The 2X Hunter has 2 Series 18650’s and a regulated Buck circuitry. This is what allows the 4.5A current with lower draw from the 8.4V supply. And this is also responsible for the apparent long run times, high capacity cells can be used and high discharge cells won’t have any advantage.
So 3400mAh cells with about a 2.5A draw on em would indeed give over an hour of run time. It’s all in the math. lol
Mine should be here today or tomorrow, it left Chicago last week but tracking is not being precise through the USPS. I’ll get lumens output, tail cap current, and actual emitter current and forward voltage numbers, as well as some pics, weather allowing.
You probably know that Cree changed production process(“upgrade” which brings lowers lux performance) for XP-G2 emitters? But new production process could also affect even XM-L2 emitters:
Not exactly, since series doubles current not capacity. The driver is bucking down the 8.4V to the forward voltage required, so it pretty much comes out as a wash in that regard, less driver inefficiency.
2 3400mAh in parallel are 6800mAh and 4.2V
2 3400mAh in series are still 3400mAh but give 8.4V
The long tube of this light carries 2 18650’s in line, or in series.
As you said “regulated Buck circuitry allows the 4.5A current with lower draw from the 8.4V supply. And this is also responsible for the apparent long run times, high capacity cells can be used and high discharge cells won’t have any advantage.”
I had experience with Deerelight buck drivers and I really did not got much longer run times than with linear driver on 1 cell.
What I got was better regulation but one cell(probably bottom one) was always more drained than other one.
And this 70 minutes run time on 3400 mah capacity (2x18650 in series) seems very interesting to me… I really want to know how this is possible.
Edit:
“3400mAh cells with about a 2.5A draw on em would indeed give over an hour of run time. It’s all in the math. ”
Bottom one? Which are you calling bottom? I would think if one was going to be pulled on more than the other it would be the tail cap one. Current flows from negative to positive, so in that sense, the cell at the tail cap is on top…
Touch the black negative lead to ground on the mcpcb and the driver is bypassed… in this case the emitter would blow immediately as it’d get a full 8.4V current. But this tells us that the current is coming through the emitter from the negative side… pretty sure that’s how it’s been explained to me before and now that I’m writing this I start doubting my well known fallible memory….
Gadgetman and I do constant lux testing, ALL the time with these lights for every stage of development, for both new and modded lights etc. This applies now to about new 10 variants (headlamps and handhelds) and countless mod jobs/upgrades for people over 4 years and we have never found a Maxtoch to be significantly under spec - all within 5% or so. If we had found their numbers to be exagerated it would have been absolutely pointless working with them to develop new product, and we would have dropped them immediately. I mentioned earlier we had tested maybe 30 Maxtochs, but on reflection it will be more like 100. New lights plus upgrades for people.
We use two light meters and my own measurement is always at 6 meters in pitch black conditions, while Maxtoch calculate at the ANSI requirement of 10 meters. All tests so far on the new 2X lights with dedomed XM-L2-U4 show for us about 355-358k at 6m, which stands well with Maxtochs factory spec of 365k at 10 meters. These extreme thrower lights read highest at 10, even 15 meters.
On two occasions with heavy testing load over the years I began to get low readings and took the matter up with Maxtoch - suggested their lights were at fault. They reported factory readings were unchanged, and fortunately other guys pointed out to me it was likely my own meter that was incorrect. On changing meters readings were back to normal. Two meters failed over time and the symptom was they began to read very low.
Gadgetman and I only report consistent figures we get, but it is still good to bear in mind that +/- 4% may be a accurate as most meters will allow. You may buy a new 2X and have it read 340 or even 380k - and this may well be meter variation, especially with cheap meters. We use 2 meters now, and never accept a new meter’s reading as accurate until we have indexed its measurements against other meters, or known output lights. One new meter out of the box recently was 5% high !! Ratings consistency is something you keep working hard at.
The 2X head is 69mm, and reflector is much deeper than the M24. Throw is a measure of the overall reflector geometry and not just beam width.
Lumin - that is very interesting about output drops with Cree’s Xlamp series leds - XPG2 and possibly XML2. You could be doing everything right with your development work, buy from another batch of U4s and suddenly lose 10% - alot of lux in extreme throwers like these - and you wouldn’t even know why. Something to watch for.
Bin variation we expect - and this also makes consistent ratings hard. Our last batch of U3s read very well - within 1-3% of new U4s, but a recent batch of U3s reads 10% down. Hard to standardize ratings when you work with such component variation.
Well put mudgripz, and the fact of the matter is, you just can’t get this kind of throw out of anyone else’s box. Standard variation or not, MaxToch is leading the way here.
Thanks guys - keeping consistent and accurate lux data is an ongoing challenge. Maxtoch have been very good with factory readings in this respect, and great with any customer/product issues that arise. Good ethical company - has been worthwhile working with them. We have no business connection - just for fun…trying to construct best hunter lights on the planet
The main things I’ve found that give people low readings are inacccurate or b*ggered lux meters, and people measuring these hotspot lights at like 1-4 meters. These lights will not give full measurements at that range. We also check simple things like cleanness of lenses before readings as dirty lens can drop the reading x% and if you don’t check you won’t know why…
The 2X Hunter at 360-365Kcd is still a further thrower than the M3XS-UT MEM, cool that there is an alternate choice but the MaxToch is still the choice for rifle mount being designed for that purpose from the ground up.
That’s not even avalible yet, yet alone tested lol! I also guess a far lower lumen and hotspot size?
So far I’ve not managed claimed figures for M3XS or Maxtoch, but it is the Maxtoch that wins undoubtedly with lux figure, infact the claim about medium matching the M3XS on high isn’t far off.
One surprising fact is that the M3XS is far lighter in weight although neither are heavy.
Once darkness falls I will try throw figures at greater distance and see if I can get decent results.
Thanks for that.
