I’m looking to replace the stock ×3 Sofirn 3000 mAh 18650 batteries in my SP36 Pro.
I’ll be swapping the LEDs out for SFQ43 and would like to supply them with as much current as I safely can.
1 button top Samsung 30Q is $5 more than a non button top 30Q.
It seams silly to me to spend +$15 more for button tops.
Are there any 15A+ 18650 flat tops that would work in a SP36 Pro?
It should be possible to use flat tops like the “regular” 30Q in it, if the tops aren’t bent. You can pry out the plastic RPP ring, its just stuck on with double sided tape.
You can harvest the brass buttons from the convoy-branded buttontop adapter boards and solder them to a flat top cell (carefully), it should have lower resistance than the usual spot-welded button-top cells as well.
The other possibility would be to 3d-print an adapter plate with brass posts to act as contacts.
Something like the ones made for the Convoy sodacan lights, I made the same thing for the Emisar D18 but I doubt it would work on the SP36 without modification.
Edit: forgot something
Yeah, I’m not comfortable with that.
The only 18650 flat top I found that has an obvious proud + contact is this Sanyo but it’s only 10A:
My 30Qs have a proud contact like that, but they came with an old BLF-Q8 from ebay, it’s possible they’re just some weird buttontop I guess. Looked more like flat top to me.
I agree.. I have the same flashlight. Button top are probably better solution.
Sony Vtc6?
Molicel P28A?
What do you think?
Cheers
Ampace JP30 cells would be your best bet.
There’s also the rewrapped Vapcell Z30 which can be found in more stores.
Thanks for signing up, Chudz-mckenzie!
Modders are going to mod.
I’m not saying that anyone is upset about that fact, but it would be pretty silly to get upset about that.
I’m currently getting 11,000 Lumens with SFQ43 5500K and VTC5A
Wrap bacon on it😂
The SP36 is a multiple years old mass market product. It is not rare, limited, or in any other way valuable outside of the use the user can get out of it. Changing it will not lower its value or “damage” a collectible item.
Battery and LED tech has progressed a lot since then. And even when it was launched there was better tech - but Sofirn must make compromises to reach the price point their management wants the lights to be at. It’s no premium product that can push the best possible no matter the cost.
Then there’s the point of customization. The ideal flashlight for one is not ideal for someone else. So it totally makes sense to personalize them to better match our needs. Colder or warmer, more or less floody, brighter or better sustained runtime…
I think Chudz Mckenzie is just trolling, best ignore
You go ahead and knock yourself out thinking you are less likely to burn your house down than some very intelligent engineers at sofirn. Im happy trusting sofirn to keep my house intact but if you want to to play upgrade with some very powerful electronics then by all means, you do you
Sorry but this point I’ll just assume you’re trolling… Have a nice day 
Not a big brain sofirn engineer, but I did a flattop adapter for the SP36 pro specifically that uses nuts:
The last words he wrote at the end of post make me smile a lot🤣
Lol, I laughed at that one too
@jba, what does this flat top do? Like what is its purpose?
Im not criticizing. Just curious.
Sofirn is, first and foremost, aiming at the budget market. Industry leading batteries or overly complicated (and expensive) driver circuits simply don’t work when your target audience wants it as affordable and possible. If price is your main concern, you need not to make what is technically possible, but what can be sold at your customers - and that means compromises.
This is an enthusiast forum. People don’t care about cost. If +50% price means +10% performance, most people take it willingly. The judgement of what is worth compromising on of enthusiasts and a company making products for the mass market can differ greatly. Sofirn (as well as pretty much any flashlight company) could make a perfect light and I never questioned that. They don’t since they need to sell a reasonable amount of them if they want to stay in business.
They are good at what they do, but what makes sense for them does not necessarily make sense for the small group of enthusiasts present in places like this. And that is why we modify lights.
For starters, I developed a drop-in replacement 30W HDR boost driver with 15W bidirectional powerbank functionality and RGB Aux for a Convoy S21E for fun - I am not aware of any driver with a similar featureset and density in the Sofirn lineup. SP33S driver would be closest, but it is larger, has no HDR and lacks another couple features my driver could do if I finally found the time and motivation to write the software for it 
Again, Sofirn did not add features their customers don’t care about to optimize cost. Mine is aimed at the enthusiast crowd that willingly pays extra for obscure features. And I do not expect to make a profit off this project. So far I am a couple hundred in the negative - and that is ok. It’s a hobby for me.
I also have a couple of half-done CAD drawings around, but I am no mechanical engineer, so my confidence in my CAD skills is not quite as large ^^ (and prototyping/ordering small amounts of CNC parts costs a fortune, so these will most likely stay mere digital drawings).
One is a compact 30mm TIR lens single 7070 allrounder, the other a big 3x 21700 sodacan with a pretty particular design aimed around the idea of psuhing a lot of R9080 lumen out of B35AM LEDs with small TIR lenses per LED which I mainly did as a CAD excercise. Neither is in the same flashlight category as a SP36, so can’t really compare. The chonker with XHP50.3 instead of B35AM might be somewhat comparable, but with a les bright but much more efficient boost driver, it still has a different design goal. Unless I win the lottery and randomly have a bunch machined, we’ll never know how it compares ^^
You get more options, some high power cells are only available as flat tops. I’m running mine with more powerful cells and a stronger driver than standard, but I’m a degenerate.
so your driver is done?
