I got my soldering silicone mat for $1.66 on recent sale. It was among three items that I could order for $5. It is heat resistant for a short period of time just as you described. However, when it was exposed to heat for a longer period of time, it started to deform. I experienced this using my heat gun and my cheap hot plate. In the case of heat gun, I applied heat directly. And for the hot plate, the heating element was very closely located above my mat (because my hot plate has very short legs to keep it off the ground)
I agree that the factory solder could be lead free. However, all of my recently purchased soldering materials are all 63/37. I hear they are easier to work with and more robust and resilient (less crack) compared to lead-free solder.
Thanks! Seeing the led find its place on its own (the boing!) and small droplet of solder popping out under the led felt really good indeed!
Just a question. why has there not been an over build BLF flashlight fabricated to hold turbo for like 30 to 45 minutes?? The tech is there right? I’m talking like 1500lms , just a number off the top of my head, nothing crazy like 4000lms. Can’t the body be made twice as thick with a big old copper driver heat sink with a moon light level down to .5 lms. A smaller torch easy to carry, nothing like the BLF GT. On cold nights it seen like it will hold turbo forever. I know it would cost more do to materials but it would be nice to have that max output for more then just a few seconds to minutes. Call it the BLF M1 Abrams, drop it of a 10 story building strong, whatever. A 26650 cell with a 3/8’’ thick body and a 7/16th thick head. 3/16’’+ copper driver and led boards. Run a higher end emitter at a lower setting? Can this be done or am I just smoking clovers?
Depends if you’re talking about 1500lm at 20C ambient without breeze or outside at 10C with breeze, and at which regulated temperature.
In this Zebralight SC700D review Zebralight SC700d – A Short Technical Review (lumens/runtime graphs/temperature/PWM/current draw)
It does 900lm inside, 2000lm inside with fan, and ~1700 outside at 7C ambient with wind gusts.
The SC700D uses an XHP70.2 5000K 90CRI driven by an efficient boost converter in a light body so that’s pretty impressive already, a low CRI LED would do even better.
I wonder how well a D4Sv2 (with boost driver) with low CRI cool white LH351Ds would do (most efficient 3535 3V LED), XHP35.2s would do a bit better, and with a 5050 MCPCB, XHP50.3s, I’m thinking it would be pretty close to the 1500lm target at room temp.
As for copper, it’s not really useful except for adding weight and increasing a bit turbo duration thanks to its ~1.4 volumetric heat capacity vs aluminium, but that doesn’t matter for sustained output.
I modded a 6 emitter Sky Ray king years ago with a BLF 46mm - SRK V2 FET + 7135 Driver - V2 , heavy springs, Xlamp XP-L2 emitters from Digi-key , Copper led board and the thickest wires I could fit in it.! I took a 1/2’’ thick solid piece of copper, shaped it and placed the driver on top. It will hold turbo way longer then any of the 70 flashlights I own in my collection by a long shot except my BLF GT. It out shines my original Q8. The more mass a flashlight has the better cooling from what I have noticed. I use to be heavy into car audio and built and designed my own systems and the best amplifiers would heat up to the point where you could fry an egg on them and they just kept going, they just needed air flow. Rockford Fosgate, US AMPS, Original Soundstream art edition, Orion, MTX, I still own a bunch of amplifiers like the Power 1000 Fosgate and 3 Phoenix Gold M25 amps I have had since the 90’s. I would drop them to a half ohm load for hours at a time. I know you don’t hold an amplifier in your hand but there has to be a way to make a better flashlight. Is it possible to use military grade mosfets for cooling like in my M25 amps, everything in those amps are military grade. I am not by any means an electrical wizard that’s why I am asking if its possible to fabricate such a light, overbuilt. Maybe isolate the cell from the heat using Nomex or something, fiberglass? To me it seems like there is not a big difference between an amplifier and a flashlight except the emitters. More power equals more heat. I do not own the M3-C yet but I’m looking at it.
Thank you Lightbringer! It’s been a while. Always a pleasure to hear from you! Crazy year for me, Lost my mother and a cousin who was only 39 years old do to cancer, my wife decided after 18 years she was gay and cheated on me and my degenerative spinal disease is kicking my ass! That’s why I have been gone for almost a year. Life right lol. I guess if I want a light like that I will have to fabricate it my self. Good to be back!
Between convoy m3-c 3000K and sp36 blf 2700K, which one do you think have the best color? It has similar price and size, and lumens so I wonder which one would win at 2700K level.
From what I know sp36 sustains high lumen(1500-2000) for 1 hour while m3-c sustains it for 2 hours. Another difference is m3-c seems to have worse cri, though I couldn’t find info I found pictures better for sp36.
The sp36 can’t sustain anything near to the m3-c and stay only warm. Much thinner aluminum. I have both in 5000k so can’t comment on the 2700 and 3000k. The sp36 has Anduril so better ui.
Back to lights, you can get some cheap-but-good hosts like a F13, and I was just eyeballing this “Shooter” light I got ways back… looking… from Torchlite (I knew it wasn’t a Maxtoch). I’m not up on the latest Convoys, but I think a few of them were quite finny and could probably dissipate heat pretty well.
Some decent beefy hosts can be had, but Al would likely be better, as in that size, Cu would just be like carrying around a brick. Though that might be good if you want to build upper-body strength.
Question is, how big ya wanna go? Bigger will sink heat temporarily but longer, and fins will dissipate heat faster, but the bigger and dissipatier you get, the heavier and more unwieldy it gets, too.
Oh, the EC4 family (got a coupla EC4GTs) take over’n’under 18650s, are true unibody construction (literally 1 piece except for the tailcap to load the cells), and will sustain full output from fresh-out-of-the-charger ’til both cells are screaming for mercy. It just dissipates heat that well. Fits well in the hand, nice sweet spot for output vs size. Only 1000 lemons, but that’s start to finish.
(And twice that, or 2000 lemons, only looks like 30% brighter, not twice as bright, so keep that in mind, too.)
I’m looking at Convoy S2+ at aliexpress and there are many led options, what I wonder is why does SST20 sell much more than the others? And 519A is the worst one, but isn’t it the best one actually? Can someone explain why this is the case?
Numbers:
SST20: 2312
SST40: 797 (which should have low cri, why does this one sell?)
XML2 U2-1A: 796 (don’t know this one)
519A: 613 (this should be the best one, but it has the worst sale number)
Might be because the SST20’s the throwiest? Better throw numbers seems to equate with “brighter” to noobs.
As far as what’s in S2+es, I never paid them no nevermind, because the pills are easy to remove and you can do whatever you want with ’em, and I thought of them more as hosts than complete lights. But people who buy ’em for what’s in there not intending to mod anything, yeah, they might go with “brightest” or “most throw” or whatever, dunno.
