Lumintop Tool Ti (Nichia 219BT, 1xAAA, Titanium) Review: RUNTIMES, BEAMSHOTS and more

[harro]

I was fortunate enough to be gifted one of these lights, last year. It is a pretty tough little light, that i find great for closeup work, or that walk to the porcelain bus at three in the morning. It is my only ti light, and when sitting in the light cabinet, is like a little diamond amongst a sea of black. It is an XPG version, but still has a pleasing neutral/cool tint to its output. When on the keyring, you nearly forget its there. Its no bigger or heavier than a couple of extra keys. Have not had any worries with grit getting into the switch, but i can see how it may be a concern, if used in harsh enviroments. Personally, the mid, low, high ui is not a concern, and i guess it has to switch on, somewhere. Only downside was the financial controller started eyeing it off, and saying how nice it would be if slightly larger, and sitting on her bedside drawer. The aquisition of a SWM T10T solved that and gained some valuable man-points for me. The brass highlight is a nice touch, also.

 

[DooMMasteR]

Haha, the little 6 leg chip in the tail might be an Atmel ATtiny not sure since the specs say, 1.8V are minimum, the switch is connected to the interrupt pin of the µC. So the tail should be able to go down to 150 nA in stand-by current, I wonder if and why they went such a complex route when they did not implement any complex UI.
http://www.atmel.com/Images/Atmel-8...Ttiny5-ATtiny9-ATtiny10_Datasheet-Summary.pdf << datasheet of the little bugger
I am not to concerned about the tail, though my first Tool Ti was DoA and never recovered, which I later discoveref, was due to D1 missing in my tail. Banggood was not able to source the tail alone and they sent me a whole new light.
The original is now also working with D1s place being taken by a diode from an old Nokia phone.

 

[jorn]

I'm not sure if it will die on only 2-3 years, but the whole thing makes absolutely no sense. It doesn't solve any problem. Instead of a slow parasitic draw on the battery the whole time it puts a higher draw on the cell for a few days to charge the internal battery then less. Either way it's taking energy from the battery. "Laundering" the energy through another circuit and mini rechargeable battery is bound to be less efficient than just pulling it from the AAA directly. So, unless you use one AAA battery to charge the internal battery and then put in a different AAA battery a few days later after the internal battery is charged this whole scheme hasn't helped anything.

It kind of does makes sense. Nomally you need a different driver for a electronic switch. A driver that stays on in "sleepmode" and wakes up when it gets a impulse from the electronic switch. If you take a normal light with a mecanical switch and installs a electronic switch, it will only be a momentary switch because you only get contact if you keep it presed down. So they prob use the same driver as the rest of the tools, a driver that is ment for twisty or mecanical switches. And they use this type of switch to make the light stay on. Got the same type of switch with battery in my sunwayman v10r. It's stock with a mecanical switch. But bought a electronic switch with a tritted ti button for it. This switch also have a battery in it. It has to, because the driver in the v10r is made for a mecanical switch.

 

[Timothybil]

Since the only difference between the Ti version and the copper and aluminum versions is the body material, if the electronic switch dies, one could always just buy a tail cap only, either with a clicky switch or with no switch and a magnet. Unfortunately, those two are only available in anodized aluminum, which would kind of clash with all that shiny titanium.

 

[jorn]

Since the only difference between the Ti version and the copper and aluminum versions is the body material, if the electronic switch dies, one could always just buy a tail cap only, either with a clicky switch or with no switch and a magnet. Unfortunately, those two are only available in anodized aluminum, which would kind of clash with all that shiny titanium.

Wont clash too mutch if you remove the ano and polish the aluminium. That can be done in minutes

 

[jon_slider]

afaik there have not been any failures of the Electronic Switch, not even after using LiIon
so, Don't Trouble Trouble, til Trouble Troubles you.
aka.. Don't Worry, Be Happy

There already is Brass version of the Electronic Switch, and I predict we will see a Copper Version next.. I plan to buy that one (if it has the efficient driver).. I love Copper!

fwiw, a friend just bought a TiTool w Nichia and Loves it! Its a great little light in its own right. And that is what this thread is about.. so I will try to stop hijacking now

 

[this_is_nascar]

I don't care for an electronic switch on any light due to the fact that it drains power, even while off, regardless of how negligible it is.

 

[jorn]

afaik there have not been any failures of the Electronic Switch, not even after using LiIon
so, Don't Trouble Trouble, til Trouble Troubles you.
aka.. Don't Worry, Be Happy

There already is Brass version of the Electronic Switch, and I predict we will see a Copper Version next.. I plan to buy that one (if it has the efficient driver).. I love Copper!

fwiw, a friend just bought a TiTool w Nichia and Loves it! Its a great little light in its own right. And that is what this thread is about.. so I will try to stop hijacking now

OOOOH so the tool ti wont explode when used with a 10440? i broke my worm with a 10440, it's only singlemode now and now it only works with a 10440. So i dont dare to put a 10440 in the tool. Suspect they got the same driver. But i really want to try with a 10440.....

