Ok team. Where can I find the most powerful boost drivers. Something that will work on either one or two Alkaline or NIMH cells with High output, at least 800-2000+ ma to the emitter. Multi mode is preferred but not a must.
Thanks in advance...
i have spent many hours hunting for this, intl outdoor had some drivers and HKJ has tested some and posted the results, nothing i am majorly impressed with though (for one NiMH)
do post here if you find one because i would be very interested
The other thing to be careful with these drivers is that most that I have tested have next mode memory. Any particular diameter?
Diameter wont matter too much, I would be using these in fairly large lights. In a maglite or possibly in my mag drop-in.
I’d be interested too, something to use to mod a 2D LED Maglite. 2000mA sounds nice, and I have a couple old XM-L’s to use.
[EDIT] Why not double-up on these . In a maglite room isn’t at a premium, one could just have two of these wired in parallel. Seems like one could get ~1400mA with two fresh D-cells. I’m not sure how much room there is in this but it would need a 20mm contact board anyway, and the first driver can solder directly to the contact board. From there it’s just a couple short leads to driver #2.
Wouldn’t a 2A single cell boost driver be pulling ~ 6A from the cell? A Mag D could do it from a nimh D or quad AA. That would make a great driver especially if it had modes without strobe/SOS. I’ve looked far and wide for such a beast but have never set eyes on the elusive critter. Sounds like a good idea for a collaborative BLF project (hint, hint). Might even get me to do a MaxiMag myself.
LambdaLights 2C XM-L (link to CPFMP).
This is a holy grail for me, a 2C/2D Mag mod or drop-in whose boost driver can actually use the beefy high-current capabilities of NiMH.
From bigchelis’s thread on CPFMP:
“It is a new 2C Mag hosts in Black
UCL lens
Copper heatsink
XM-L 6T LED directly soldered onto copper, no STAR
Rebel Deep Reflector
Throws like crazy at 50K lux………but 67K with li-on C cell from DX.
Will generate 639 OTF lumens from just 2 NiMH C cells, yes just 2.
working voltage is 2.4V~4.2V. So, even a Li-on C celll can be used with spacer. Does over 800 OTF with DX li-on C cell.
Here is a 10 minute test using just 2 NiMH C cells by Tenergy.
Almost flat output with no drop in lumens. The current to the LED is about 3A.
639.3 1 sec
639.3 30 sec
638.1 1 min
650.0 2 min
640.5 3 min
633.3 4 min
629.8 5 min
629.8 6 min
632.1 7 min
632.1 8 min
629.8 9 min
632.1 10 min
When I use a Deal Extreme li-on C cell it does more lumens and 67,500k lux at 1M, which is incredible.
790.5 1 sec
756.0 30 sec
733.3 1 min
796.4 2 min
823.8 3 min
816.7 4 min”
Matt, it would be incredible if you could offer a 2-cell dropin with similar output and regulation! Efficiency be damned—I would snap one up in a heartbeat.
Kevin ( Lambda Lights ) spent a lot of time and effort coming up with the design for that boost driver. I don’t think he made them available to purchase, but you could always ask. http://www.lambdalights.com/
You won’t see much above 800mA from 2.4V (2 cells) from off the shelf boost drivers.
None of the current budget drivers I have seen would do more than 1000mA and in reality not more than 800mA or so and the draw on the batteryis not acceptable. That's the problem with boost drivers, they eat up the cell fast, trying to make the voltage change. It would be be great to find a led that would run at 1.5v instead of 3.5v That would be ideal, but I don't know of any. Looks like another BLF driver project to come.
for the Lambda boost driver here
+1
1000mA to the LED is fine, on a NiMH AA battery that would drain it in under 40 mins anyways, with loses probably under 20-30 minutes