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.
Eh... I knocked the ground spring off the dropin (thanks to my lousy soldering) and I know when a flashlight is telling me to give it up for the night (its 2am) :) I'll abuse this thing another time.
Hehe..yep, try tomorrow Sunday. Just solder to the middle point on the PCB trace, there is a positive trace there. I soldered to one of the traces at the edge for negative. Put the retaining pin and spring back, good to go! Just a 5 minute job, easy even for novices
I want to try this light out with 3 x 18350 BIO IMR, will this burn out the driver or will it go DD? I would love the option to make it a dragster type light, but don't want to lose regulation as an option when used with 2 x 18500/18650, or at the very least retain modes with DD high.
You would be the first to attempt this.
Do it.
:bigsmile:
Thanks 2100 for laying out my options. I should of made it more clear about what version I have. It is the drop-in without threads, version one I think. I guess I would have to crack that baby open to DD it. I will ponder my options.
i noticed that last night the new 4300 sky rays, if they dont perform any better then the first ones rev0 rev1 rev2 i would recomend the TrustFire TR-3T6 Triple XM-L (3x18650) as its cheaper but its truely regulated and should give longer run times with less heat and it does realy well with heat and long run times.
there is a TrustFire TR-3T6 Tripple XM-L 2x18650 thats has a claimed to be 2.5 amp regulated, just 0.5 amp less then the 3 x 18650 and both can run on 2 x 18650,s.
im not trying to rock the boat so to speak or upset the people who have brought the skyrays but these TR-3T6 are truely regulated draw less current over long runs and have better heat soak then a drop in so they should give longer run times and last longer.
lets hope the sky ray 4000 and 4300 have improved and blows the TR-3T6 away i have done some 30 and 45 min running draw test,s on the TR-3T6 if any one is intrested
https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/3304