 

[jon_slider]

OOOOH so the tool ti wont explode when used with a 10440? i broke my worm with a 10440

no guarantees, Im only sharing info Ive read, notably posts by write2dgray that I wont take time to dig up atm
sorry your worm got cooked
I personally have zero LiIon experience, and the TiTool is least suitable as it only runs in high mode on 10440

 

[Timothybil]

It seems that the corporate wisdom among those who have tried it is that a Tool won't go up in smoke immediately if used with a 10440, but that extended use will break components in the driver and leave the light in direct drive only mode. Plus, the additional heat will degrade the LED die itself faster. I tried it in my aluminum Tool, and the brightness increase was great, but the head started to heat up almost immediately, so I shrugged my shoulders and went back to a plain old AAA. It's not like I don't have any other lights around that are a lot brighter. My EA11, while about the same length, is about twice the diameter, but still a nice small light. And it is designed to accept a 14500 cell as well as an AA one. I can use my Tool as a backup and have the best of both worlds.

 

[Timothybil]

OOOOH so the tool ti wont explode when used with a 10440? i broke my worm with a 10440, it's only singlemode now and now it only works with a 10440. So i dont dare to put a 10440 in the tool. Suspect they got the same driver. But i really want to try with a 10440.....

As far as I can tell, the Tool, the Worm, and the IYP365 all use the same driver. (Not sure about the IYP365 since it is a two cell light) I did put a 10440 and a dummy cell in my IYP365 to see how well it worked, and it seemed ok. But since my interest there was in using rechargeable cells, I satisfied it by buying a couple of NiMH AAA cells instead. No use asking for trouble, it usually finds me fast enough on its own.

 

[jorn]

My tool also worked , but only for a day or so before the driver gave up and fried. Im experienced with using 10440 in lights that have no10440 support so did not use high for more than seconds at the time. Still it died on me...

 

[theretroshave]

Long-time lurker here... I know I'm late to this thread, but I recently had my Lumintop Tool "die" on me. It had been switched on hanging on the inside edge of my jeans pocket (I don't know how long). When I noticed and switched it off, it kind of flickered and wouldn't turn back on. This was maybe two days ago. Today, I decided to investigate.

A bit of history- I modified my LTT Cu by swapping the switch from an LTT Ti into it. I've been quite pleased with the resulting light, aside from occasionally discovering the light on in my pocket. It shares a space right next to my KeyBar, so sometimes it gets bumped and turned on.

Anyway, when I disassembled the tail switch, I was a bit baffled until I took a closer look at the small black block (not sure what it is actually called) that is soldered to the board inside of the coil. I apologize for the poor quality of my pictures, I had to use my phone to take them. My shots are not the sharpest, but I can pretty clearly see that the black block is cracked. After spotting this, I decided to try to push the block back together, which "worked" temporarily. When I put everything back together, I'm able to switch the light on and off for perhaps a minute or two before the light begins to flicker and stop working again.

I would prefer to not have to waste this switch or the money to buy another light to waste. If anyone here can get a clearer shot of the block to which I'm referring, can share the markings that are on the block, or perhaps could tell me where I might source a replacement block, I would greatly appreciate it. I'm a complete novice as it relates to working with electronics, but some coworkers can help me with the repair. I just need to know if/where I can get the part that's defective.

Has anyone else experienced this issue? Help would be immensely appreciated!

 

[Javora]

What is the writing on the diode? If you can read it then type it into the search bar of whatever search company you use and see what comes up. You may have to narrow the search down by putting in words like electronic or diode or maybe the name of the light. Hope this helps.

 

[theretroshave]

What is the writing on the diode? If you can read it then type it into the search bar of whatever search company you use and see what comes up. You may have to narrow the search down by putting in words like electronic or diode or maybe the name of the light. Hope this helps.

Good call on taking a closer look- I didn't think my phone's camera would capture a sharp enough image to get a good look at characters on the diode (thanks for putting a name to the object for me), but it seems that my phone worked to get the characters. Unfortunately, I'm not finding any results for what I believe to be the correct characters. Any reputable stores/sites that might have a good searchable selection of diodes?

Here's a shot of the characters on the diode. I'm glad I still have my Maratac twisty to keep handy. I get a certain joy whenever I need to use my "backup" tool to work on another tool.

 

[jon_slider]

I recently had my Lumintop Tool "die" on me. It had been switched on hanging on the inside edge of my jeans pocke

sorry for your loss, don't know the answer to your question
Did you use LiIon to kill the electronic switch?
in any case, you could go back to the mechanical switch right?
Im surprised your carry method allows the flush electronic switch to be accidentally activated.. seems your carry method is not compatible..
hope you find a happy solution

 

[theretroshave]

Well, tonight I decided to tackle this issue. I desoldered the spring, squeezed the diode together, added a drop of super glue, then some baking soda, then a bit more of each for good measure. After that dried, a resoldered the spring and reassembled the tailcap. I put the light back together with a new battery, and it's working again... For now.

We'll see if my repair fixes the issue long-term. Super glue and baking soda, together, are supposed to provide a very solid medium so I'm really hoping it holds. I'd rather not have to buy another light just for the switch.
Here's a shot of the light, back in action. I'm not including a shot of the repair because it's not pretty, but it's getting the job done, and it looks good where it counts.

 

[GarageBoy]

I don't get why they'd use this type of switch - I wish I could just get a nichia work not in copper

 

[jon_slider]

I don't get why they'd use this type of switch - I wish I could just get a nichia work not in copper

if you want a Tool w Nichia in Black Aluminum, go here

 

[Timothybil]

if you want a Tool w Nichia in Black Aluminum, go here

Currently shows out of stock, and Amazon no longer sells one either.