No.. only warranty issues if you purchased from me directly. I will of course still repair anything here in the U.S. but it has to approved by Haikelite so they can ship me any parts needed.
I think people may be confused in this way:
Texas Ace is building an awesome driver and will address all issues.
Haikelite has promised an improved driver.
Maybe people are thinking it is two different drivers, and that the Haikelite driver would just be an improvement on their first driver.
It sounds now like Texas Ace’s driver will be the new driver that Haikelite ships as their improved driver.
People are very excited about this light with its awesome machining and specs to be using the Texas Ace driver with Narsil!
Good luck getting Aliexpress shipping you a new driver or warranty at all of any kind...
You may be right.
These will be one in the same driver. The only difference is I did ask him to build me enough himself in order or offer a handful of lights to anyone wanting them and getting them a good deal sooner than the mass produced drivers completion.
But, you are correct. Haikelite contracted him soon after I asked him for advice.
To be specific, I was referring to this GB for the MT09R. So for this GB, any warranty issues will be handled by Dale and not Terry, correct? Since the lights were shipped from overseas, instead within the U.S.(Terry).
If you are in the US and Dale approves it then I can do repairs.
TA, I took a look at the Cree XHP70.2 product sheet and I’m kind of confused with your statement. You used the 80CRI M4 bin to achieve 23k while the stock XHP70.2 would be about 16-17k. But the M4 bin is the lowest bin for 4000k 80CRI. Did you meant the stock 4000k emitters used the M4 bin while you used the more efficient N2 bin?
My guess is that it’s not about efficacy; a higher bin will result in more output with the same current. I think what Texas Ace wanted to achieve was the highest output as a result of lowest Vf, which is the main variable with FET driven lights. So the emitters he used had the lowest Vf for max output, and max current.
The stock LED’s are very low bin, not sure exactly but my guess is a fair amount lower then M4. This is not uncommon for China flashlights to buy up the LED’s that didn’t make the cut for other uses. They work fine, just not as much output or not the right tint to be worth selling to a major contract.
The other factor is indeed as was stated above, I am pulling around 40A vs the stock LED’s pulling around ~30A.
So that is an extra ~50-60W worth of power that will naturally equal more output. Although even with all that extra power, the new 80CRI LED’s are still more efficient then the stock LED’s (around 75lm/W for stock vs ~88lm/W for my 80CRI).
Which suggests that the stock LED’s are 1 or 2 bins lower then the 80CRI I am using now.
With P2 bin emitters it should make even more then mine is now but I much prefer the 80cri LED’s myself. They look much better.
^ So Vf is the same for all different output bins as long as the emitter is XHP70.2?
TA, can I be notified when your 70.2 driver is available to purchase?
The Vf does indeed vary a lot between bins, that is where a lot of my extra lumens are coming from but the fact that the 80CRI LEd’s are more efficient at higher power levels, means they are also higher bin then the stock LED’s.
Basically the new 80CRI LED’s both have a lower vf and higher bin which translates to higher efficiency and higher lumens then the stock LED’s.
I picked them mostly due to the very low Vf to stress the driver as hard as possible. The fact they are the best XHP70.2 I have seen yet is a bonus.
I will post in this thread and start a new thread when they are ready. If all goes well they should be ready around the end of the week.
Thanks for all of your clarifications. Is there any green in the tint because according to the product info sheet, the 4000k emitters are heavily biased towards green (above the bbl). Did you order it from Mouser, 2-step or 3-step?
Wow, only $9 more than GB price for 70.2 version. After all the glitches are worked out and they start being sold at BG et al for even less they’ll be true budget monsters.
Correct, it is the 2 step bin IIRC.
I would not call it green so much as yellow but it does have the normal xhp70.2 tint shift that looks a little yellow/green in the corona. That happens with all xhp70.2’s though.
It is not a 219B 9080 LED that is for sure but it is the best xhp70.2 I have found so far.
The P2 4000k is also a good LED, it does lack some CRI but gives more lumens.
What do you mean by “deficitive [sic] driver”? Only ones that shows operational problems, like flickering, DOA, etc? I think some people are getting upset by this.
We know:
The supposedly “TA” driver is not even a “TA style” driver, as TA said, “The stock drivers are not even remotely a TA driver in any way”;
TA considers the stock driver to be of very poor quality since he said, “It [his new driver] will naturally be running REAL NarsilM 1.3 which is light years better then what the stock drivers had (only the S42 comes to mind as being worse in recent memory I am sad to say)”;
And perhaps most significantly, thermal management doesn’t work properly on any of them!
Given what we know I think it’s more than fair to say ALL of the drivers are defective, and EVERYONE deserves a new driver, installed free of charge, period. Doing this is not some glorious act of amazing customer service, it is simply delivering the product promised.
PS edit - Some people have said they are happy with lights the way they are, so let me amend my statement to say EVERYONE who wants a new driver deserves one, installed, free of charge, period.
- I was interested in this MT09R, until i got screwed over by Haikelite and their POOR non-existent customer service. I hope you all don’t get shafted like i did by this flashlight company. >> Haikelite MT01 UPDATE, replacement arrived)
In fairness, calling them a TA style driver is not false.
We could get into a deep debate over it but the end point is that this is a classic case of someone reverse engineering something that they do not understand and then trying to make their own version of it.
The base design was most assuredly ripped off the Texas Avenger series. They just changed all the components, and firmware while doing it. So the end result functioned nothing like the original.
I honestly don’t think Dale even realized how much it was not like the TA drivers he told the driver company to copy. He just told them to make a driver like this one and showed them the TA thread. They even asked me a lot of questions about it when they were working on it. Sadly most of my suggestions were not implemented.