Today arrived my C8 (clone) 5 mode flashlight from BIC. brought it for 8.40$ 3 weeks ago.
Yes it comes well packed. but some cracks, marks in front & neat tailcap button. this is common for BIC goods. J)
Body build quality is good. but other parts…
has plastic reflector with half OP. its look cheap and bad build quality. when I remove glass lens from reflector, there are some reflective coating adhered to glass.
Emitter looks like XP-E ??
And driver is unknown. it driven by SOT-6 tiny IC. whole thing is in it :nerd_face:
here tailcap measurements (1800mAH samsung 18650 / 3.80V)
High : 1A
Mid : 500mA
Low : 240 mA
other two modes are SOS & flashing
There is no any thermal compound or glue between emitter MCPCB & aluminum Pill. :~
I had an idea to mod this with 20mm MCPCB & XP-G or Nichia LED. but 20mm not fit. it only fit to outer ring. then thermal transfer may be problem.
(I have no any 15mm boards. is it ok to grind 20mm board to 15mm ?)
I've always wondered how the heck these cheap drivers use tiny ICs that drive the whole light by itself. There's not even any power transistors, meaning the whole 1A is driven internally. And it doesn't burn itself out?
I just received a C8 off of ebay with a xre “Q5”. The threads were lubed, no scratches or nicks, metal reflector, the emitter star had thermal compound between the pill and mcpcb. Pulls 1.2a on a 18650 flame. Took about 20 days to get to my house and is the cheapest I have found. The beam is tight but is a little ringy (i guess that what you call it). Very happy and would buy it again.
thats an XPE. Should be a nice smooth beam with a reflector that heavily OP’d. The plastic reflector will be fine. An XPE at 1A will not generate that much heat, and theres no thermal path to the reflector anyways. Plastic reflectors (undeservedly) get a bad rap from most. Some of the brightest DIY-MAG builds I have ever seen (we’re talking 2500+ lumen ballpark) use plastic reflectors.
Without an EPROM I would assume its a single mode driver. I guess thats wrong though.
Looks like a FET driven circuit with a couple current sense components.
I have the exact same one, I’m living with the SOS start, got into the habit one on then half press for high. Aluminum reflector too 8) I’m undecided about leaving it alone, keeping it xre with a kd 3 mode driver, adding a kd 3a driver and u2 xml or leave it alone and just get an xintd c8. We shall see, depends what I can sneak past swmbo after my car has been taxed and mot’d lol.
That said, my little c8 q5 is doing duty every day in my head strap, never misses a beat and was cheap enough for me not to get in the least bit upset if it gets banged about and covered in oil, a true budget work horse 8)
My one also has bluish tint. This is common for most cheap clones. May be even emitter is not genuine Cree. because I didn’t see that cree’s build quality here. emitter looks dirty and silicone dome has some scratches. It also visible in beam spot.
Changing 471 resistor wasn’t change anything. these tiny driver ic may prone to premature failure.
Pretty good regulation from 3.5V - 4.2V. Definitely not simple FET then, at least a voltage or current regulator in that tiny thing. More likely voltage regulator.
Pavithra, if you discharge the capacitor, does it still come in next mode from last off? I'm curious whether it has real memory or just some simple flip-flop circuit in that tiny thing.
You can get that current variation by simply varying your DMM probe pressure (how hard you press the leads onto battery).
Of course, PWM is used on mid and low.
Right now it looks like the IC have a microcontroller, 3.5V voltage regulator and transistor. And it can handle 1.3A internally. Quite impressive for a cheap tiny IC.
