Broken Romisen RC-C8 II Q5

Ok so I bought a Romisen RC-C8 II from Shiningbeam, the first one was delivered to an old address, it seems like the people there decided to just keep it, even though it had the correct contact information on it, so I ordered another one, that one came today, it did not have directions, I put the batteries in upside down and promptly fried the driver circuit. Totally my fault, so after looking at it, what fried is a part labeled 106e 817K4, I could not find any info about that part online, it's a tan/yellow square, I think it's a capacitor but I am not sure.

Anyways after some research I have found various driver boards for sale, and I have been unable to figure out which one would be the best fit, it seems to me the one that came in the light is 19mm, I have been intending to run the flashlight on 2xCR123 batteries though I would like to have the flexibility to run 1x18650 or 3xAAA. I would like at the very least a high/med/low setting.

The emitter is a Cree XP-E Q5 and I would really like to see a maximum output around 300 lumen.

Is anyone more knowledgeable about these things than I am aware of a driver that would work properly, any advice would be highly appreciated.

Is it this light here?
Says it uses XR-E Q5. At 1 amp luminous flux will be approx 230 lumens. To achieve 300 lumens, you would need an emitter upgrade, probably to an R4 or R5 binned XP-G. I wouldn't bother with that part.

It is possible that the light uses a 19mm driver board, I don't have one to check. But, 17mm is much more common. You can't just guess you will need to measure it.

There are not very many driver boards out there with just low-med-high unfortunately. For whatever reason the asian manufacturers in particular insist that we be innudated with strobes, blinkys, fast flashes and SOS modes

I do know of 1 17mm board that has Hi-Lo only but it is only suitable for 6V max, so you wouldn't be able to use 2xRCR123 (16340 li-co) and I wouldn't suggest 2xCR123 either. You could use 18650 or 3xAAA instead.

Also, there is a 16 mode driver that is broken into 3 groups. One of the groups has lo-med-hi but same voltage restrictions.

A member here has put together a very useful searchable database of drivers, please browse it.

And welcome to CPF! :wave:

I measured the circuit board at 3/4" which would be 19mm, it was hard to get a measurement because of all the stuff mounted on it, the gap it mounts into measured to just over 3/4" so I am fairly certain I am correct.

That is exactly the light I ordered, it's better built than any of the lights I ended up returning to the store, I lurked here for a bit and did a lot of research before buying it, I decided I really liked the idea of a focusable beam, there didn't seem to be a lot of good choices and it looks like the efficiency of emitters should continue to improve markedly over the next few years so I decided to hold off on spending the money on anything super nice.

I placed an order at shiningbeam yesterday for a RC-2R4 II R5 with an R5 emitter, a circuit board SKU 1218 for my repair attempt, and 2 nylon holsters.

The driver says it's a 3 mode Regulated Circuit Board for Cree XP-G and XR-E with an input voltage of 2.8~6v and output modes of 60mA on low, 440mA on medium and 1.4A.

And I meant to say XR-E Q5 not XP-E Q5, will the circuit board I selected work well with that driver? I figure if it's a little small I will build a spacer to hold it in place out of a cut up plastic fork and some epoxy, as long as it's bridged to the ground point? with solder the way the original board was it should work even if it is a little undersized right?

Oh and I got good news today, the people that the first light I ordered was shipped to, returned it, and Shiningbeam is shipping it to me, so I am going to end up with 3 flashlights, at least 2 of which should work.