Hi and welcome Aussielight. I dont understand the electronics but looking at you picture it appears that the R2 resistor has burnt out (copied the picture to my desktop to see this).
Hi.
Yes, R2 gets super hot. I noticed it was burnt but still checked good on the Multi meter., I tried another resistor, But it also got super hot fast. Must be another faulty part causing it.
Probably one of the IC’s. Which if that was the case, I would not bother changing out as i would have to wait a month for parts, And you never know it may fail instantly due to another issue.
Also, U2 gets very hot within seconds of pluggin in battery.
Im not smart enough with small circuits to try and fix it. Would just rather try a better driver all together.
Every time i try repair something, It just fails immediately due to other faulty parts.
I just really hope there is a driver out there that will fit.
Hi, Yes and no.
I have the stock 4x 18650 that I used at the start.
But I plan on using my rc truck batteys with it.
Zippy Flightmax 5200Mah 2s 40c.(7.4-8.4v) for better run times/more capacity over the stock China 18650’s.
The zippys are compact, excellent capacity, and way better quality.
If you rewire two of the LEDs to work in series, you can use a Zener-modded driver loaded with momentary switch FW. Better would be a driver with LDO instead of the Zener diode.
Ideally, I’d love to keep the push button now you mention it.
Also, All 3 LED’s are already wired in series. For a total requirement of 8.4v.
Slightly off topic for a sec, I saw some drivers, They say 5 mode, Yet have no button, How would you cycle through the modes with no button?
Does the driver just change modes every time the power is cut/applied?
Having a further trawl for drivers that will fit(hard part) I see the single rounded drivers, possibly may need to try 1 or 3 of these. If they will fit, probably not though.
Although, Most drivers I saw were for ~3v for a single cree LED, Not 3 in series.
I can not believe, For such a common china light, They have no spare drivers…
I purchased on of those 15000lm 9x cree u2 bike lights, Expecting it to smash the solarstorm x3……Not what I was expecting….
Those 3x cree solarstorm u2 lights a awesome! Just as bright as the 9x U2. I would love to get it up and running again!
Thanks for taking the time to edit the photo with descriptions of the components, Makes me understand the driver much more.
I thing you are right, The step down controller gets super super hot immediately after power is applied. So it is obviously faulty. Far to small for me to try replace, Plus I can hardly see the part numbers on it.
The sense resistor looks to have cooked for a few seconds too.
Driver is just toast.
I always wondered what the coil was(choke)
I agree, the new 9x cree light must be using fake cree’s. But the x3 may be using something much better, As it is so damn bright! Brighter than my car headlights.
Shame, after having the x3, I was really excited to receive the x9, But I was disappointed.
The driver in the x9 looks crap. Worse than the x3 driver.
That actually looks better than the broken X3 driver because the FET is in a bigger package.
It looks like the sense resistor is next to the FET and labeled R200, which means its value is 0.2 ohms. Replace this with a smaller value resistor or solder a low resistance resistor on top to increase the drive current.
Replacing .2 ohm with .1 ohm will double the current. If you can find a small wire wound potentiometer with low value, connect it in parallel with existing .2 ohm resistor. Then you can adjust the current.
