Thanks for testing that selfbuilt. As always you're committed to making your reviews comprehensive, which is what makes them so greatly and widely appreciated :thumbsup:
Looks like I wasn't done yet .... I've gone and measured the behaviour of the light once the switch changes from solid green to solid red. :sweat:
Starting with cells with an average resting voltage of ~3.55V (=/- 0.05V per cell), I ran the light on the "Higher" level for a few mins, until the red switch indicator came on. At this point, I immediately turned the light off and measured the resting voltage of the cells, which were ~3.46V on average (with the lowest cell reading ~3.42V). Keep in mind, the cells are all in series on the Minimax. Also keep in mind that I am reporting resting voltages, after the cells have been pulled (i.e., I am not measuring under load).
I re-installed the cells, and ran the light on the Hi level. The indicator was green initially, as expected. After
8 mins at this Hi level, the indicator went red. I again pulled all the cells immediately, and measured the initial resting voltage as ~3.40V on average (with the lowest cell reading ~3.25V).
I re-installed the cells again, and ran the light on the Med level (with the indicator green initially). After
10 mins at this level, the indicator went red. I again pulled all the cells immediately, and measured the initial resting voltage as ~3.36V on average (with the lowest cell reading ~3.15V).
I re-installed the cells again, and ran the light on the Lo level (with the indicator green initially). After
50 mins at this level, the indicator went red. I again pulled all the cells immediately, and measured the initial resting voltage as ~3.30V on average (with the lowest cell reading ~3.13V).
In my view, this is MORE than sufficient warning to switch down to a lower level. I am sure the light would have run for a quite long time further on Moonlight, but was not prepared to wait and watch.
Just for kicks, I re-ran the light on Turbo at this point. It shut-off within 4 seconds, and would not reactivate immediately. I pulled the cells, and measured the resting voltage as ~3.29V (lowest cell reading ~3.08V). This is the point at which the light shut-down (well, the resting voltage equivalent at any rate - I don't know what voltage under load it would have been).
I gave the cells a couple of minutes to recover, and could run the light on Turbo for another ~3 seconds, before again experiencing shut-down with no immediate re-activation.
To point to the above is that you need to keep in mind that all cells bounce back from their discharged voltage on their own. As I mentioned earlier, I've measured cells as low as ~2.7V after the light shut-down on Turbo/Higher ... but typically, the cells are ~3.3V by the time I notice the run has stopped and I pop them into the charger. So even if you run the light to the point where it shuts-off, just give it a few mins and try again - it should re-activate.
Once it does, note that there is no restriction on what output level you can select if the light comes back on (i.e., all modes are available). But keep in mind that you likely don't have much runtime left, if the light has already shut-off once.
And that, I think, brings my circuit testing on this revised prototype to a close. :bow: Let's wait and see what the final version looks like ...
