Gords (and relic),
I’ve gone ahead and ordered one of those drivers (this one, right: http://www.lck-led.com/5000ma-driver-modes-p-935.html?cPath=37_135), in case my “stubbornness” turns into folly :), so I won’t have to wait in that case.
Thanks,
Jim
yep…pretty much although I soldered the existing spring to the drivers existing (small) spring…just tilted it horizontal so no solder would drop on the board and instead would fall on the floor…you also need to use pliers to make the one end a little smaller so it fits snug…solder just makes it not move from it’s position…
you can see in the pic the original driver spring is still in there…it’s a trick I did with all my nangj drivers in p60’s and C8’s etc…although I decided to try this driver this time…it’s not a nangj…but is 2.8a one…
Hi,
How did you get the holes (for the leads to the emitter) in the P60 pill to line up with the holes in the original DST pill?
Or did you grind out/remove the middle partition in the P60 pill completely? I’m thinking I may need to do something like that to get the DST pill long enough because the resistor I have is quite long.
Jim
the driver had the leads soldered already so what I did is feed the wires through the p60 brass part then slid on a tiny piece of heatshrink tubing…soldered the drivers leads to the existing leads then heated up the heatshrink to cover the connection…then pressed the p60 brass into the defiant pill…
Hi,
I still don’t have my MT-G2 emitter on Noctigon in yet, but it should be arriving tomorrow or the next day.
I’m also still awaiting the 0.5 ohm and 1.3 ohm (2W) resistors and some heatshrink.
In the meantime, I was messing around with the DST pill, using a 1 ohm 3W resistor. I’m pretty sure this is larger than either the 0.5 ohm or 1.3 ohm 2W ones, so I figured if I could cram that into the DST pill, I should be ok with the other resistors.
So, here’s what I did:
- Unsoldered the leads to the original emitter (XM-L) and removed it (it wasn’t glued, just some thermal compound underneath(!)
- Removed the press-fit “driver”/contact board
Underneath the 8-pin IC site, there was a thru-hole to the positive pad on the other side (where the spring was soldered). I cleaned out that hole.
I took the 1 ohm resistor and bent one lead with 2 right angles, such that the lead would go through one of the holes in the pill.
I pushed the other resistor lead through that hole on the contact/driver board.
I then pushed the contact board back in place, and it fit, with a reasonable amount of space, length-wise, still, probably about 1/8 - 1/4”.
So, I think that doing the inline resistor should be ok, size-wise.
I’m thinking that if I put some heatshrink over the lead that goes through the pill hole, I might be able to solder that lead directly to the + pad on the MT-G2/Noctigon.
Then, I could just solder the other lead to the contact board (and through the hole I mentioned above).
I left the - lead on the contact board, so I could then solder that to the - pad on the Noctigon, and then I should be done?
If I can do that, the path from the Noctigon + pad to the resistor would be a SOLID WIRE (with heat shrink around it). I know that usually, the wire to the emitter pads are stranded.
Is this going to be a problem?
I guess that one possible problem is getting the Noctigon to lay flat on the top of the pill with that one lead being solid wire? Also, I’ll have to make sure that that lead wire doesn’t make contact with anything except with the + pad on the Noctigon.
Thoughts?
Thanks,
Jim
Edit: Here’s a rough drawing showing what I described above:
That should work, as long as you keep that positive resistor lead from shorting to the pill. Heatshrink should do it. Maybe two layers to be sure. 
Also, be sure that it cannot hit the edge of the star. That’s why I like silicone wire, so I can strip it just enough and still get protection when bending around the star.
Edit: Oh, and your drawing dos not show a ground return from the star, but I figure that was implied. Just wondering how you will do that.
Edit2: Nevermind, reread your post, duh.
relic,
Yes, the ground was implied…the drawing was getting a little busy, so I just left it off. Sorry.
And, yes, the possibility of shorting is what I’m going to have to be most careful about. One nice thing about this arrangement, if it works, is that the resistor (which is going to be kind of large, regardless of which one I end up using) won’t be flopping around inside the pill. I’ll probably still put in some thermal padding or maybe a little Fujik, just to tie it down though.
