Second Attempt: COURUI with LD-36 driver ~ Series Conversion ~ BETA version ~ Don't Try This At Home

Flashlight Modding and DIY Parts
1

Well, I'm at again. My second COURUI Mod. My first try ended with a disastrous "thread fail"

https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/23666#node-27426

This time I'm going to use a 5A LD-36 driver. High-Med-Low plus ramping.

This is just a Beta test build. Quick and dirty until I determine that I'm able to obtain a workable 3 x 18650 series conversion. I hooked it up to the stock emitter on aluminum. I'll worry about Noctigons and such later.

It fits in OK, a little raised on one side. I don't know if its resting on a component, or if I just need to and down some of those little press fit protrusions. Anyway, it's snug and flat enough. I'll look into it a little later.

i wasn't getting ground connectivity to the body so I inserted a 20 gauge copper head pin through the ground via hole and curled it around the base of the head.

That works. I tested it with leads from two cells and got light.

Next I have to figure out how get the three cells in series so the connect to that single cell center contact. Obviously this driver was designed for use with a battery carrier.

Since it was already built and sitting in my junk box I used the rear contact plate with a Clickie conversion from my failed mod.

I swapped the long spring for another short one.

Now for the ugly part. I didn't do any real measurements, I just slapped everything together. Quite frankly, I didn't hold much hope for success.

A piece of circuit board, some pluming fasteners and tin snips.

After soldering everything in place I used a Dremel with an engraving bit and isolated what needed to be isolated using a DMM to make sure it succeeded.

I soldered a copper pin through a drilled hole to carry the current to the other side of the board.

The yellow in the center is a bit of Klapton tape just to be on the safe side.

Nasty looking!

After the spring was soldered I sanded off the remaining copper coating.

The board sits too high because the divider legs are too long. I knew that would happen, but I didn't want to do any meticulous work until I know if the darn thing will work. I had to add two magnets on top of each cell for contact.

This whole contraption looks like a great big short circuit waiting to happen.

Hmmm. It seems to work. No sizzles or sparks.

Now to screw the body into the head. This is where a big short is most likely going to happen. Because of the too long legs on the board, the tube won't thread completely into the head.

Hmmm. I got light

The side switch works, and so does my custom Clickie tail switch. That's the tailcap from my failed mod. its been baked, so it's a different colour.

It's working, but it's not right. I'm getting high medium low, but the high wont hold its current.

I hooked a DMM to the emitter and high instantly drops from 4.8A down to about 2.5A, flashes and ramps to 1.5A, and holds steady. I can click through hi-med-low. But if I stop on hi, it drops down to med.

I know this whole thing is cobbled together as a test build and resistance is probably rampant, so I'll have to solve this before I redesign my series contact board.

I'm going to pull the driver and hook it up a 3 x 18650 series battery holder to make sure the driver is working properly.

Back to the drawing board.

2

cool… who cares how it look on the inside… as long it’s working perfectly :smiley: :beer: :beer:

3

I can’t figure out what’s going on with this driver. I get Hi-Med-Low, and in the second group I get all the strobes,(the most disorienting strobes I have ever seen) but the high comes on bright and then automatically ramps down to medium. I’ve tried everything and can’t hold on to the high mod.

I can’t get it to ramp either. It’s supposed to start in low and ramp to high and then you turn it off and back on to save that level. I haven’t been able to get any kind of ramping except when it automatically ramps from Hi to medium by itself.

Could this be a resistance problem, or is this driver just a freak.

4

I tried two of them in the same light. and that is what they both did. I got it to work for a while with the high medium and low, but the ramping would never hold and then it simply would not work right at all. Two batteries yes, three batteries no. Junk driver and not cheap I am not exactly happy about it because I can’t think of anything else to use it with. I went with two drivers instead and I’m pushing about 5.6amps now with no blinkies.

I really thought it would be cool with that driver, I liked the idea of a high output thrower with ramping.

I have both of them sitting here collecting dust now. Maybe if we both contact them and complain they will give us a refund? Did you get your’s form LCK?

