The Knucklehead is a buck driver, so that MT-G2 result was certainly with 2 cells.
Thanks. I’m like that rotating raffle ticket shuffler, all the information is in the cage but pulling it out in any kind of order is next to impossible!
Was following this driver that theomajigga was building, but he has been MIA for over a month now.
That is unfortunate. Lucky for me I only found this thread today.
However theomajigga should you pick this up again, vesture will take a pile of these boards 
I can’t apologize enough guys and gals I was building this for the girlfriend at the time, well along with that relationship went the motivation to finish the project. I’ll start working on it again here soon. I will send some new boards to be printed. I do use the light every once in a while, but until the heat thing is figured out, it’s nothing more than a “I did it.”
I haven’t had a chance to read through all of the comments, but I’ll pick this project back up here.
SORRY!!
No need to apologize! We all understand that life happens. Glad to have you back!
Sorry to hear about your troubles. Please feel free to bury yourself in this project as consolation, we’ll understand. 
and probably appreciate it a good deal more anyway.
Wait, so you got de-motivated by a breakup and re-motivated by a new relationship, or, well, none of my business I guess.
We’re just glad your back!
What he said!! :+1: Welcome back!!! 
Now get crackin!!!
Have quickly read upper 178 post and have seen lots of foolish post and much less useless one.
What can I say:
- All boost drivers have similar circuit engineering with difference in inductance value and input and output capacitor values.
- Сalculating values of this components shows that we need to use one that big and expencive to have low input ripples and good efficincy.
- There is defenetly no simple way to make high power AA boost driver (it will need one step of boost for mcu and components work and second one for led).
- There is defenetly no simple way to make high efficincy 1xLi-ion->1x3vLED boost driver (it will need one boost step and second buck one).
- There is no need in copying driver circuits from lights - all secrets are in software.
- There is defenetly no problem if Vout is several (three, four) times more than Vin. Efficincy don`t goes down when difference increase.
comfychair again had wrotten lots of nonsenses.
Boost driver is driver, it will ever have regulated output current. If output power is 20W, with fully charged INR18650 cell current from cell will be 6A-ripples (4V on load, 80% eff.). With fully discharged INR18650 cell current from cell will be 8A-ripples (3V on load, 80% eff.). Is it to much for this cells? -No. Will you ever make more powerfull boost driver on 17mm board? -No. What is the problem?
Lots of you are using FET, DDs that are not drivers at all, they do not manage current in turbo and this situation calls short-circuit. It may be good if you want to be similar to chinise manufactures with “2000 lumens T6”, but not good if are arguing that boost drivers are bad at empty cells (boost ones will be able to gave hole power till the end, what is about your FET?).
There is defenetly no simple way to make high efficincy 1xLi-ion->1×3vLED boost driver (it will need one boost step and second buck one).
There may not be a simple way, but there’s definitely a way, as evidenced by the long and perfectly flat runtimes (outside of high modes that hit the thermal limit) of most Zebralight products.
There is no need in copying driver circuits from lights – all secrets are in software.
Examining the circuits of lights with boost drivers known to give good performance tells a driver designer what hardware is capable of delivering that performance. It’s easier to iterate through multiple software designs than multiple hardware designs.
Lots of you are using FET, DDs that are not drivers at all, they do not manage current in turbo and this situation calls short-circuit...
boost ones will be able to gave hole power till the end, what is about your FET?
True, FET drivers don’t have stable output, but the buck drivers used in most 1x18650 lights don’t have stable output on the highest mode either. A Nitecore MH20 (note: emitter swapped to Nichia 219C and fan-cooled to prevent thermal throttling) isn’t any more stable in its output than a FET-driven 219C triple at 22% PWM (note: 22% PWM because higher modes result in overheating sufficient to damage components if run continuously). The most significant difference is that the FET driver has a higher low-voltage cutoff than the MH20.
If you need Zebralight, you can buy it.
I`m not sure boost-buck drivers have visible benefits with 1xli-ion, main advantages of them open when you are using 1-2 primary lithium cells.
Boost drivers use high frequency circuit engineering that is thousands times more tough to circuit layout design than fet or linears. If you`ll copy components while you don`t understand what are you doing - the only thing you can get is lots of problems with non (half) workable driver.
Components main values are not problem, they are simple to count with calculator.
Other important components characteristics that influence on driver work are known and you can choise components that will fit this requirements best.
Schematic circuit diagram is well known and can be used with no problems.
Layout design is much harder than everything posted upper. You can copy it, or use some literature how to make it better, but to make good driver we need a person that have learned and worked with high frequency circuit engineering (I haven`t).
Software is most mysterious thing for me. But all secrets are inside it.
theomajigga, from what I can see from the PCB picture, the voltage feedback is set around 6V, and the ILIM at around 10A on battery. Are you regulating the secondary current, or you rely on these 10A on the battery?
If you have any schematics available, I will be glad to take a look.
He hasn't been on in over 4 months, so who knows when/if he'll be back 
. These boost drivers have become common in commercial lights now, but still it would be fantastic to have an open source design so we can build and program our own.
A very informative thread to read, my appreciation for everyone who made a comment.
Other threads have referenced this laser forum driver thread list - see voltage boost drivers on page 2:
Here is the latest thread on a boost driver for the XHP LED.
GXB20 Driver – Homemade Constant Current Programmable XHP50 Single-Cell Boost Driver
This thread was one of the reasons I went ahead and began an engineering degree. Having a kid and COVID postponed things somewhat, but I’m now delving back into learning about electronics. It’s great being able to begin to understand what some of this is.
Mostly its all about hardware coding ;))
Hey all, sorry I never finished this went through a bad breakup, and honestly a lot of life was not very fulfilling anymore! Hobbies died off, and you all know, typical bs.
Since then, got married, and moved on to different things (cars, and cars, and restoring old trucks).
Sorry I never got back to any of you on this project.
The GBX20 is using the driver that I was using, really cool to see someone else caught on to the specs
The reason for the checkin, I was talking to a buddy about electronics, and I had mentioned to him that I was one of the first to make a single battery driver for XHP packaged drivers, so I came back to have a look!
Hope everyone is well, and I will probably never be back on here, unless I find something new to work on! If anyone want the gerber files (possibly outdated and too old to use anymore) or the BOM I will see what I can dig up!
Cheers all!