I need to use a different driver in this M6 but the stock one looks pretty nice, I feel bad stripping it down. If I just remove all of the wires from it and totally bypass it, will it rob a lot of power if I leave all the components intact?
No it doesn’t seem to rob a lot of power. I haven’t measured it, but I have never seen any appreciable battery drain either.
Is anyone here getting e-mail notification updates to subscribed threads? I haven’t been getting any since the site update.
none here….
None here either. 
IIRC, the email notifications are still on the ToDo list, because they pretty much have to be custom rebuilt.
There's a line through that item on the To Do list.
https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/38105
I suppose sb should just remove the line for the time being. 
The item which says “Re-create the BLF email notification system”?
No, the item that says:
Configure a quick temporary system for email notifications on new posts
If it’s too wide for the needle nose then I use two of them. With both closed I place one in each hole then turn them together using one in each hand.
A glimpse of things to come.
As Mountain Electronics has grown, our staff has not. Lisa and I have been running this business by ourselves since the beginning, and as you can imagine the workload has become quite heavy. We are not quite ready yet to hire an employee, although we are considering doing so in the next few months. I have been hesitant to hire someone up until this point because I have not had the time to properly train and supervise someone, and I do not want the quality to drop.
To help ease my workload a bit, we have invested in some new equipment that should speed up driver production significantly. My dream for quite some time has been to be able to produce drivers in-house in the USA at a reasonable speed and cost, and I have spent many late nights looking at different available options to accomplish that goal.
A few months ago we purchased a J-STD-020 compliant automated reflow oven, which was a good first step. Recently, we added a new member to the family: our new pick and place machine that we affectionately like to call "Chip" 
. With "Chip" online and running we will be able to produce some of the popular drivers at not only a lower price than before, but also with a 1-3 day shipping window instead of a 10 day shipping window. It will still take a few weeks for everything to come together and for all of the new changes to come into effect, but once they do you will see greater availability and lower prices on many of our in-house built drivers.
Additionally, as some of you may have noticed, there are now three configuration options for the 17mm drivers:
- Driver Only - No Spring or Wires - Generally ships within 3 business days
- Driver + Wires Installed - No Spring - Generally ships within 7 business days
- Driver + Wires Installed + Copper Braided Spring - Generally ships within 10 business days
I am using this as a test bed to see what demand is like for the different options. Once Chip is up and going, I am probably going to expand the different options to the other drivers as well. Adding wires and copper braided springs is still very much a manual process, so the price reduction is and will significant for those who want to add their own. I am also experimenting with some alternatives to bypassed springs that would be less labor intensive, adding speed on my end and cost savings on yours.
I would like your feedback as to what you think about the new driver options, as well as if you'd like to see some different options.
As always, we appreciate your support. We couldn't do this without you.
Other spring bypass options…
Double springs, no bypass required. <——-
External bypass with silicone wire. (Braided springs fail after a while in my lights)
Direct through board from spring contact to other side of board to wire direct to the LED.
I noticed there was even a pcb thickness option…that stopped me dead in my tracks because I haven’t the slightest clue about that, lol.
I don’t trust double springing as a good alternative to a good solder braid bypass. I don’t have a low resistance meter capable of reading precisely enough, and I do have (expensive) meters that could do it, I just don’t trust their results. If someone would test the resistance of one spring compared to 1.25” of solder braid that might change my mind.
I have been double springing flashlights because some of mine are mounted to shotguns and assault rifles, and I don’t want the spring to lose contact with the cell.
I can’t think of anything better than what you’ve changed. Keep up the good work!
If you had stickers you could put one on chip!
I would definitely buy your reflow jobs before I’d buy a chinese assembled driver, price being irrelevant compared to having a quality job done and a part I can trust inside my flashlight. I’m sure I am not alone when I say the whole reason I got into LED lights in the first place was because I was tired of the cheap wally world/chinese flashlights breaking on me every couple months for one reason or another.
Now I’m curious: have many of you had my copper braids break over time? Now I’m curious. I’ve only heard from a handful of people this whole time that they’ve had one break, but you could all be giving me a free pass. :pardon:
That’s been there since September. It’s just a thinner PCB option if you’ve got a light that needs it or makes it easier to assemble. I really like them in the Convoy lights with the integrated pills because it gives the retaining ring more threads before it hits the driver. Even on P60s where the driver is soldered in it can be nice because you can run a nice bead of solder without getting any on the outside of the pill.
Thank you for being my constant sticker reminder! I’ve got a good design in mind, now would someone tell me where to buy them at? Most of the top Google hits are super expensive.
It’s good to know that someone values my work. I try to only use quality components from authorized vendors, e.g. Murata Japanese capacitors, USA Mfg. solder paste, etc., so that the drivers will hopefully not only work well today, but in 10 years from now when lesser components have started falling apart.
Wow. If Chip gets a few siblings, you’ll have a shop about as capable as Adafruit. 
The thinner boards are exciting, since I’ve had a few projects which needed the thinnest board possible. I’ve procrastinated a lot about dremelling off part of the board thickness in non-critical areas…
A through-hole for the positive contact sounds awesome too. Some boards already have a blank space there, and a hole would be easier than soldering a bypass to a pad. I’m also hoping you’ll be able to offer a wider selection of circuit designs, assuming that the people who created them are okay with that. Circuit development seems to be picking up again.
In any case, I hope you will find agreeable ways to cope with the growing demand for your excellent services.
Received another xtar mc1+ and two more Samsung 30q batteries from mountain electronics. Thank you Richard for the fast delivery and excellent service!
I’d like to hear from some of the “old timers” around here because I’ve only been around the hobby about 15 months or so. But in that time I’ve probably ordered 20+ drivers from you, most of which came with a braided bypass already done, and zero of them have failed. In fact I’ve never had an issue with a single part you’ve sold me (at least, no issues that weren’t caused by me ). Personally I use your silicone wire when I do my own bypasses because I find it easier to work with, but your braided bypasses don’t worry me in the least.
I used to use braids for bypass’s, but had a few fail/break, reported by customers, and seen by me in my own lights. I stopped using them a long time ago - much prefer the silicone covered wire in 22 or 20 AWG size , sometimes 24 AWG for small fine springs and always down the interior of the spring. Never saw a wire fail.
Of course there are better braid jobs around. I haven’t seen Richard’s, but I’m sure he’s doing it a better way. First thing is to use better quality braid - I’ve seen big differences in the quality stuff vs. the thinner cheap stuff. 2nd issue is the soldering job - don’t let it creep up the braid, then the pre-fold or bend of the braid to ensure it holding up after 100’s of depressions.
Not really sure if there’s any differences in the resistance between braid and wire, but I feel silicone wire is designed to hold up to bending/flexing better than braid, though granted - braid is easier/quicker to work with.