I was trying to install a KD V2 3040ma 17mm driver in my UltraFire C8. It says that the ground needs to be attached with thermal epoxy. I don’t have any right now and was wondering if there was an easy way to do this? I had to dremel the pill out and the edge of the driver to make it fit. The main problem was some of the 7135 chips sticking out to far and hitting the lip the driver is supposed to sit on in the pill. I got it to fit, but was trying to figure out a way to attach the ground ring to the pill. I can’t solder it as the pill is aluminum. Is there something I can use like JB weld or do I have to buy AS5 epoxy or something like that? It is kind of expensive at ~$10 for 3.5g. Thanks for any and all help.
I I don’t know why you had to dremel it, it should fit…
To make contact, just standard tin solder, with a bit of flux will do the trick, even not being the better solder, it will make contact, I think
It was just a little to big. I didn’t have to take much off of it. I’m guessing it is the way the boards are made or something. The solder doesn’t stick to the aluminum. That is my problem. I tried adding flux and that didn’t help.
Running the edge of the driver on a file or sandpaper should be enough to make it fit.
You can try to pre-tinning the pill with a torch. I would only do this if the emitter and driver is not attached otherwise you run the risk of melting those components.
Your iron may not be hot enough. Try again but clean, sand/abraid the aluminum and then add flux. This time add more solder to the tip of your iron and hold it there until it sticks to the aluminum. Pre-tin the driver. Then bridge them together.
It takes a little practice and an uphill battle if your iron is not hot enough.
You can use epoxy to hold the driver to the pill but you still need to bridge that ground on the driver to the pill.
I was able to get some solder to kind of sit over the edge. The driver seems to be working, but I don’t have low. I bridged S3 for high, med, low and I get high and med, but no low. When I get it in low, it comes on for a second and then nothing. I checked the amps at the tail cap and got 3 amps on high, 0.80 amps on med, and nothing on low. I also have S1 bridged for memory. That seems to be working fine. Anyone have any ideas on that? I know low is supposed to be super low, like moonlight. I de-soldered the bridge at S3 and I got the main modes, but still now low. I don’t know if the driver isn’t putting out enough for the emitter or what. It has a XM-L T6 that I de-domed. Idk if I am liking modding too much lol. I wish I would have ordered the Qlite Rev A driver instead.
Here is the best pic I could get of the driver and how I have it setup.
So, you have hi-mid-nothing-hi…. Or it just misses the low and you have hi-mid-hi-mid… Maybe the de dome affected in some way?
Did you measure the voltage of the led terminals to see if the driver is sending power to the led?(edit: I mean in low mode, if it exists) (I don’t know if your dmm handles the pwm frequency well)
Edit again:
I think you don’t need to apply three or four blobs, if the driver is press fit it should be enough with a blob or two, but it’s ok considering the problems you had to solder the aluminum
Yea, I have hi-mid-nothing-hi. When it goes from mid to low it will come on and then completely off. I measures the amps at the tail cap and when on low I get nothing at all. I just measured at the LED and I am getting 0.46 volts.
I don’t know if those 0,46 volts are actual volts, or just your dmm that doesn’t handle the pwm frequency… (But I suppose it’s the latter, I can’t imagine the reason for the low reading)
Let’s see if someone more clever than me has an idea to help you with that data
the only thing I might do in this case is the easy test, try with another led…if it fails I know the problem is in the driver
You have an easier solution, select the hi-med star and forget about the low
Sorry for not being able to help you
I do apperciate all the help. I think I am just going to go with high and medium. I thought it would be nice to have low, but it is a thrower so I guess I can live with high and medium. I do have some other lights, but I don’t really want to tear them apart and swap the emitter. I was going to buy an XM-L2 U2 for the C8, but don’t have the money for it right now.
Did you do any modifications to the driver?
IE- did you add aftermarket AMC chips to the board?
I have gotten the same issues with no low mode when I added AMC chips to the driver.
Here's the issues I had with the V2 driver:
No, I haven’t added any 7135’s to it. I have read that some people have problems with firefly/low mode and de-domed led’s. I checked the 3 wires coming off the led and they look alright. But it is hard to tell for sure. I am guessing it is the led though. I went ahead and soldered S2 so now I have high and medium only and they are working great as well as memory.
I used to use those drivers, but now stay away from them - if you got the version with the super low low mode, it's probably borderline of working with the emitter. I stay with Nanjg's now - better chip layout, easier to work with. For the driver mount, you have the classic case of an aluminum pill - brass ones, or a brass ring embedded are the best, easily solderable. Besides what you did with the solder, you could be sure a little solder sticks out the side and gives you a "press fit", or tight fit. Or, you could take a chisel and a couple of hammer blows to make notch's in the pill sides (without the driver in, obviously) -- this can also create a "press fit" to seating the driver, but may need some trimming to get it just right. I've done these methods, but still prefer soldering the driver board edge to brass - better C8 pills have the brass ring already built in, cheaper ones don't it seems like.
Yea, I wish I would have got the Qlite in the first place. I didn’t think the stock driver was pushing 3 amps, but found out it was the batteries I was using but I had already ordered the KD V2. I did want to just have high, mid, low instead of the usual 5 modes with strobe and sos. So I decided to use this driver in the C8.
I was thinking about using it in my UltraFire WF-501B as it has a brass pill so it shouldn’t be hard to solder the outer ring to the pill. The thing I liked about the stock driver from the C8 is it has solder/metal in a few spots around the circumference of the driver that made contact with the pill. So all I had to do was press it in and it was good. The KD V2 seems to be working fine in the C8’s aluminum pill so far and I didn’t really get any solder to stick to the pill.
I figured the bottom ground ring being pressed against the pill should be sufficient enough and it is working so I guess it is alright. I am still thinking about adding some JB weld or glue between the driver and the pill to make sure it stays put. It seems to be a pretty decent fit as it though.
I wouldn't use glue or JB Weld - they are non-conductive, unless you have other definite metal to metal contact spots. Also, glue on the copper tracing, when attempting to remove the driver later, could peel the tracing right off - I've seen this happen. Most budget stock drivers have the jagged copper coated edges to get a press fit ground contact. Dunno why the standard linear drivers we buy don't have that, but they don't -- some weird things in this biz I just can't explain, just like some parts we really want that are used in tons of budget lights are just not for sale, anywhere - don't understand it: driver replacement,s lens replacements, reflector replacements, LED alignment piece replacements, etc....