All 3 of my recently purchased (1-2 months) black aluminum tools have the 10 o’clock pad on them.
I foresee more lighted switch mods 
Get it hot and unscrew with a piece of rubber mat or similar.
With a lighter or what did you use?
Efest 10440 or you could use external heat but be careful.
great thread, interested in getting one of the efficient copper worms. I thought I saw on here that there was a coupon code available, but not finding that now. help?
Also wondering how hit or miss the copper tool is for efficiency. I do have (had?) a code for gearbest copper tool for ~$23.
I love your mods!
if you want to determine regulation, I suggest you buy a cheap light meter.
see post 27 for a guess based only on runtime
I remember you posted this:
if you did buy a Worm, use it to compare its brightness at 35 minute runtime on high, simultaneously to your tools.
the worm will be 2x brighter.
I sent you a worm link and code by PM
fwiw, Im just guessing ALL the worms w Nichia are efficient, I hope you will confirm your results
imo and guessing still, copper tools have the inefficient driver 99% of the time. I have an efficient CuReylight driver from gunga, and maukka has an efficient CuTool from a Massdrop. I dont know the source of mrmatt’s CuTool.
one brass worm is on the way to me, will do a runtime test when it arrives. Thanks!!
I ordered my Cu Tool from banggood in late January, but the Al Tool is from fasttech in December last year. Also want to mention that my IYP365 (also from banggood in January/February) has the gold pad but the output is very different in low and medium when run with 1xAAA (Legos with the Tool body), and I haven’t noticed PWM on any of them. Maybe the driver with the gold pad is the latest batch of drivers?
fwiw, I just found a Copper Worm for $21.70
coupon code: Lumintop
it is listed here (I do not think this is a private do not share link, if it is, let me know, and I will remove it.)
Received a CuTool w Nichia from Gearbest. It has a really nice pink tint. It has the inefficient driver that is Not Regulated on High.
The box is labeled 3500-4000k: (I do not have the ability to measure CCT nor CRI)
These are the test lights, left to right, Maratac modded to High CRI 3000k XPG, CuTool w Nichia, CuWorm head w Nichia on a tool body
at the end of 41 minutes the CuTool in the middle looks like this:
left to right XPG 3000k, CuTool 3500-4000k, CuWorm 4500k
and the Eneloop Pro reads 1.073 volts after 41 minutes runtime on High, so for those of you without light meters, you can use voltage as an indicator: (besides the really obvious dimness)
here they are at the beginning of the test (note I only ran the CuTool constantly, the others were turned off during the test)
fwiw, the lumen values left to right are 51, 93, 72
left to right CuTool and CuWorm
Im really happy with the tint of the new CuTool… I love pink Nichias
I love the pictures and data for this previous post, thanks so much. Also thanks for the coupon code for the brass worm, I receive it last night. Running it for the first time today with a 750mA-hr eneloop, but they typically go beyond 800mA-hr. Anyway I ran it side by side with my Archer 1A V3 at 75 lumen setting. The Archer runs 5 hours on this setting with its AA power, so it seemed like a good reference point for the 80 lumen Worm.
I definitely got the efficient driver based on what I can see. 45 minutes in and no change in light output. Got to get back to work, so I am turing it off, I will see how much more run time I can get later.
PS, makes a nice hand warmer also . . .
I completely agree your Worm is behaving efficiently.
The inefficient driver will Not last 45 minutes.
Thanks for sharing your test result. Im glad I did not lead you astray with my assumption that “all” Nichia Worms are efficient… at least so far, all Copper and Brass Worms tested, have the efficient driver.
I would love to see a schematic of both the efficient and inefficient driver. Although it could just be a firmware difference, who knows.
Nice, thanks for the link. So not firmware, but an inductor. Still would like to see the schematic . . . Guessing those are not readily available for obvious reasons. I have seen generic schematics of flyback type drivers before, but I am guessing these are different.
I noticed on the CPF thread you label both emitters as 219B. I guess the different color is just the tint lottery I have heard referred to previously?
I measured my eneloop tonight from my test earlier today, it was at 1.25V. I turned it back on, in less than 5 minutes it was getting noticably dim. Turned it off to compare to Med level,it would not come back on. Must be 45 minutes or so is the max solid output on an eneloop. Interested to do a medium and low run now . . .
yes
here is another example of two leds from the same batch, one is tinted pink, below the BBL, into the magenta spectrum, the other is tinted yellow, above the BBL
the two on the left
here are two 3000k LEDs of different types, large difference in tint (it is quite often that people say they like a certain “tint” when they are really talking about Color Temperature). Even when LEDs have the same color temperature, the LEDs can have very different tint, above or below the BBL
I do not know if differences in tint, or Color Temperature,have a significant impact on runtime, I have not tested for that.
otoh, differences in Color Temperature greatly impact brightness, but again I dont know CCT affects runtime, have not tested. My hunch is CCT has some effect, and tint has less effect… just a guess…
here are 3 N219b LEDs in Astrolux 10180 lights, the far left is slightly yellow/green, the middle is slightly pink, and the far right is more yellow/green than the far left
Thanks for the explanation!
Mine was about dead by the 35 minute mark...
Using ceiling bounce smartphone lux meter it started at 20 lux on high.
At about 20 minutes lux had dropped to 16.
At 25 minutes it was reading 12
And by 30 mins it was register 0 (light was still on, just not enough light for my phone to measure bouncing off ceiling).
Guess I have the bad driver...
yes, sounds like you have the normal Tool driver that is rated for 30 minutes
curious what type of battery you tested, and what type of light and LED… guessing its a Tool of some sort