Did that last night.
Did that last night, but tried to spice it up today.
Yes it would. Those are great batteries. You’ll get slightly better runtimes out of those. The solution to longer runtimes on higher lumens, unfortunately is just bringing along a few more batteries. You’re not going to get much better than that on a single battery light.
Folks everything has been updated. I have communicated the wishes of the brass pill to Gear Best. Can’t promise anything… they also said they may have a multi quantity pack that brings the pill prices down. I’ll update as I get info.
They have submitted the request to the supplier, so it’ll take a week or two to get the lights in stock. A coupon code is coming, but I don’t know when.
We’ve unlocked the lower prices, so we don’t have to worry about quantites any more… Remember You can get over 310kcd after modding out of this beast, with a dedomed XPG2 and MTN DD driver.
For a (dedomed) XP-E2 to work at its best you need a good quality imaging of the die, which the usual glass lenses do not do, XP-G2 and XM-L2 with their bigger dies are less critical. This particular light apparently shows excellent imaging, so expect the XP-E2 to work very well. Expect an extreme pencil beam, but a XP-E2 'Torch' at 3A may even get you at least 50kcd higher than the XP-G2 S2 (this is my own speculation of course).
Ok folks… It looks like the bare modules will be made either in a 1 pc or 5 pc kit. The 1 pc is $6.59, the 5 PC is 28.53. making it 5.70 each if you buy it that way. The 5 piece is already as cheap as it will be (says Gear Best)… the 1 pc will probably need a coupon, because they’re still at $9. I have a PM sent about that last sentence. The prices will not go lower than stated in the second sentence of this post. Please post your changes accordingly so I can update this. I will not change that list without your word, whoever you may be.
Thanks for the negotiations mhanlen, in for 2 bare pills.
Is it known if the pills come with the brass driver holder ring? Those may be a pain to get out, but very handy for getting the driver in.
As far as I know they do not. KKW said above that it is not needed. Can you confirm KKW? Let’s just assume they are not until I get a real confirmation. Gear Best currently does not have this item in their warehouse, so I sent an email to Brinyte. Part of the problem with the pill and why it has been so difficult, is that the Chinese do not call this part the pill, and do not understand what we are talking about. I’ve had to send pictures and email both Brinyte and Gear Best to get both on the same page. It was never discussed as a part, so I assume it’s not there. I do know the black and white parts in the picture are included.
I tend to always solder drivers to pills if it is an option, so if you’re comfortable doing that you shouldn’t need the brass press fit ring.
Same goes for the centering disc and white hold down disc for the LED, if you like soldering MCPCB’s to the pill the centering disc and white disc aren’t necessary except for cosmetic reasons. If you prefer thermal paste they’d be very helpful to have.
Provided they’ve got the part right, I’ll probably buy 10 of the bare pills with the 20 lights. That way at least half of them are easy to mod, and leaves a guy a spare red module in case it’s needed.
You could try calling it the brass electronics carrier. I wish I had taken a picture while it was apart to make it easier for you.
By the way, just tested the light again with the 30Q at 4.03V to start, still making 292kcd.
Ok… I sent Brinyte an email, because the person I’m talking to at Gear Best hasn’t actually seen any of these lights.
Do you have a method for soldering to brass as far as heating it up? Do you need a rework station? How do you solder the inside of the driver ring, without all the other components dropping off from heat? Do you do the top instead? I like videos, because it really helps me understand. I know I sound like a dummy, but I would make one of these videos… like I did for the reflowing if I knew how to do this. I’ve had plenty of problems with heating up drivers too much in the past and a part dropping off.
So you want me to put you down for 10 pills? Gear Best needs to know how many to order and I told them I would wait a few days to see if anyone changed their mind on the pricing.
KKK you mentioned somewhere that you are using samasung 30q which seems to be unprotected.
Ovisouly they are safe to use with this life but precautions are necessary compared to protected cells?
Note that I have the Opus 3100 to charge these cells.
Mhalen, Am I supposed to wait for a coupon note from you to get the lower price? Its showing $28 in my cart right now. 
I’ve never had components come off while soldering a driver in, but I did learn a while back to do a 30° arc of soldering, do another one opposite of it, then let cool for 90 seconds, repeat. If I try to do it all at once I’ve found it burns up about 50% of MCU’s unless the pill wall is very thin where you’re soldering.
If you pre-tin the edge you’re going to solder to on the pill it becomes easier to solder the driver in place. I tend to run my soldering iron at around 425°C, very little flux as long as the pill edge is pre-tinned, and use a wiping motion.
To solder the MCPCB to the pill I use one of those small refillable butane torches and solder paste. I clamp the pill in a metal clamp, apply the paste and MCPCB, heat with the torch till it flows, and then make sure to press down a little to get the MCPCB as tight to the brass pill as possible. Centering with these pills is easier if you have a small shim, or are able to accurately reduce a 20mm MCPCB to about 19mm.
Edit: Yeah, 10 bare pills for me.
Kim & Kanye Kardasian? :p
:bigsmile:
Do they use samsung 30q batteries?
Gotta be careful throwing around KKK instead of KKW. I don’t associate with sheet wearing hate mongers.
For those outside the US, me not wanting to be associated in any way with KKK makes sense if you look it up.
I have some succes soldering drivers to pills, but it requires skills and if I'm honest it is just beyond reach of my humble 25W (but good quality) solder iron. My work-around that is:
*heat up the bare brass pill (without led or driver), with a blow torch and while at the right temperature (flux!) attach three evenly spaced blobs of solder on the outside of the pill near and on the edge where the driver will be.
*now reflow the ledboard plus led onto the pill.
*attach the wiring from driver to led (or leave the led-side of the wires still unsoldered, can be done later)
*preferably with the pill as warm as possible, clamp the driver in place, solder generous blobs of solder on the ground ring, then fuse the blobs from pill and driver with the solder iron.
This way I managed to get it done with my limited-power solder iron. But it is easier to just solder the driver to the thin brass ring (no tricks needed) and then press-fit the ring into the pill.
edit: I see above that KKW does more or less the same thing :-)
Same precautions as any other unprotected cell. Make sure not to overcharge or over-discharge it, keep current draw reasonable (for a 30Q that appears to mean less than 10-15 discharge, and charge at 2A or less), and toss it if it gets abused.
Lower price will not be available till mhanlen releases the discount code.
Wait… 20mm… the driver is a 17mm right? Were you just using that as an example? I’ll update the list
Do not buy this light yet. A coupon will be generated for the different versions of the light. First and foremost Gear Best has to put in an order for the lights, now that we have reached 50. So even if the coupon was generated today, and you could order them, they wouldn’t ship for 5-10 business days after Gear Best has placed an order from their supplier. Then of course there’s shipping… always always always add the extra $2ish for tracked shipping with Gear Best if you want your order to show up… Their untracked service is very unreliable. I understand it adds cost, but even tracked it’s still going to be cheaper than anywhere else. Which was the whole point of the group buy.
But yes, be patient. And do not order yet.
Thanks, I will wait.
Sorry kk*W*. 
My mistake.