD2010 with different batteries, all fully charged:
I just took mine outside with my Small Sun zy-c10-s and shined both into my garage from the street which is about 55 yards. The die pattern from the Small Sun was just a little bit bigger than my little old Ford Festiva. The spot from the Jacob lit up the one side of the garage so I would say 25% bigger. The main difference is the Jacob has spill. Not bright spill but spill. It is enough to light up the ground in front of you so you wont trip over something. It’s throw is amazing too.
Yeah I need to get some of those. I just got some protected 3400 keepowers from Kumabear and have been meaning to get some unprotected panasonics as well. My cheapy Harbor freight DMM probably isn’t telling it like it is either. I am picking one up from Sears tomorrow.
I got this one: ebay - UNI-T-UT33D. Recommended by a "super tech" I work with, he's got like 3-4 of them. Cheap for $12, handles high amps, has very low resistance, like a Fluke (according to him). He used them every day at work and he has the $200 Fluke. I have home-made 12 gauge wires for amp readings and it reads tailcap amps dead-on, right to the regulated amps settings of the 7135's. It doesn't auto-range but is great for the cost. You definitely need the custom wires - even a $200 Fluke won't read these typical high amps accurately without heavy cables. I wired the cables to banana plugs for plugging in, and on the other end, simply soldered them up heavily, then molded into the shape I wanted.
Joe - The Jacob's beam is smaller than the UF-V3, and even brighter than my modded V3, but of course the V3 puts out more light. Not familiar with the SA305 SAIK, or have seen the ZY-C10-S, but the ZY-C10-S being a Q5 zoomie, I would expect the spot to be really small. Funny because the V3 looks like a mini Jacob. The Jacob has the same basic shape but scaled up in size. I think I read the UF-V3 design came from an original XP-E Q3/Q5 light.
Oh! Finished the swap to the XP-E R2 and switched the wires, making them as short as possible using 22 gauge wires. It's raining this evening, but I think it's somewhat brighter on the light meter - dunno how to use this thing yet, I bought this: On ebay 200,000 LUX Light Meter. It reads well. I'm doing ceiling bounces to compare lights, but it's not telling the whole story... Not sure how to do legit tests yet.
Yes, for now. I put the 1 Mohm resistor mod in it so it switches to high after about 2 seconds being off. Not in a rush, so I ordered the 20mm driver from I-O (20mm 5 mode). At under $3, not a bad deal. I can add 4 7135's to bring it up to 2.45A, and that should do it. Think that would be the easiest driver upgrade to configure and mount. Lumens may max at 2.1A (if that data is correct) but I would assume you won't maintain 2.45A as the battery drops.
The SAIK sa305 is a Q2 or something like that. Tiny - I mean, tiny - hotspot and it actually illuminates better up close with spill than throw. It’s just not the same as the Q5, although on a visual test with my Q5s, they look about the same. A too-narrow beam I don’t care for, but all of my Q5 C8s are not a problem for me. Just the SA305. Odd. So I was wondering if the A60 had a profile like that.
It looks to be about the same size spot as the Q5 c8 that I have but brighter. Hope that helps. If you like I can do a wall shot tonight between the 2.
