3.938v and 4.15v 02/22/2016 - 20:16
As for not responding to emails, remember they were on vacation for a couple of weeks, Neal responded to my email but it took a week. Neal was bombarded with emails from people about the 30Q batteries, lots of those guys were sending emails daily for weeks even thought they were told it was CNY.
Emailed BG customer service about my faulty driver and was told they were going to acquire drivers from Manker and would send a replacement.
Go to Matweb.com and look at the thermal conductivity of the materials.
Aluminum fits between copper and brass.
But the thermal mass is completely different which is a time factor to add to the equation.
Pure copper is probably the best heat conductor without getting exotic.
Banggood CS has told me that my two SS/Cu sets I ordered on 23rd January have been lost :-(( They are saying they will resend them but I’m not sure how they can given they were both boxed numbered sets. I understood that all these were spoken for now?
Is anyone else still waiting for their lights which were ordered around that time?
I suspect Manker made all the pills/heads with material X… and we do trust Neal when he asked us to trust them.
If you look carefully at the X5, all the machining diameters are smaller than the depth of the knurl.
Each piece was likely made from pre-knurled stock.
Unfortunately, it was a different alloy, Alloy Y (yes, any free machining copper takes a knurl very well).
And that is why I stated the post as I did. I do love these lights. They are a true reflection of what a group of devoted people can do, even in China!
I was very careful to offer this as an accessory for the aluminum X5 and for those of use who can use these heads like P60 pills.
These could easily pull USD$20-25 for BG.
I would buy one - just - to have the entire copper X5 match in material.
BG still has neutral 3B boxed sets in stock. I know because they just emailed me about changing from 1A to 3B because 1A was sold out but not 3B.
Hmm that will be ok as that is what I ordered. Fingers crossed the replacement sets arrive then.
So I did a heat test.
I painted a AL set and my SS/CU set black, let them run for 6 minutes while I hit them with my thermal camera (flir tg165) every minute.
Unfortunately, the Flir failed me again in saving the images, and I’ve already cleaned the paint off the lights. Anybody even interested in the results if I did it again? Any better ways you guys could think of to do it (already herd the tape idea, wanted more detail in my images), or better angles to look at them?
Just from what I remember, I wasn’t really paying attention to anything but the timing and taking pictures, but the CU x5 dispersed heat really nice throughout the entire body. The CU/SS x6 held a lot of heat in the pill section, and didn’t transfer as much into the rest of the body. The aluminum ones were similar to the ss/cu x6 with heat buildup in the pill. All of them ended in the 120-130 degree range, besdes the d80 I believe the cu x5 was the coolest of the new ones. The D8 never reached more than 80 (Not sure on the state of the battery in that one though, the rest were fresh off the charger).
Maybe just tape a meter thermocouple to the head below the fins.
Sorry TK, what I mean by “pill” is the LED PCB.
It definitely not aluminium, as it has yellowish color like brass. It is definitely not copper either.
Unless Manker decided to anodize the aluminium to look like brass, which is quite unlikely 
The mcpcb’s were made by noctigon for this groupbuy, like that were for the A6, right?
If so, they are gold-plated copper. That is why it doesn’t look like copper.
Wow, I didn’t know it is gold plated. I guess that’s explained the yellow brass-like color I’ve seen on led PCB.
Thanks for the clarification PilotDog68 
Ditto. Though given the problems with the site recently, I’m not absolutely certain he received my PM. :-/
Great work, that will short-cut some discussion! And how unfortunate that the images were lost! I would love to see the experiment done again, if only for the cool thermal images 8~~) . But I can understand it if it is too much work. What I would like to see different is a bit longer timespan, the 14500 lights will not even have power leftover after 5 minutes but the 18650 light will. The D80 is unique because of its great amount of surface area with its thin deep fins, it is nice to hear that it indeed keeps the light cool. :~~)
My SS/Cu set ordered on 23rd January arrived yesterday, rubber-stamped by customs.
That’s interesting. Did you have tracking on yours and if so was it updating?
Can either of you guys provide a link to the resistor and/or LED to order for the tail cap? Also can you provide a picture of where to install each? Maybe this should be a seperate how-to thread…
and here I copied some useful info from this thread about the tailcap mod.
Just answered the doorbell. I got the usual gray plastic bag. In it a cardboard box, carfully wrapped with foam around the “shoulders”. Out came an inmaculate virgo intacta wooden box with two absolutely amazing flashlights. And yes: the wooden box is/was designed for display and not for transport, but the only damage I could find was a small ding of 1x1mm on the side of the bezel of the copper X5. And the lights themselve are mind-blowing. Visually and performance-wise. Team Kronos: thank you very very much!