Trustfire F20 Driver Help Needed! (Simple Emitter Swap Gone Bad!)

LED Flashlights – General Info 1 x AA / 1 x 14500 Flashlights
16

Well, not really. I get called to work sometimes, and I never know how long I’ll be gone… I really do apologize for leaving you Good People hanging!

On to business!!

I really did shoot these when I upgraded the LED. Somehow, I managed to lose them.

SO!

Yes, I Will Disassemble Mine! I will want your help, so it’s only fair I reciprocate.

Here you go:

I’m guessing that huge solder blob is your ground. Also, I’d like to know what “V-” is for.

This is as built. I didn’t notice the crooked board until I posted this picture! I have not yet found the courage to rip the boards out… :open_mouth:

And just to be thorough (and to hopefully invite critique), the only soldering I did on the project:

Sorry about the delays, y’all. I hope this still helps somehow.

PS: I have not yet managed to open the pill of the single-mode F20. When I do, I have a recycled CW XM-L to go in it, to compare CNQ’s “NW” with “the usual XM-L” in the same form factor. Teasing, yes. I am looking forward to more exchanges as I screw up more flashlights. This one is disappointingly DIM for an XM-L replacing a “R5” which looked like an XR-E… Sorry - no hijacking! I will shoot the single mode when I get it open.

TTFN, and thank you for your patience.

17

That’s true, but you’ll need to maintain the switch at some time, or live with the dimness and flickering. If you think ANY of this is hard, wait until you try to get that switch out!! Just unscrewing the tailcap - or removing a chip with your bare teeth for that matter - becomes trivial by comparison! (BTW: I would LOVE to find an upgrade for this switch/housing, especially if it’s IPX88 waterproof!!!)

Uh… Sorry. Never quite got that “don’t” business… :expressionless:

I used a plastic chopstick-sized prod to hold the wires in place while I melted the solder with the iron’s pointy tip. Yeah, it’s ugly, but it passes electrons!

My brother! :zipper_mouth_face:

18

Thanks Dim! Pics 2 & 3 aren't showing up in your post (although I can click them and see them). How'd you get that brass pill out? Mine wouldn't budge. Also looks like I don't need to worry about negative contact from the battery carrier since it's made from the LED side of the driver board.

Thanks!

-Garry

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Notice the scratch marks on the side? Take a #0 flat screwdriver, jam it into the little notches you use to unscrew the pill, put another band-aid on your other finger, wipe off the blood, jam harder & twist. PCB moves <0.1mm. Do the same on the other side. Buy stock in Band-Aid. Repeat. Nothing to it! :smiley:

Edit: I’m sorry, that was silly. You’re using one end of the edge of the screwdriver to carve a notch in the brass pill, then twisting the blade so as to push down on the Aluminum shell and simultaneously up on that notch. Each step may or may not need its own notch. Forcibly pushing a screwdriver at your own hand will hurt quite a lot if you screw it up. YMMV, and a clever hand with a wee grinder could adapt a set of needle nose pliers to the task…

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Thanks! But I'm comparing your first driver pic to mine and I see a component has ripped off my board (where ground contact to pill is made). Perhaps it's still attached to the pill, but if not I'll have order another F20!

-Garry

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… but I will stop soon. Yeah, right.

I had to get you a better view of the LED + area, and see you’ve already passed the last.

Hopefully this will help:

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If you do that, what would you like to do with the dead soldier? I need the pill for an upgrade…

Or… You could try a driver upgrade on that one…?

IMNERHO, if you’re willing to commit to AA only, this seems like a Very Interesting Driver:
(I get the problem with links and lunch meat. If you’d go to the Fancyflashlights site and add “/goods.php?id=91” to the URL, or add “/goods.php?id=97” you can see why I want your dead one.)

These have a unique feature: in Low mode, they blink a signal, and at that signal if you power off, it comes back on in the other Group. One Group is H-M-L, one is H-M-L-Strobe-SOS. The first one’s mode spacing is thus:

100–25–5%
100–25–5% -Strobe-SOS

The second goes to 50% Medium:

100–50–5%
100–50–5%-Strobe-SOS

The downside for us, no 14500 support. :frowning: I don’t think I’d miss it, but the mode choices might make that irrelevant.

