Hello Friends!
I would like to increase the current output of this driver. Can anyone decipher what is going on?
It’s at 3 amps right now.
Thanks for the help!
Can't help you because I'm not the electronics geek here, but thanks for the pictures, had not seen the S30 driver before :-)
As for increasing the current, there's not great gains to be had in the output, you could maybe get the output from 1000 to 1200 or 1300 lumen, I doubt that it will get more than that.
My best guess would be that the R025 is a current sense resistor which would be 0.025 Ω, you might try to get that down to, let’s say 0,015 Ω and then measure current draw, but you should probably wait until one of the electronic experts here confirms this theory 
[quote=djozzCan’t help you because I’m not the electronics geek here, but thanks for the pictures, had not seen the S30 driver before :-)[/quote]
That’s why I thought I would atleast post some pictures. Im not sure I can get much. This driver responds to temperature pretty quickly. It doesn’t take long for the light to start to fade even at 3amps. That said…
I’m working on some heatsinking and I would like to get 1300 lumens
Does anyone else think they can help me get a bit more amperage out of this driver?
Did you try to do anything with that R025 resistor I mentioned?
I didn’t because I didn’t know how confident you were. I’ve taken some guesses on some junk drivers, but I like this driver. Do you think I should just give it a go? Should I try the pencil lead trick and bridge the R025 resistor with a few scratches of graphite?
I am not sure if pencil trick will be enough to decrease resistance and how much, will it be enough to see or measure increase in current consumption!
You could tri live test, connect everything up and then use your tweezers or something appropriate to make a short but just for a split of second, just enough to check if there is increase in light output, you can also connect your multimeter and measure amps while you are testing and check numbers!
I am fairly positive that R025 is a current sense resistor, its larger than other components and its connected to ground (-).
I think safest way would be to add one R100 resistor or even 2 pieces.
R025 is 0.025 ohms, if you add R100 resistance will go down to 0.02 ohms and if you add another R100 (so R025+R100+R100) that would be 0,0166 ohms.
Ok. I will see what I can do
Well I bypassed the R025 resistor and it gave me about 100ma more current. Not what I was hoping for. I will keep thinking but this driver circuit is way to difficult for me.
First the obvious: Was this with a freshly charged, hi-current 18650?
…and with short, thick current meter leads?
However, that looks like a buck regulator. You will not get much more out of a single 18650 due to the parasitic resistance of the series inductor (the 2R2 part in your photos).
You can try it with two CR123As (but not for long….they don’t enjoy pushing 1.5+ amps), or a 5-6 V DC power supply. But go back to a more conservative bypass on the 0.025 ohm resistor before trying this.
Also note that, if it is indeed a buck regulator, emitter current will be higher than cell current.
Well… I couldn’t find a way to get more out of the Olight driver so I decided to do a complete mod. The Olight driver is solid and very nice so I will set it aside for later.
I decided to use an FET with moppydrv and an e-switch. I had to make a module to hold the driver and the switch and it is potted to spread the heat. I plugged the rest of the driver compartment with a copper slug and also potted the reflector and wrapped it in aluminum foil for a snug fit.
I really like it. Maybe I can post a short thread documenting the process after the holidays. It was a lot of playing around to custom fit all of the parts.
I will continue to pursue advancing the Olight driver a little later.
Sounds interesting, I hope you find tje time to post about the process :-)