Wurkkos 21700. I see the same pattern in my Sofirn 21700 batteries so must be from the factory.
Yes, that’s normal for the Lishen batteries.
Love the light but I really prefer a mechanical switch, none of that parasitic drain crap and the tail switch seems more normal than the side switch.
Finally did a reset to see if that helped the TS21 battery voltage read out but still all over the place. Too wide of a range to adjust. Bounces between 3.4 and 4.3 randomly. Sometimes right on. Can’t see a pattern.
I’ve done a voltage calibration on a full cell, 4.20. It showed 4.3 and I lowered it to 4.2. Now it shows 4.1 on the first flash sequence and 4.2 on every other?!
I get different read outs most of the time, especially in simple mode. In advanced mode where the voltage blinks out over and over it usually starts low but increases to the correct voltage after a few cycles. After adjusting the voltage in advanced mode and then switching back to simple mode, I get different readings. Unscrewing the tail cap and then 3C I get different readings. I can’t find a pattern to it and I don’t know what value is correct without removing the battery and measuring the voltage. This is not normal battery sag and rebound. I wonder if the standby current jumping around affects it. My standby current is never a steady reading. It ranges between 150uA and 400+ uA, always bouncing around. This is with the switch light on low.
I have my switch LED on blinking mode and the readings are constant after the first flash sequence. At first I thought I was too slow to count the flashes.
Otherwise the readings are ok.
Maybe you have a bad component or something that’s causing a short or high resistance.
If I understand what you’re pointing out, it just looks like the refraction-appearance-thingy of the three legs/posts that are attached to the plastic optic…they stick straight down and poke into holes in the mcpcb to keep it positioned and prevent twisting that could shear off the emitters/domes when taking the bezel on or off. I can’t tell if part of what you’re seeing is also reflection of the crenulation of the bezel or just the refraction through the plastic, could be both. If you were to shine light on the very bottom ends of those legs, they would act as light pipes (like gun sights)…and I think people have done just that using tritium and aux leds in some fancy mods. When installed in a light the ends are concealed and light bouncing around in there doesn’t seem to do much at all as it hits the sides of those legs. In Tom’s photos up top you can see how the bottom of the optic looks and how it plops onto the mcpcb.
We noticed this problem and notified the engineer , the brightness of the indicator light was set too high when the switch LED on High, they are improving now
Q8 PRO with more batteries so large capacity and slow consumption, TS21 this batch with anduril 2 adjust the switch LED lightness too high make a lot stand-by current, we are improving it now, Thanks for the valuable reminder
It looks like the glass is closer to the tir in these places. Most of my glass+tir flashlights have similar “things”.
I never noticed any flickering blue led in my review unit
Also check why the battery voltage check in simple mode is erratic. Seems to be a couple erratic things going on with this light . One time mine started flashing blue very fast when the battery was at it’s termination point during charging. It would not stop even though the charge current was 0 A at that point. Other times it will go to solid blue as it should. I have been trying to pin point patterns but the only one I can find is the battery check function in simple mode as already stated.
Yeah mine also doesn’t really do that, unless I use it on turbo or something so the battery voltage drops and the USB-C circuitry probably gets confused…
FWIW, my version 2 light does not have high parasitic drain with the default low setting for the switch light. Barely visible and fine with me. Quite visible when ramped above regulation — I like that. Bright blue light that appears for no apparent reason or with any noticeable predictability. (The blue light would cause high parasitic drain but does not stay on long enough.)
Hopefully these questions aren’t too far off topic. So much knowledge in this thread and these questions are so simple I hope you will forgive me.
First, with the TS21, disconnecting the power for more than a few seconds defaults the ramp level to the highest regulated level - at least it appears that way to me. One ramp up and the switch gets brighter. Back to the default and it is dim again. Is this correct?
On my SC31 Pro with Anduril 1, it appears that the power disconnect resets the level to one step higher than regulation. The switch is bright and one level down goes to dim. Is the difference due to Andruil 1 vs 2 or the hardware involved or do I just not understand what happens when the power is disconnected?
