It’s probably the simplest light you can find other than a single-mode incandescent. It’s highly unlikely you will use it in a way that will harm it.
- Insert cell
- Press switch
- Photons come out
- Profit
Good choice, this place is full of good people and info. I’m not into the modding
But love my flashlights. We all started somewhere. Didn’t know about 16340,18650 and so on but it’s not a big deal. Just get a quality charger(which Are not expensive) and buy only name brand Japanese cells and you will be golden.
Best of luck and welcome.
When I had this issue with my Perun Mini / MCC 1A I was able to fix it by using a different higher quality USB power adapter. The light on mine would dim and flicker when the battery was really low but wasn’t as bad when the battery was slightly discharged. Now my light is fine though, haven’t had any problems since switching to a reputable USB power adapter.
The driver options just determine the max power going to the LED. The older models give you options to limit the power because they didn’t have temperature regulation.
I’ll make it simple. If you go with the first light, choose the 7135x6 option. If you get the 219b model, there’s only one option so there’s no problem.
Hey, good news on the Baton....always nice when it's something super simple!
For the 7135 drivers...those have been around a long time, generally do a great job. The 7135 chips are little rectangular 4-leggers and each one supplies/regulates some current to the led. The more of them you have, the more current you get...so more light and also more heat to dissipate.
It depends on the particular brand of the 7135 chip but for simplicity let's call it 350mA per chip (some can give more but right now with the chip shortages and issues you don't know what will be in there unless you message Simon).
So 350 x 8 = 2800mA....2.8 amps.
Fewer chips means lower amperage/lumens/heat.
2.8 amps is ok for many emitters. Most can take a lot more but the smaller thinner body of the S2 series can't really dissipate all that heat quickly, so that 2.8 to 3 amp is what Simon has generally limited it to.
The 7135x8 can actually get pretty damn hot if you allow it to run at max for awhile, so it's best to not leave that unattended or leave it with kids. But it can be nice to have that extra oomph available and just switch to a lower mode when it gets hot and/or use the lower modes most of the time.
The next step down with six chips (350 x 6 = 2.1 amps or so) is still plenty bright and gets hot but not nearly as hot to where you can't hold it.
Simon doesn't sell any himself but if you wanted to get into modding/simple soldering then you could actually buy similar drivers that have ten or twelve or sixteen of these chips...or you could even add some additional chips to the stock driver yourself...but that gets a little ridiculous in such a small host that has less metal to deal with the heat.
His stock drivers for these don't have some of the bells and whistles that other firmwares do, but they're pretty solid. The "100%" setting is like turbo, but it's just another mode and there is no double-clicking to get there like on many lights. But depending on which "mode group" you choose, you can get a full range from moonlight-ish 1% all the way up to 100%, with several modes or just a few. Not bad at all, just a little simpler old-school UI compared to all the fancier stuff now with Narsil and Anduril, etc, etc. Simon was/is an enthusiast like us, so he's always just kind of given us the useful specs rather than spelling it all out in lumens and run time, etc., like the advertising for most mainstream brands with their neat graphics. We can say, oh hey, eight chips, this many amps, and then figure out about how many lumens based on the emitter and other stuff. Just a different approach with less fanfare and he's never lying to us or trying to hook us in with marketing.
I am nearly positive that if you wanted that Nichia version with fewer 7135 chips on the driver, Simon would do that for you (usually for free). If you do, just send him a message before you order and once he approves then add a note on the item when you place the order and pay. He will also do nice things like swap a reflector from smooth to orange peel or whatever, or sometimes even add things like a spring wire bypass, etc.
Also, for the batteries.....with the S2 you can run whatever you want to, pretty much. Since they aren't pulling big amps, just about any battery will be able to provide what the light asks for, and length is no issue so you can use normal or protected, your choice (and I think all protected batteries will still be able to feed the amps just fine, too).