If you see the pill in person it’s obvious that it is chrome plated on the outside. You can see the machining marks on the interior threads and faces. As to it being 100% pure copper or a copper alloy to make it a bit harder I can’t say for sure. I will have to ask David what it is composed of. I will say that with the planning and thought that went into this light I can’t begin to fathom that they would use brass when sticking with aluminum would have been better for heat dissipation. I will report back when I get an answer from David.
Edit: I've put forth the question now I just have to wait for him to be online and respond. ;)
I see what you mean JohnnyMac, but "copper circuit warehouse" is not not really an assuring line. All circuits are made of copper anyway but many alloys of copper are just expressed as copper only.
If you scratch the pill on the inside and you see silver then means the gold went off and you see a nickel layer, if you scratch even more there should be a pinky-copper color. If scratching reveals the same gold color than that is CuZn. Gold is very soft and goes off very easily while nickel is harder even if we are talking about microns in thickness.
Johnny your throw numbers make perfect sense me. It should be well into the 200’s at least. I base this on several things.
1st is a dedomed, 6.5A TN31 will throw 450-550kcd depending on focus and how healthy the XML2 is.
2nd is dedoming generally about doubles Kcd.
3rd is stock TN31’s with XML2’s throw in the 155-165kcd range. (Based on personal experience)
4rd is I’ve had lights that went from 313k dedomed on stock amps up to about 469kcd by just bumping the amps to 6-6.5A range. So 136Kcd by bumping the amps alone.
5th is example of Niwalker Vostro Bk-fa01 that I have that went from 160k’s to 310k’s by mostly dedoming. This light being very similar to the TN31 has potential to throw to 500k - however Vinh, who modded the light, says it just won’t meet that potential because it can’t be bumped to the same 6-6.5A’s than the TN’s are do to.
6th is add all the examples above together, it’s very logical for a TN31 or TN32 to throw well into the 200K’s from bumping the amps alone.
7th and best reason - Johnny you have the light in hand and and tested it - you know what your doing and there is no logical reason to doubt you.
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WELL HECK, I JUST NOTICED YOUR 270k WAS IN YARDS. YOU TESTED 226kcd IN METERS - For sure the TN32 should do 220’s without issue with an amp bump. That’s a no brainier.
Now it make sense. I was wrong to assume it is meter when I see 270kcd.
With 226kcd, I think it is possible to achieve this number by finetuning position LED in the reflector.
But is the 30kcd difference with the JohnnyMac’s measurement can be due to the production variation? Or should you measure at longer distance? Don’t get me wrong, I don’t doubt the measurements from anyone, just asking out of curiosity.
And beside that, I don’t think with 100% freshly charged cells will give you any better results if everything else remain unchanged, because this light is undergoing buck regulation with 3 cells in series, I believe its output will remain constant throughout the operation until the last drop of the power of your cells.
Yeah, sorry for the confusion with the measurement in yards. I have had 30 ft of distance indoors form my kitchen counter through to the far wall in the dining room and that is why I measured at 10 yds. I converted the yards to meters and recalculated to 1m to get the 226,591cd @ 1m. I think I may just delete the yard measurement to stop the confusion. LOL!
I’m confused on how the battery circuit connections work ever since TN31. Looking at the pictures of the tailcap and battery carrier, it looks like the negative polarity goes from the tailcap’s switch (with the buffer circuits) then travels through the body then to the head through the threads at the head assembly. What confused me is that the negative part of the reversible carrier that touched the head, also contacts the circumference of the head’s negative part (where 3 screws are fastened). How can the switch at the tailcap break the circuit of any polarity if both polarities are already connected to the head through the reversible carrier?
Another concern is that if the copper is indeed pure 100% copper, it would be quite soft and may not withstand the frequent twisting and untwisting to lockout the standby current (if it can be locked out). The threads at the copper part may eventually bent off.
Can anyone please help explain at least about the circuit switching?
hi your assumption is incorrect. the carrier’s negative terminal doesn’t touch the disk with 3 screws. the black plastic around the + terminal spring, and the corresponding black plastic around the + terminal of the carrier keeps them separated
also you might be wondering why there are circuits at the switch PCB. this is because a simple mechanical switch of that size cannot handle the load so it needs a bit of assistance
as for the copper yes pure copper is soft so i think that’s brass instead. but depending on the brass alloy used the thermal properties may be far inferior to pure copper
you’re right brass (of the alloy listed above) has inferior thermal conductivty compared to common aluminum alloys (flashlights are usually not 7075)
but don’t forget the marketing aspect. a “copper” (more specifically copper containing alloy like brass) pill is a more exotic material than plain old aluminum and it could be marketed to that effect as a way to differentiate it from the older TN31. the shiny nickel plating doesn’t hurt either!
the way i see it the copper/brass pill is simply threaded onto the rest of the aluminum head and to the battery tube. these are junctions of very high thermal resistance. and the copper/brass pill itself has a very low surface area to be the primary head dissipation surface. i think this is more of a gimmick than a really well thought out thermal design
remember this is just a single emitter driven at just around 6A. not a lot of heat to begin with
I wonder can we use the weight difference between TN31 and TN32 as indicator of better heatsinking of TN32?
My idea about this is that since dimension wise they are same or almost similar design of heatsink fins, then they must be using thermal mass to absorb more heat from hard driven LED.
Johnny, is the 650g of TN32 without batteries? If yes, that is much heavier than 452.8g of TN31 as stated by Thrunite website.
You believe it's nickel not chrome? If it's very silvery should be chrome.
Brass can be a bit better than 115 W/m-K but then it would get more soft than the common one and pose the same copper threading issues.
If the pill is only Cu in time the gold plating on the inside will go off and a nickel layer will be exposed, assuming the gold layer is very thick, otherwise play with it several days and should come off from screwing. If it does not come off then it's a solid CuZn pill because there's no plating.
Thanks Overclocker for your response re: switch circuit. I did not notice the protrusion of that black plastic.
As said before, the circuit at the tailcap was a buffer circuit for the switch. Quite amazing to notice also that a SOT-23 sized mosfet could pass >= 6A of current.
The 1st time I knew they’re using chrome plated copper, I was a bit worried on the durability of the threads. And after seeing the pics, I was suspecting its not pure copper but, brass or some kind of alloy of copper. Then, another concern came up, which is the inherent higher thermal resistance compared to aluminum alloy variants. Hope David of thrunite would mind to explain this. No worries of thread durability but, heatsinking efficiency is another concern.
it’s not 6A through the tailcap because there are three cells in series that goes though a buck circuit so it’s less than 6A
it’s unlikely to be pure copper because copper soft and the walls are thin. and copper is quite difficult to machine, it gums up your bits. i used to machine pure copper waterblocks for overclocking
