This is a good question, and I was thinking about it recently. I know a lot of people use BLF17DD or other custom drivers but these drivers are out of my reach. East-092 and Nanjg 105C with a lot of stacked 7135 seems to be the way to go.
from the DQG-2 review, I copied this:
DBCstm: LD-1 not suitable for Triple’s
The LD-1 is not suitable for Triples without adequate heat sinking and relocation of the power supply portion of the driver to a separate board. This, according to led4power.
I just built a Sinner Ti 18350 triple. 219B, Dr Jones lucidrv/FT. I’m running the 1.4A model now (cool running, less than 500mA per LED) but will be building up a 2.8A version when I get another host.
How about some more detailed info from those who’ve got triples working?
Wired how? — Serial or parallel?
Powered how? One cell or two?
And followups from those who have been running them for a while — how well have they held up? How long can you use one before it’s too hot, for example?
S6 triple XP-L Hi with FET driver from Mountain and LG High-drain cell. No idea of actual current since I don’t have a meter that wil go that high.
S2 triple with Nichia 219b and generic 3-mode 8x 7135 driver from Fasttech.
S3 triple with XP-G2 and 3A Qlite driver from Mountain with moonlight low enabled. This is my new favorite light, very bright for its size, good runtime without getting exceptionally hot, and I’ve found that I’m a big fan of the low-low mode.
Ultrafire WF602c triple with XP-E2 and 2-mode DD high driver from FT. I haven’t bothered to measure tailcap current since I’m just using some old Ultrafire 16340 cells I have in this light. If I had some better cells, it might be more interesting…
SRK with 7135 driver from Mountain.
Kai Domain boost driver for five XML.
Please Read On.
KD has three boost drivers. 5 - 7 and 9 XML. We know the the claim for the 7 and 9 XML driver isn’t really valid, as they can’t boost those outlandish number of XMLs on two or three cells without whining and burning out quickly.
The 5 XML driver is another story. Running three emitters on two cells is no problem. No whining and fast mode changing.
I’ve been running a triple emitter Fandy Fire STL-V2 with two 18650 and a KD 5 XML boost driver for over a year. It runs like a charm, giving me a rock solid 3.6A per emitter. One of my favorites.
THIS Driver (or THIS one, have RMM flash it with what you want… Guppydrv is cool…)
Using THIS FET from RMM
Set up like THIS thread by Djozz shows. I have the Backside (metal tab) facing up, and looking at the four legs on the FET (from the bottom with the tab up), the right three are soldered together and to ground ring, the left by itself is soldered to the 7135 point as shown in the tutorial. The negative LED lead is soldered to the Back tab on the FET as well as to the Ground ring (or other ground point)
I flashed MiniDrv on to the ATtiny13A with four levels, Moon(ish), Low, Med, and searyoureyballs direct drive pulling over 6 Amps with a purple Efest 18350…. It is bright on the searyoureyeballs level, but the calculated runtime is about six minutes, if you could hold it…
The LED’s are also from RMM as is the SPACER for the S2+. I got the XP-G2 S4 2B triple…. Happy with the tint, and the power is amazing, but I cannot wait for higher binned XP-L HI to show up again… The HOST is also from RMM… I think I like his site…
I got the Frosted narrow, medium and wide optics for it… The frosted narrow is good, the medium and wide are like having a worklight in the palm of your hand. It becomes a wall of light with either of them.
EDIT: parallel, over 2A to each LED on Direct Drive.
An S2 triple XP-G2 using a BLF17DD from RMM and an X6 with triple XP-L V6 using a BLF/Manker A6 FET+1
Anybody else? What’cha got working?
BLF fet+1 driver. 12A into 3x219C, sweet
Working on a Texas Avenger LDO driver to 3 XHP-50.2 in a fully scratch built light. The copper pill section started as a 3.17 lb chunk. It’s lost some weight and will lose more, waiting on the emitters and reflector to get here.
I use my own driver: Driver: F-8 v2 (17mm FET driver with 8 x 7135)
Used in this triple: Mod: My take on the convoy S series with side switch mod.
I’ve also used it on double voltage MT-G2 lights.
However, I’ve found that I’ve only used 2 x 7135s as the highest non FET mode. So my new replacement driver is the F4 which has no solder pads (not needed for a 4 x 7135 configuration), and it also utilizes the new OTSM method instead of traditional OTC. The zener is long gone, I use LDOs now days.
I have 1 triple with 3x 219C 4000K (the KD triple) and i use a 16x 7135 driver (Stacked Nanjg 105c 5.6 Amperes)
Will be building another triple soon, not sure about LED choice yet but will be using a 19x 7135 driver (6.7 Amperes) i recently put together:
I also use a KD triple 3x 219C Nichia 4000K with wight’s FET DD (just FET, no FET+1). I get 6.5+ A with both springs bypassed. Not sure whether my DMM is up to the task of measuring more though. Gets hot in 15 seconds.
It will probably do more with the spring bypassed tailcap, possibly double.
(assuming you measured with your DMM leads, not with a clamp meter)
I agree! I think it is time for me to buy a real multimeter.
MTN FET+7135 with Bistro; single 18650, LED’s in parallel
I have been building with 3x219C’s and have been somewhat struggling with the drivers. I have tried the Mountain 17ddm and it would drop out at very high amps to the next lowest mode. The H17f seems to handle the C’s well and I am getting ready to test the led4power LD3 at 12 amps CC and DD with my favorite 219C light.
Cree based triples and quads get the 17ddm or a home built triple channel driver and work great.
All of my builds have been parallel.
For those who didn’t say “Parallel” or “Serial” — would you kindly edit your descriptions?
I’ve botched several boards trying to put in the wiring for parallel setup, so am very curious what works and how.
My triples are always parallel. Next build will be a quad, also parallel.
reflowing LEDs onto the copper MCPCB is easy when they are marked (if not you’d have to use a multimeter and check polarity).