Hi,
I found that another seller, cenn2010, that is selling these also. I think it’s actually the same seller, because the tracking showed it came from Compton, CA, same as the 1st one, and the light was wrapped in in bubble with tape that said “banggood.com”.
So, I bought another one, so that I could have one as a “sacrificial lamb”, i.e., that I could break (not on purpose), and still have a working one. That arrived yesterday.
So I did what someone else suggested, open it up and “think” about it. I’ve seen the mods with filling in the pill, and Fujik’ing a new driver to the original driver, but (a) I don’t have Fujik yet and (b) I’m still so new that I get to do somethng dumb :)…
I had seen one post that mentioned direct driving the emitter, and the response was something like “I wouldn’t”, but like I said, I get to do something dumb, plus I’m guess that I’m a bit lazy…
So, I decided I want to try a direct drive mod, but then the “lazy” part kicked in :), plus I don’t have a spare 20mm contact board, so here’s what I did:
1) I unsoldered the red and blue wires from the original driver board
2) I melted some solder on the bottom/negative copper area that goes around the battery-facing side of the driver board. I tried to do this as close to one of the existing notches at the edge of the driver board.
3) I melted some solder at the bottom of the spring. Again, I tried to do that so that at the point were it was closest to the opposite notch on the edge of the driver board.
[You all can probably see where this is going by now :)…]
4) I soldered the blue wire from the emitter to the solder point on the outer edge of the driver board.
5) I soldered the red wire from the emitter to the solder point on the spring.
6) I pushed the driver board back into place, running the red and blue wires through the nearest notch on the driver board.
7) I tested, connecting a battery +/- to the sprint and unanodized part of the pill part. Light lit.
8) Put the light back together, and tested, and it worked.
I measured current at the tailcap (without the switch) and it was showing ~3.20 amps!
Compared the beam (on our white ceiling, about 12’ - 6’, so about 6’, or 2 yds, of the modded vs. unmodded light. The beam from the modded light definitely looks brighter, but also, it looks slightly smaller. Can anyone explain that?
Why would the beam of the modded light look smaller?
I’ll try to post a side-by-side pic.
Jim
Edit: I know that the circuitry on the original driver board is taking up some of that 3.20 amps.