I was considering another thread asking for comments on those two drivers. Would that be better than bringing it up here?

I own one (not sure which … CNQ…) and have a “Small Sun” copy of this F20 which is junk w/o work. The “Small Sun” has rat pus for a “pill”, driver, reflector AND emitter (in a pretty body with a clever name), hence where your pill would go if you threw it at me… Meanwhile I’m still hunting someone who can thread 18mm Al stock…

Your “accident” may have been serendipitous…

Not that there’s anything wrong with “another F20”!!

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Do you have a link for the driver at FF. I have just tested one from them that had next mode memory.

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Managing the quoted text is tough, isn’t it? I’m new here, so it’s taking me some time to figure it out. Thanks for making me feel not so awkward.

I hate cheap lunch meat as much as the next guy, but the WWWeb site at fancyflashlights is easy to get. Just copy/paste the word fancyflashlights in your address bar & finish with < CTRL > < Enter > (meaning hold down < CTRL > while you hit < ENTER > )… Then after the “.com”, add the part I gave w/in the quotes.

I’m going to go check the forum rules for posting links, so hopefully this is the last time I have to dance around it.

I still don’t have a useful pill for my driver so I can’t speak to its function … yet.

I’m interested in knowing your thoughts about this.

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Thanks Dimbo The Blinky. I have reviewed that driver and it has next mode memory.

https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/13427

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Dim, BLF doesn't have any stupid rules about posting links - post away!

-Garry

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[quote=MRsDNF]

MRsDNF, Ill still hold onto mine until a modded one is complete and that may be awhile. My aluminum pill is very very light. I was thinking about adding some pieces of copper wire and solder inside to beef it up if there is room to clear the driver.

-Garry

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As are all of mine. At least they’re metal!! Nebo and Small Sun (direct experience only) have yet to evolve that far…

I’ve already reassembled mine (it gets right dark ‘round here, come night!), but IFF you’re just trying to add cheap mass, I see you’re in the ’flood zone’, would a U.S. Nickel coin fit? You know our pennies aren’t Copper anymore…

What I was wondering is, if you add mass in the pill, isn’t that just Thermal Ballast? Wouldn’t the extra mass just retain and redistribute heat? I was thinking “The Idea” for an EDC was to get the LED’s power dissipated into the blood radiator of your hand…

Obviously there’s something to be said for slow transitions…?

I was begging for yours because I can’t find a source for just the pill. So I considered hiring a local machine shop to turn a couple for me. That begged the question of “cut off what?”, which led me to the idea of a big surface area with minimal mass (and a slot for easier disassembly!!!)… Which of course leads to a small piece of threaded pipe, which fires the machinist…

Sorry to wander off topic.

This is one of the main reasons I lurk here and pay attention to you guys and what you can take time to report.

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Yaaaay! H)

That would explain why I’m having such a hard time finding such rules!

Every day, in every way, there is much Good Stuff to learn here!!

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Okay, I’m new here, but doesn’t that mean when you select the Mode you want, leave it on for some time, then turn it off, the light comes on the next time in the next mode after the mode which was on when you turned it off?? NOT the same mode???

That is beyond belief. Not that you found that fact!!! That it IS a fact. No wonder the vendors don’t post details! Why would anyone, who’d go through the trouble to design & manufacture this, think that was a good idea? Please tell me I’m wrong. That I haven’t wasted money and time. Or what IC it has so I can get a programmer!!! (I’ll look for myself, but I’ve never had much luck tracking down some of these component marks)

Thank you for the heads-up!

Dim

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You are 100% correct on all accounts.

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:Sp :weary: J)

Would somebody please just shoot me?

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"Next Mode Memory" is really just a "no memory" driver which is not reset to the first mode quick enough (i.e. it stores the last mode used for too long). These are usually corrected with a resistor mod to shorten that reset time. It's not intentional programming.

(Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.)

-Garry

34

garrybunk,

Please accept my apologies for hijacking your thread with the stupid suggestion of Yet Another DumbA$$ “driver”.

Now I seem to have a $3.00 chip donor… I certainly don’t want it in my flashlights anymore!

Back to lurking, where I can stay out of the way…

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No problem! No hurt feelings!

-Garry