KD SSC P7 Drivers - Whats wrong with them !

[rayman]

Bought two of this drivers and they both didn't work. I'll never buy drivers from DX and KD again. The reflectors and lenses are great but the drivers just suck :sigh:.

rayman

 

[vestureofblood]

I understand, this driver was not particularly good for me either. About the only drivers I really like from DX/KD are the 7135 chip set type. I have had good luck with these because there just isn't a lot to them.

 

[TorchBoy]

Bought two of this drivers and they both didn't work. I'll never buy drivers from DX and KD again. The reflectors and lenses are great but the drivers just suck :sigh:.

With respect, it sounds like you just didn't choose good drivers. Some of the DX drivers are great, at least if used for what they're suited for.

 

[rayman]

I had two of the second drivers the threadstarter mentioned. The first one had only one low mode and the second one had a really low PWM frequenc, looked like 10 Hertz :thinking:.
I don't want to make all drivers from KD and DX bad but it just didn't work for me.

@vestureofblood
Yes, you're right. This worked also fine for me.

rayman

 

[Techjunkie]

I must have gotten lucky. I only bought one of the first one linked (the $7.99 one) and it works perfectly. I have it running an MC-E from two LiFePO4 18650 batteries in series. I didn't use anything more to heatsink it than the gray gummy pad it came with. Maybe the Vin range specified is just too ambitious.

 

[vestureofblood]

I agree with both of your statements. The driver I have is the second one, and I thinks the vin is ambitious. I was only using 2 li-ion to power mine, they were standard (LICO? whatever) cells, so a bit higher voltage, but still had issues.

I also agree with the fact that you scored

 

[Paul Baldwin]

I just came across an alternative driver here http://www.satistronics.com/87135-7135x8-cree-mce-sscp7-driver2800ma_p2057.html It looks very similiar to one Download had a limited number of in Torchboys driver list. I thought it may be of some use to you lot

 

[TorchBoy]

Thanks Paul. I've added Satistronics to the To Do list.

 

[blackdragonx1186]

it just seems to me that people are getting unlucky with these. as i stated earlier, i have had no issues what-so ever with these. the ones i used recently were for local PD, and they have done nothing but compliment and recommend to other officers.

 

[outer limits]

I am not that up on all the ins and out of the electronics but I have just got one of these and had a play around with it. Very Very dissapointed the efficiancy is very poor on the lower settings and the switching between modes seems to be a low voltage issue rather than heat. I can run it at a higher voltage using a power supply and the driver gets very hot in only a matter of 30 sec. If I then back the voltage off and try again mine started switching modes at about 7.2volts. I now dont know what driver to go for?

 

[old4570]

Im using the new DX driver , still using the single mode one and its working a treat ...

Should swap in the 5 mode one day ...

 

[rufusbduck]

This one

and this one

These are the two KD drivers I have tried to use with a SSC P7 Mag mod .

"Auto-alarm towards high temperature,then switch to low mode automatically"

Here lies the problem , after 30 seconds on high the driver switches to low mode , and then your lucky to get 10 second bursts on high .

It just plain sux , both drivers used suffer from this problem , you can only
run low mode for more than 30 seconds , both medium and Hi will switch to
low mode after 30 or so seconds .

I have been using these drivers for a year now and only recently discovered this problem when I tried to wire a remote switch for a bike light. I found that the problem was not one of heatsinking but input voltage. I had modded some 6v mr11 lights to run a triple Cree xre in parallel~900mA per die using the stock 6v nimh battery. Worked fine on the helmet light but with a remote switch between the battery and the lamp I experienced exactly the problem described above. The solution turned up when I used an 8.4v nimh battery I had put together for another lamp and it worked to perfection with no annoying switching to low. Tried it again with a 7.2v nimh battery and it also worked fine. This leads me to think that while 12-15v is too much for these units, 5.5-6.5v is not enough to cover losses in the driver and longer wires that are typically 24-26awg. Hope this helps.

Now I did try to locate the components that got WARM , not hot , but warm .
Thats right , the driver does not get that hot , I pulled the heatsink out of my mag and ran it with everything hanging out so I could shove my fingers all over the driver to see what was getting hot [ WARM ] .

I even tried to heatsink the parts that warmed up .

Made no difference what so ever :
It would seem these drivers just plain suck ! and I hope some one from KD reads this and hopefully asks for the temp feature to be removed from the driver/s .

Next , the new DX SSC P7 drivers [ just ordered ]

So - Word !

 

[rufusbduck]

only the fourth paragraph is new.