3800 attracted me!! It looks like a gun
I'd been holding back on buying one of these lights, waiting for a sealed head 3-mode when I saw the "4000 Lumen" Sky Ray on Manafont. The one with the stainless bezel ring... The machining looked way less generic and the head appeared sealed instead of being a drop-in arrangement. I ordered it the day it came out so I'll let everyone know how it is when it comes in... Has anyone else ordered this version?
Shao
yep its on the way since 2 days :) hopefully not a "crap buy"
Thankyou Ralph, the supply voltage wont actually run down below 14volt till im finished using the light as I dont intend switching the engine off till then (im actually intending to use it as a landing light in microlight/ultralight ) a simple resistor should suit me fine then…cheers mate
My drop-in version just died. I was using it for light duty looking under my computer desk. One minute it was working the next minute I go to turn it on and nothing. I put new batteries in it and it still didn't work. I bypassed the switch with a paper clip and got a little arc of spark, but no light. I ohmed out the drop-in and measured no resistance(direct short).
Is it worth the trouble to return these budget lights to China? Is Manafont pretty easy to deal with on warranty returns?
I really like the 2x18650/3xm-l form factor. I guess it is time to do some more homework to get a more reliable light in this category.
fnsooner, it should be ok to deal with manafont for warranty return. Just that it is quite expensive. Over here it costs usd12 to send it back with tracking via Express Mail (3 days), no other option, plus $2 for a box. If yours is rev 0 then you could just buy a driver for usd5 or something, much faster as well.
Maybe you can consider the DRY, they have CW, NW, WW. Better form factor as well, and you can buy additional drivers (usd4.50 ea) for your long term usage. So far so good, but then i have not tortured the DRY. Also much more powerful too, as in the Sky Ray does 260 lux measured at 8.17m and DRY is 390. That's like an additional 1/2 of of Sky Ray heh heh....
Lets see usd51 is the current SR3800 price, so it scales to $76.50. Not too bad.
For me I am slightly better, I have the rev 0 (non drop in non-screw) so i ripped the driver out and wired it directly for direct drive. I have the Trustfire 3T6 so i used that 3 x 18650 tube for DD operation while the Trustfire operates in 2 x 18500 shorty mode.
Another option for you is to get 4 x 18350 IMR (you can only get in pairs) from bestinone.net and do a short pocket rocket direct drive that is 180mm long. You just use the current tube without the extension. 3 x 35mm = 100mm, so it will fit. Can you rip the driver out of the drop in? Hey that gives me an idea, i should try that.
Your new light would be able to hang around with this dragster, in fact the 18350 fully charged would pump it with 3.9A or something so when it is pretty cold like 0 deg in the USA, you'd see a heck lot of light. :D https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/2853 I have tried with the same IMR from BIO but 18500, the 18500 are just about 110mAh higher in discharge capacity as measured. The 18350 are good.
I have a faulty Rev 0. You mention a driver - since that is what is wrong with mine, do you know of a suitable driver that I could buy?
No, you'd have to email MF and see if they can send you a replacement driver. But seriously i'd just DD it, no driver no faults possible. It won't really burn out the LEDs, since you'd not be able to run for more than 3 mins in that Turbo mode as it'd get pretty hot. :D The batteries will eventually run down and then the drive would be 2.5-3A and you can operate much longer.
I am still waiting for a replacement driver from Lightake, but I am not convinced they are serious about sending a new one.
So you would suggest I just remove the driver completely? Just feed the voltage direct to the emitter boards? Sounds do-able.
When you take out the driver there is a white and red wire, believe the white is -ve and red is +ve. If I am not wrong, reversed polarity does not cause harm to the XM-Ls, though SST-90 would be fried. So no worries. Rip out the top part of the driver and leave the bottom part intact. You solder the white and red wires to the bottom part of the naked driver board. You need to determine which part is +ve and which part is negative with the continuity function of your DMM.
I mean of course if you are looking for an extreme run time flashlight with 3 x XM-L then this is not a good flashlight.
BTW you cannot fit 3 x 18500 IMRs in the original 2 x 18650 tube (130mm cells). Too long and i believe contact is not too good.
How to determine if it really works? Just get 3 x 18650, use magnets or anything, crcocodile clips and wire, and test first.
