Re: GatLight Arrived in Philly 27 July
Thanks for the comments...
To the questions. Yes you can put in PROTECTED rechargeable 123s 3.6V (or 3V). The 3.6V gives you a bit extra brightness at max. However with a 3.6V the LED is really unefficient up there and dumps a lot of heat, besides it's only a bit brighter (perceived) but runtime is A LOT less.
If you set the light to full power and rotate it (starting from the point it starts diming), turning maybe 1/16th of a rotation should be plenty - you basically just turn it down a notch (with the smooth brightness contoll, a notch meaning where you can visibly tell a difference) - that should be enough. Brightness scales logarithmically so a bit less bright means A LOT LESS current and heat and A LOT MORE runtime.
Also if you use a 123, set it to max and don't hold it you'll notice the light gets very warm, especially the part with the engraving gets VERY HOT (a result of the good heat transfer using the copper core LED board). However the bars will be cooler, so keep your fingers on those if you pick up the light.
One more thing to consider in regards to rechargeables: This light is designed to completely deplete any battery you put in there. I think the boost chip will boost voltages from all the way down to 1.5 or 1.7V. This is needed so that we get full brightness with the primary lithiums - which drop more than 1V under full load if you pull 4+ watts out of them.
Now the rechargeables under load never drop that much, which means to get the same watts out of the battery the regulation chip needs to pull less current, since boost chips are rated by current, this allows for a bit higher max brightness). However the problem is that with this low voltage boost chip, the rechargeable 123s will be drainged to way below 2.8 or 2.5V (which is the recommended cut off) - and doing so will massively shorten their lifetime... (the V2 had a 2.5V cut off, but that made the light less bright for use with 123s). So when you use rechargeables charge them before they are depleted. Also the "replace battery" strobe probably won't happen with the rechargeables until they're already drained way too much.
So these are the trade offs.
And yes with the V3, there are no more washers to adjust for battery length or to prevent battery drain, also changing batteries is as simple as it gets. On the other hand no more exposed battery like with the V2...