My RGB flashlight died, resurrected her, but she's no longer the same

LED Flashlights – General Info Multiple AAA Flashlights
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This was supposed to be a review of fully functional flashlight, but unfortunately she had other plans….

Few years ago I bought this , black version at local store for ~$25. It was love at first sight. It was amazing (still is) to see how light and colors work, especially on colorful posters and items. Sometimes used it as ambient light connected to Sony Ericsson mobile phone charger (rated 4.9V - 0.45A) for hours .
Few months ago a very dense fog caught me on bike during night, and while I had quite strong 3 LED 2xAAA backlight, I was not enough for me (especially with M12 in the front :D). After few hours of searching online for more powerful backlight, it came to my mind that I actually have a powerful red light that can blink. And the quest was over. Kinda. Few hours into the ride, 3xAAA alkaline showed to be bottleneck… Lithium was a way to go.
Although it should fit 22650, I went with 18650, just to be on the safe side. Prior to ordering I tested it with fully charged 26650 TF and it worked 100%. 10 days later pair of 18650 TF 3000mAh were on my desk fully charged and ready to be installed. 18650 TF became 18690 and since tailcap must be screwed fully, I had to unscrew head a little to make it fit. And it was ready for testing. And than unthinkable happened! She just refused to power on :frowning: Tried everything but nothing worked :confused:
Few hours later, cool head, decided to open her and “see” what’s wrong.


It took me 15 minutes to unscrew retaining ring (there was glue everywhere). Spring that was originally on the driver came of so I replaced it with a screw


Than it took me another 15 minutes to find out how to get driver out (it’s just pressed onto the LED contacts). Driver diameter 20mm


Driver is out! Connectors: UP - Blue DOWN - Green RIGHT - Red LEFT - Not used


RGB LED is held to the head with 3 screws. Connectors: Same as on driver


RGB LED diameter 9mm


Head without LED and driver


Aspheric lens, glued to the head, diameter 20mm


All parts

With all parts out I started testing using fully charged 26650 TF. With LED and driver at it’s original position, no light. Tried directly LED to the battery, blast of light from every diode. Next I tried rotating the LED 90° and it worked! Only red and blue diode, but it worked, even modes. Than I rotated it 90° more. Worked again, red and green this time. Tries 90° more, green and blue on. Went back to original position, no light again. So I had a choice of two colors and their mixes. Decided red and green are a go. Tested once more and assembled it. Put 18690 TF in and pressed tailswitch… No light. :~ Disassembled again. Connected to 26650 works, connected to SE charger works, connected to eather one of 18690 TF won’t work. Tried red+blue and blue+green, works every time. So I had to settle with red+blue.

And now some facts and technical data

Dimensions:

  • Driver 20mm

  • RGB LED 9mm

  • Lens 20mm

  • Tube outer diameter 26mm

  • Tube inner diameter 22mm

  • Overall length 124mm

  • Weight 120 grams


    Size comparison: 18650 TF 3000mAh —— 26650 TF 5000mAh —— RGB —— Keygos M12

    Flashlight has 2 switches

  • Tail switch is reverse-clicky ON/OFF, can be half pressed to switch back to 1st mode, medium hard to press, protrudes ~1mm (can tailstand, but partially on the switch)

  • Head switch is electronic, switches to next mode; 2 s hold goes to slow strobe (0.7s on/0.7s off) -> fast strobe (0.175s on/0.175s off) -> back to normal; 4 s hold puts it into sleep mode

    Flashlight has 12 modes
    Originally it had: WHITE (1red:1green:1blue) -> RED -> GREEN -> BLUE -> ORANGE (2red:1green) -> LIGHT GREEN (2green:1blue) -> PURPLE (1red:1blue) -> YELLOW (1red:1green) -> LIGHT BLUE (1green:1blue)-> PINK (2red:1blue) -> SWITCHING BETWEEN MODES EVERY 1.2 S -> CONTINUALLY SWITCHING BETWEEN RED-GREEN-BLUE (by increasing/decreasing intensity of each)


    Unfortunately this is the only image I have of WHITE. Image taken 50 cm from the wall to show colors. As the distance increases, colors fade into white(ish). Lens is 90°. Inner white circle is ~22% of diameter

    Before the incident, I measured currents for each mode, and now after the incident
    table(table#posts).
    ||Amps ~ 4.19V|Amps ~ 3.5V|Direct drive 4.19V|||NEW ORDER|Amps 4.19V|
    |white|0.43|0.25||||pink|0.25|
    |red|0.4|0.27|1.13|||blue|0.2|
    |green|0.32|0.16|0.59|||red|0.48|
    |blue|0.33|0.18|0.54|||none|0|
    |orange|0.38|0.25||||purple|0.24|
    |light green|0.25|0.13||||red|0.32|
    |purple|0.28|0.16||||blue|0.05|
    |yellow|0.35|0.22||||pink|0.28|
    |light blue|0.25|0.14||||red|0.16|
    |pink|0.35|0.22||||blue|0.1|


Red


Blue


Purple


Pink



Compared with 3 RED LED 2xAAA backlight

My camera cannot capture color correctly, but they are close more-less, especially last two. There is no green image, but will be next time I take her apart.

So, a good thing about this is that it is working and now I have 3 different output ratings for each color. Bad thing is that it won’t work with red+green.
Now I only need some nice weather to test it :slight_smile: