Soldered the + from emitter direct to positive spring and - from emitter to edge of driver pcb and works fine with protected & unprotected batteries.It has an XR-E Q5 emitter,the pill is solid so thought be ok to run like that,it,s been on for 20 minutes so far but the whole flashlight is incredibly hot.Is it ok to keep it wired like this? cheers terry
Depends on what type of driver you used(how many A?) There is no point of driving XREQ5 more than 1,8A (you can but without benefits and you will shorten his lifetime)
1,8A XRE should not be incredibly hot after 20 minutes.
pics please
I don’t think I’ve heard of anyone direct driving an XR-E. Has the LED turned blue yet?
With your set up the amps are limited by what the battery can output. I’d be concerned about the batteries, both the heat and chance of over discharging, particularly the unprotected cells.
I direct drive my XR-E CK-36 recoil light. It draws around 2A from a Sanyo 18650. I don’t use it for long though, so I don’t worry about overdischarging the cell.
How hot is too hot? Do you have a thermometer?
Hi,once it,s heated up it,s pulling 1.97amps with a fully charged protected battery and it hasn’t turned blue yet.It ran for 1 hour 20 minutes on protected battery before it dimmed even though it was crazy hot.
cheers terry
I was wondering something similar. My d40avn accidentally switched on in the holster for about 30-40 min before my genius self realized. It was almost too hot to hold but not quite. Was wondering if I damaged it. The low voltage indicator came on shortly after, but everything seems fine.
Smell bacon? 
No bacon! 
I guess I’m good then. Lol
Solved heat issue caused from bypassing the driver and wiring emitter direct to battery,fitted a 1 ohms 2.0 Watt resistor in between positive lead to emitter.It now runs steady around 1.4 amps and has been turned on for an hour and a half.cheers terry
i have one time a small sun c 10s with xre drive with fulled pill with copper on 3.04 A driver crazy light with blue shine (lens?) but it become to hot
the XR-E can handle 2 amps most of the time, but it hardly puts out more light than with 1.4A.
Is that cutting it close? P=I2R =(~1.4)2 *1= ~1.96W dissipated in the resistor. 
I agree. It is still nice and inexpensive little led.