I’m still considering not doing it this way, and just connect some wire to the resistor leads. The advantage of using wire is that it’d make it easier to try the different resistor values, i.e., I could make the wires somewhat longish, long enough so that I could pull the resistor out of the pill, de-solder the resistor, solder a different value resistor (or temporarily test with some test leads), and then, when done, shove all of the wires inside the DST pill…
WooooooooooHoOOoOoooooOOooooooooooooooo
I found a Defiant SuperThower at my HomeDepot
http://www.cpfmarketplace.com/mp/showthread.php?259160-Canada-Good-Deals-(serving-III)/page7
Finally Canada gets em. Any other Canadians find em?
Welcome to the DST “club” to all of you :)!!
Thanks Ohaya 
Right on, that means its not a fluke.
Nope, not a fluke. Packaging was updated too; en Francais et URL de homedepot.ca
Hi,
I got the new MT-G2 on Noctigon today from IOS. I’m still waiting for the heatshrink, so I started testing outside of a light, i.e., just the emitter, a resistor, and 2 batteries. I also have my meter in series to measure current through the circuit/LED.
I started with the 1 ohm resistor, but am hesitating going to the 0.65 (2 1.3 ohms in parallel) or 0.5 ohms:
- With the 1 ohm resistor, I was measuring about 1.64 amps initially, but the amps kept increasing. I stopped the test when it got to about 1.75 amps because it’s unclear to me why the current would be increasing like that?
- After I stopped the test, I noticed that there some yellow “stuff”, like “goo” that’s flowing from the base of the emitter. So I’m wondering is the emitter putting out so much heat that it’s melting itself?
Can anyone tell me why the current would be increasing like that? I had expected current to slowly drop as the batteries got drained, so I’m puzzled :(…
Thanks,
Jim
Edit: Just tried the 0.5 ohm resistor, and got 2.27 amps and climbing before I shut it off (just a short time).
Have you got a Canadian Home Depot SKU? I checked today at 2 stores and didn’t see anything (in Calgary)… Maybe we’ll end up doing the same as the rest of this forum did - back in February, when they first came out in the US and none of the stores could find their stock…
I can’t find anything on the HD website, either.
Did you have the star mounted on anything at all? I would not put more than 200-300mA through a bare star emitter, and only for a second or two. There is no heat capacity there.
You may have heated it up enough to remelt the residual flux around the emitter (most solder paste and flux is no-clean these days, you just leave it on). I doubt you hurt it any, but you should be careful with them not being mounted at all.
For testing emitters out of the light, I have a 1kg aluminum heatsink that I mount emitters to. With a little thermal paste under there, it’s way more heat sink than any light I own. it takes a lot of energy to noticeably heat up that much aluminum. Add a fan, and it’s just about as close as you can get to infinite heat sink (A pure copper CPU heatsink and fan would top it though).
The 3C DST SKU is 765998. Good luck with the search.
Oops. No, not mounted on anything. I have some CPU heatsinks + fans, and I’ll try using those. Thanks :)…
Any idea why the current would be increasing like that?
Edit: Ok, I found a heatsink-fan that has a copper interface:
Do you think I’ll need the fan to be running? I have an 18650 battery holder I think I could jury-rig to power the fan, if I need it (I KNEW that some of this stuff would come in handy some day :)… and my wife wanted me to dump this awhile ago :)!).
Edit 2: Do I need to do something to clamp the star down onto the copper? Or, just use some arctic silver will be good enough?
As the emitter heats up, Vf drops. This causes the LED to draw more current from the battery, which can force a positive feedback loop leading to meltdown in some cases.
Ahh. Ok. If Vf drops as temp increases, that would explain the increase in current, since that puts more voltage across the resistor (i.e., larger voltage drop across the resistor), and since V/R = I, then I (current) increases.
I’m glad I decided to cut the test off when I did then :)!
Edit: BTW, I know that you all will think I’m slow, but with this experience, I’m finally starting to see the advantage of a constant-current driver vs. direct drive, i.e., the thing is, in order to be safe, I have to size the resistor, not for for the highest current that I want, but, rather, for the highest current that can potentially happen. But, if I do that, I end up having to opt for fairly low current.
I always thought that the main disadvantage of direct drive was that the light would get dimmer as the batteries get discharged, but, really, it’s not just that, but having to compromise on the current at the high end, by having to over-specify the resistor :(…