5

Yes, mine is from LCK. Did your high come on bright and then ramp down to medium by itself?
I never cared for ramping, but I want my high to stay on high.

6

Yes that is exactly what it would do. I think that it’s the overheat protection kicking in. Even though it’s right at startup. If I messed with it for a bit I could get the High medium and low to work so I left it like that for a while.

I tried like heck to find out how to disable the overheat protection but never could. I spent hours trying to get this driver to work. I bought a second one because I thought I might have fried the first one when I was messing around running a 3x with it.

The messed up part is that I also got one of the multi-emitter drivers from them at the same time and it was no good. I sent that back, $6 for shipping it back. They haven’t responded on that one. So now I’m out close to $50 for three drivers and shipping and I have squat to show for it.

Oh and just so you know. The Ramping worked fine with the 3x setup but even with a resistor mod it was still only running 5amps to the three emitters.

7

I put mine back to parallel battery config and wired up two 2.8amp drivers. It’s very close in lumens to my TN-31 that has the resistor mod done. 1,500 vs 1,300. I haven’t de-domed the TN-31 yet so right now the big head is blowing it away in throw.

8

It’s supposed to be good for 18V. I got all my modes in both groups…just can’t hold onto high. I’m glad you told me this so I didn’t wast tomorrow trying to rebuild everything.

9

I was just studying up on master slave. I’ve spent far too much time doing series conversions on this light.
Can you tell me if I should remove all excess components from the slave board except the 7235 chips? I have a hot air reflow, so it would be easy. This will be another first time endeavor for me.

10

I’m glad I read your thread so I found out I wasn’t going crazy. I might go and hook one up to an MT-G2 and a SST-90 and see what happens. It worked fine with the 3x XML so maybe it’s something to do with the small emitter not taking enough power so it’s kicking in the protection? I thought that at first and went from XP-G2 up to XM-L2 hoping it would help but it didn’t. Same damn thing. High would ramp down to medium, If you held the button down you could keep it in high but as soon as you let up it goes to medium.

11

When you hooked it up to three XML, were they in series, or parallel.

12

Series. I was talking to comfy about it and he said that this driver will not push more than 5amps no matter how you set up the emitters. Too bad because 5amps each would be nice for a triple.

13

I never did ask how you converted your cells to series. Did you do a convoluted mod like mine, or did you dump in a bunch of 18350s?

Our posts seem to be out of sync.

14

Just read this thread. Nice work in my book. Best wishes on working out the bugs and finalizing it.

15

I took the original driver and used it as a contact board and on the top of it I isolated one positive and one negative and ran a wire from one to the other.

So starting at the contact board it was like this

Positive on the board, negative to the springs.

Negative over to positive at the springs. then up to an isolated negative at the board to an isolated positive at the board, Down to a negative at the springs with the body at the springs making the last negative connection with the contact board connection.

16

I’m wiring up an SST-50 right now to see if it works. Can’t find my SST-90 that I usually use for testing. Let you know in a minute if it works.

17

Yikes! I think I need pictures to get that sorted out in my mind.

18

I know it’s hard to explain. Just think of how you would do it yourself. Starting with a positive on the contact board. You go up to the springs and back down to the contact board. But the next two that are on the contact board have to be isolated from the board itself because if they touch it’s a short. I just used LB weld as my “glue” and tested with my DMM to make sure that there were not shorting out on the board. The last battery goes up to the springs were it only makes contact with the spring in contact with the body.

Oh hell this just makes it worse. LOL

Like I said just follow the path starting at positive on the board through negative at the springs to the body.

19

I wired up the driver again to the SST-50 and the driver is now dead. I can’t remember what I did to it to kill it, something about using pencil lead to try and find the heat protection and disable it.

20

Rats.

I’m in the middle of linking two 1.4A NANJG boards. I need to see if I can do it.
I removed all the other components off one board and linked the VDD pins. I guess I have to connect the neg. LED leads next.
If this works, I’ll order some momentary Qlites from RMM and say to hell with series.