Ok simple one.
I have ordered this driver and this pill
from fasttech to replace crappy C8 driver and hollow pill.
The has 1 red wire and 1 black wire. I assume that the red goes to the +ve side of the star and black to the -ve side of start…
but this pill has a red wire connected to it.!!! What the hell do I do with that?
Do I have to connect this somewhere or just cut it? Since I see that this wire is “fatter” that the one on the driver can I just connect this wire to the -ve side of Star and just cut the one from the driver?
Well since its a red wire I would end up having only red wires to the star… that’s intelligent!
Am I missing something?
Actually, in the picture the wire is black. Anyway, it doesn’t matter what color it is. If you solder that wire to the outer ground ring on the driver, it will guarantee that you will have good ground to the flashlight body ensuring a complete circuit.
The driver will have a red and a black wire, these do indeed go to the positive and negative of the star. The wire that is connected to the inside of the pill SHOULD be black, as it's there for a ground. You can connect it to the inside of the driver, the ground ring around the outer edge, to insure you have a good ground connection.
As long as you know that the connection to brass is an earth, the color of the wire is not relevant.
I'm not sure why that extra wire is there (I can see it in the pics on FT, only it's a black wire solderered directly to underside of the pill). Remove the wire and just use the Red/Black wires from your driver to wire it up normally.
I always solder the driver to the pill, and snip off that extra ground wire.
If you don't want to solder the driver in (it can be tough sometimes, with a low-wattage iron and a chunky brass pill), and the driver will stay in place on its own just from a press-fit (don't sand off the burrs on the outer edge of the new driver if you want it to fit tight), then the wire is easier to solder to the driver's ground ring.
Thanks all for your help, I’ll just solder the wire to the driver ground.
For the star, should I just use the star of the C8 which is an xml-t6 cool white or would I be better off using this xm-l2 from fs?
… or any other better suited star for that matter. If possible a neutral white.
Were it me, I'd use a Noctigon copper star with an XM-L2 on board. These are available at Intl-Outdoor in varying tints.
I just recently got my first C8, a Convoy, and put this in it, an XP-G2 R5 2B on Noctigon, really like it. It makes 665 OTF lumens on a stock Qlite, pulling 2.95A in a tail reading.
Shown here illuminating the red oil barrel, 97 yds away.
nice.
I connected xml-T6, its ok. Next I will shorten the wire to the star and I will order the noctigon copper XM-L2 from Intl-Outdoor but I am waiting for 2 orders past 4 weeks now. get those first.
No… next I’ll just dedome the emitter. btw how do you stick the star to the pill? I am using these Thermal Conduction Silicone Rubber Cubes
Am not sure this is the correct way to stick star to pill. There are those small screws that came with the pill, but I can’t see how I can use them.
Actually I don’t know why I thought and saw that they would not fit. After reading your post, I went to double check, they actually fit. Great!. thanks. Lesson learned: never assume.
No, of course not. There is paste between the star & pill there. If using screws, you need a non-hardening paste/grease thermal compound, same stuff you use between a computer CPU and heatsink. Otherwise you have to use epoxy or adhesive, or something, to hold the parts together.
The squishy silicone cubes are for filling large gaps between a hot thing and a cooler thing, like for filling the space between a driver & pill. It stays squishy, doesn't cure or harden, is far too thick to use between the star & pill. It's also not very good at carrying heat, but it's better than nothing, in certain cases.
I would end up having only red wires to the star… that’s intelligent!
they actually fit. Great!. thanks. Lesson learned: never assume.