BTW, do at your own risk. If you use the best AW IMR or Callie's Kustoms IMR and charge them at 4.25V and connect 3S, i think it'd most probably blow after 1 minute. I believe XTARs would trigger the PCB at full charge, but at 4.17V it should be ok. Solarforce V2 are ok. But that's 18650.
I am not sure if the TR-1200 extension fits this one, but i am sure the STL-V2/V6 extensions do not fit.
What is a SST-90? Surely that is another brand of emitter - and this torch uses CREE? Am I correct?
By that, do you mean the battery life will not be very good?
Not too sure why this comment - I don’t even own any 18500s nor do I intend to.
Thank you for your advice though - I had thought the torch was useless. It is too expensive to send back, so was resigned to trying to find another driver as time went on. They still should be available eventually, especially if the 3xXML types take off in popularity. Quite a few more seem to be coming out lately.
kneighbour, this is not useless, 99.9% the LEDs are still working, they are wired in series. In the mod world, this host + LEDs without driver is still worth its weight in gold. Just wait for the driver and meanwhile do something fun. You are aiming for 3 cells in series basically, cells at 4.15V would be very very safe. As usual, measure with DMM, and do remember with the tailcap the current would go higher than the DMM due to less resistance.
Why would I want 3 cells? I have a SR3800 - which holds 2 cells. Why not simply go with that? Surely 3 cells would give the emitters much more of a workout, and be more prone to failure?
no not really, it will give you higher voltage less current draw les heat and less time between charging if the driver can handle 12.6v
i would lean towards the TR-3T6 3 x 18650 truely regulated you can sue it with 2 and 3 cells and it can be ran longer due to constant regulation and hold,s steady afterlong use on high
I could not get the TR-1200 extension (65mm) to thread on the Skyray body or extensions, but the heads were threaded the same so I just used the Skyray head with the TR-1200 3x18650 body.
Three good 18650s make for a lot of light. If I fry it, oh well, it was already useless. :)
2 in series would bea 8.4V thereabouts, it'd only drive the 3 x XM-L at maybe 300 lumens or so. You can look at the Cree spec sheet for specs. http://www.cree.com/products/pdf/XLampXM-L.pdf
BTW i'd like to mention to take care of safety and Li-ion cells balancing, since this is a high drive app. Actually the same goes for the stock SR3800. When i see people selling cheap unprotected Ultrafire cells on Ebay and with so many successful bids, i really get scared. I'd say 2 x 32600 5AH kaidomain cells unprotected is much much safer with a safety concious guy who follows SOP.
I have an idea, if at a later stage the driver solution does not work out, you could take out the reflector and bypass one of the LEDs so that you work with 2 XM-Ls. Then you can use 2 x 18650s. Will still get you emitter 1800 lumens at least.
Ah..that's good, so the TR-1200 head can fit. 3 x 18650 @ 4.0V unloaded definitely would not fry anything after the sag even with the powerful Panasonics. Try it. I tried 3 x IMR 18500 @ 4.22V, i got like 3.7A on the meter, so in reality i think not so much even with the tailcap. If you have a lux meter it is interesting to see the effects of over-driving + effect of host temperature on brightness.
Uhh... I'm getting 5A on 3 AW 2900s @ 4.1v resting.
Guess I'm gonna have to try to stick the meter in front of it to see what I get.
I told you 4.0V, not 4.1V. LOL! With other batteries it ain't that bad. With cells which have a higher internal resistance, they are pretty ok. Issue is some protected cells would get their PCB tripped.
As you'd see from your own cell discharge graphs, there is very little capacity to take advantage of from 4.0V to 4.2V. Not much use for DD actually esp for the powerful cells. Gotta strike a balance man! Since you have a hobby charger which lets you determine the end point, this is easy to charge as a set.
If you want, just get some Sanyo 2600s from Ric (cnqualitygoods), 5.50 for one, tag it to your next order of flashlight from him. Or just get Rev Jim's Panny CGR18650CH for $17.50 10pcs.
Mitro, get some ice cubes on the head. Remove the glass lens if you can as it can condense. You will be shocked at 4.0A performance.....it is like removing the speed limiter of your supercar.