What is this regulated level? It is my understanding that it uses a chip that limits the current to 350 mA. I actually thought I saw that one time on my DMM. However, I don’t completely trust my DMM, or leads so I tried to proof it with the limited tools I have that I can trust — a watch;-) I ran the light for 15.5 hours and it was still putting out about the same amount of light to my eye and compared to the SC31 pro at the same level. This test confirms in my mind the fact that whatever the regulated chip is, it is not regulating the current at a fixed 350mA. The included cell is fantastic but there is no way that it has over 5400 mAh of capacity. In addition, it was still at 3.2 something V at that point. Ran the light for another 2.75 hrs and finally I could notice that the output had dropped. Stopped the test and the Voltage was down to 2.99. Certainly the battery would not have more than 6300 mAh. Using my cheap DMM, I measure 273 mA on a fresh battery. (Still don’t know where or how I saw 350.) Now proofing this backwards in my mind I get 18.25 hrs @ 273 mA = 4982 mAh. Putting the cell in my MiBoxer C4 to charge and it takes 5015 mAh. Seems to me that the regulated level of my TS21 is about 273 mA. Why not 350? Does this vary from light to light chip to chip? Seems like a rather large relative difference between 273 and 350. What am I missing here?
Thanks!
350 mA (not mAh btw...) is the current limiting value for one of the 7135 chips. It doesn't regulate to 350 mA, it limits it to 350 mA --- there's a difference there. A weak battery will output less than 350 mA. Right now my clamp meter is reading more like 320 mA rather than 350 mA -- not sure why but suspect the clamp meter is starting to go - it's been flaky lately. Intermittently I get readings that are way off - can't explain it. Could be for many of our cheaper meters (not Fluke), the precision on reading amps is not good. It could also be showing less than 350 mA because of other resistance in the circuit - springs, etc. All Li-Ion cells have more resistance as the voltage drops, so yet again another reason why amp readings are lower as the battery drains.
Also could be somewhat out of spec 7135 chips. I don't trust any source because these chips went obsolete years ago.
Thank you Tom!
It would seem then that on my particular TS21, the 7135 is out of spec or there is something else introducing more resistance into the circuit. I don’t trust my meter but I think the 21700 cell that came with the light is more or less spot on at 5000 mAh. Therefore, the draw must come out somewhere pretty close to my meter at 273 mA. I doubt the battery is responsible as the IR is quite low and I made the measurements at 4.1V.
When you say that is how Anduril works are you saying that on power disconnect it resets to the level that is limited by the 7135 chip? Or are you saying that the indicator light goes bright when the level is above that? Did this change between Anduril 1 vs 2? Any idea why on my SC31 Pro, after disconnecting the power, the light comes on at one level higher than the level that brings the switch light back down to low?
Both - default level is the max of channel #1 (1 7135), and Anduril usually defaults to low switch LED on channel #1, hi switch LED on channel #2. I thought Anduril and Anduril 2 both default the same. Sounds like the SC31 Pro might have a little bug there with it off by 1 in the ramping table index, or it was done intentionally, not sure. It's a simple constant defined in the code - whoever compiled/built the SC31 Pro Anduril version.
fwiw, no clamp meter should be trusted below a couple amps….switch to the DMM for lower readings like that if a semblance of precision is needed. Despite shortcomings I’ll use my DMM up to about 3A or so and it seems to compare favorably with the UniT 210E (above 3A for many items the clamp is better when it can be used). Possible that your clamp could benefit from a degaussing, too…with DC and higher currents over time they can get off a bit. Seems to be a little less of an issue when used primarily for AC.
I just received my TS21, metal grey colour, SST20 4000k, Anduril2. Ordered on 10.01.
Same problem with the switch led (low is basically invisible, unless you look it under some side angle of 45 degrees). On high the switch is way too bright and parasitic drain is still there.
Blue light turns on from time to time, usually after having the light on and driving it on high. After turning the light off, it persists for a couple of seconds, then it’s restored to whatever the settings is.
Very strange.