+1
One of the cooler things about the A17DD-S08 is that unlike the LD-1 it’s Zener ready so you can run an MT-G2 off a couple 18350’s.
Which drivers? The LD-1 has a for sale thread already. The A17DD-SO8 is a driver you may assemble yourself and does not have a for sale thread. 
Possibly true but one of the more common questions is “why is my 3A driver not reading 3A on my meter?” and right after the response “use fatter leads on your DMM” comes the suggestion to “do a spring bypass to make sure those amps get to the led”.
The reason I ask is because I’ve taken readings at the tail cap and at the emitter, using 3 different methods at the tail cap for verification, and the stock DMM leads suffer horribly compared to the other methods.
I’ve seen much closer to truth with 12ga Romex wires in the DMM as well as 6” long 12Ga Tenergy Silicone wires with Gold Plated Banana plugs soldered on each end.
The Mastech Clamp meter shows very close to the same at the tail as I get from the emitter, showing the actual driver losses which are usually fairly small.
So the idea that the tail cap offers similar resistance to stock DMM leads is very far from the truth. An easy way to see this is to run a light in a lightbox fully assembled and record that output reading, then do it again with the tail cap off and the DMM leads as the connection. Output will suffer greatly in the “real world” scenario of what the lightbox sees. Even a 14” long 12Ga Tenergy silicone wire soldered on each end suffers losses in this test.
I’ve got numbers written down somewhere showing what the much maligned Eagle Eye X6 BLF Special Edition light does with these different methods of measure… not at my desk at the moment.
Edit: While it might be “useful to let others know what they can expect to see with their stock leads and DMM” it’s not truthful. The light makes the output it makes, measuring that with lesser methods is the misleading component. If you worked your butt off to build a high performance engine for your street car, took it out to the track and saw 96 mph on the speedometer in the 1/4 mile, would you want to report that (knowing the speedo is off ~20 mph because of your drag tires) or what the track reported at the wire with their sophisticated equipment? I’m betting you’d be much more eager to report 116 mph 1/4 mile than 96 mph. Am I right?
Can someone just make those A17DD-SO8 and sell them? :D
I don`t have time to assemble them myself.
I find it rather interesting comparing my lights and different cells with a simple DMM not looking for the holy grail ie absolute truth just messing around.
I’d like to know too. I’m not confident that I could assemble them myself!
I'm sure Richard will pick this one up :-)
(but that is less handy for non-US BLF-members)
That triple x6 is bad. I like it more than your quad p60
The X6 is just a likable light to begin with, the triple Ledil CUTE optics give it a really cool look and just work real well with it. The combination is quickly becoming one of my favorite lights to use.
The single sided drivers like the LD-1 or A17DD-S08 are easy drop in’s, look good in the light, and make it potent tool, especially in FET trim.
I just did something I’ve never done before…fully built 2 drivers while connected together! The A17DD-S08 is just easy to assemble, that’s all there is to it! With a solder paste stencil, it’s almost too easy. This stuff is exciting! 
Not to be argumentative, but taking your analogy a bit further, there are car dyno’s that read lower than other types. Mustang Dyno, for example, reads lower than Dyno-Jet. This is a known fact and so folks just correct/adjust the results to compensate for this. It’s still relevant for comparing car-to-car as well as before/after parts upgrade. My stock dmm reads 2.65A while yours with romex leads reads 2.8A. A .15A difference. I’m okay with this margin of error and have no trouble extrapolating it across my readings, understanding that the error rate may not be linear, but reasonably close.
I’m going to upgrade my leads when time avails tonight. I’m certainly not committed to doing it the wrong way.
Also analogy just for fun, my car side mirror makes objects look farther away then they actually are, but I still use it to avoid collisions, as do most folks, and it works great, and is approved by DOT for such use. :bigsmile:
Agree, and I still don’t know that there’s a “right way” and a “wrong way” just different ways. None of the readings have any effect whatsoever on the amount of light that comes out the front.
I’ve never been good with electronics. Spent many years stuffing audio in my car and having speaker wires fall off from poor soldering. So now, it’s just a hobby that I’ve learned how to do and it’s fun. Maybe not so much fun when I’m messing up, but that much more so when it goes right. (an example, it took several attempts to get the little quad working to full satisfaction, and by the time I was nearing the end I was messing up big time…like having the light put back together only to realize I’d forgotten to solder the switch wires onto the driver) This kind of thing can make it frustrating, but it’s so much fun when it all comes together in the end! And when someone who’s not a flashaholic sees the end result, well, that’s the best part!
At the end of the day, it’s the result that matters.
You’ve put your finger on the problem - it’s not reasonably close to linear. As I mentioned, the results should all compress at the bottom. EG this might be more like having a dyno that maps everything above 180HP to the range of 180-190HP. Furthermore without very extensive testing you won’t know where the error curve starts or it’s shape. This will be different for each set of skinny test leads, so I think you can imagine where that goes… Good thing you’re already planning to add big wires!
When the meter reads 2.4A instead of 2.8 is it the leads or is a 7135 chip improperly soldered? Before swapping out the test leads I had error margins in excess of 1.5A which told me next to nothing about what I was testing. If I didn’t care, I wouldn’t need to test it. It’s by no means required that anyone else do so(either test or care)but posting numbers from a weak set up is almost pointless.
Did you have a chance to play with this?
Got the LD-1 installed and I love it! Great increase in lumens!
First I upgraded the leads on my el cheapo DMM.
With the stock leads it read 2.79A on turbo from a LG HE2 fresh off the charger at 4.2 volts
With the upgraded leads, now showing 3.1A on turbo from stock driver!
Now to swap out the driver. I’ve never soldered on something this small before, but somehow it was a success. I was amazed when I switched it on with the LD-1 inside and it worked! I swapped the driver spring from the EE driver to the LD-1, and used solder wick to bypass the spring. The spring is a little crooked but I will fix that later.
Now for the results!
It is tough to get a good reading with no tip on my dmm wires. I didn’t have anything on hand to tip them with, just wanted to get the driver in and get some readings. Eventually I will refine the leads so that I can get more consistent readings, but this seems to be the new amp level on high from the LD-1 with a fresh LG HE2.
4.56A! EDIT: upon further testing 4.8A Up from 3.1A on the stock driver! I didn’t test to see what the gains were from braiding the driver spring, I just braided it as I installed it. This was the perfect boost for this light. I didn’t have time to take beam shots but may update in the future. With the LD-1 this X6 SE is a barn burner on high! Boy is it nice! It sure did achieve my goal of having an impressive show-off light. After having a little time to spend playing with the light, I can say the modes are perfect. The moonlight is very nice, and the medium is a nice spacing between high and low. I didn’t enable the turbo, the standard 4 modes on LD-1 are great. Really cannot stop playing with this light now. It dissipates heat fantastically. It doesn’t get hot on high but just warm enough to feel good in your hand.
So, when you went from 2.79A to 3.10A, could you see a difference in the light output? J)
Only from the metaphorical light bulb in my head.
I like the sound of WoW! on high to impress comibined with modes suitable for general use around the house time to take a course in soldering maybe getting a couple of really cheap drivers to ruin while learning