Nuwai ALX352L FLuPIC TW0J 18650 mod

I purchased a dead ALX352L some time ago with the intention of modding it. The original driver circuit had a couple of blown MOSFETs due to a shorted output.
This host was a 5W, 2x CR123 but I have modified it to accept 18650 cells that were pulled from some laptop battery packs.

I started by creating a board that aould have the positive and negative battery contacts. This board also contains a Q3 switch embedded to the correct height for button contact.


Random Battery shot - note the extra height of the Protected R123!


Note how good a fit the 18650 is for 2x CR123 replacement.


The Tube was bored out to accept the 18650. Lots of wall thickness left.


Beam Shot Low/Medium


Side by side. Nuwai with MiniMag


Paul

Very nice!

How warm does the body get after 10 minutes on the the FLuPIC's 20/20 high setting and how much current is it drawing?

That reflector is about 34 mm wide, right?

Thanks Lumenhound.

That thing has a ton of thermal mass so the body just gets slightly warm.
I believe on High Mode (20/20) there is only one LDO regulator turned on and that limit's the output to about 550-600mA. The Luxeon is under-driven until the FLuPIC is switched to Max. On Max Brightness, both LDOs are turned on for 1.1-1.2Amps to the Luxeon.

Between High and Max, my eyes do not see a great difference in output, but the light meter does.

I like the reflector - it's partly OP'd and produces a nice beam. I don't have the light handy right now to measure it.

Paul

Very nice mod indeed! Now if we could get some runtime graphs... :rock:

goldserve said:

Very nice mod indeed! Now if we could get some runtime graphs... :rock:

Click to expand...

That's kind of funny, I started one yesterday, but stopped it when I did not recall what level I had "High" set at.

Paul

Here's a quick runtime from an 18650 pulled from an old laptop battery pack.
The setting should be at level 20 (one LDO ~ 550-600mA). Just over 2.5hrs to 50%.

On Max setting (both LDOs) the output is over 4000 Lux @ 1m!




Lumenhound, the reflector is 32mm dia.

Paul

Very nice graph. What are you using to log the runtime? A few other questions:

Are you using two 18650s in parallel or just one?

goldserve said:

Very nice graph. What are you using to log the runtime? A few other questions:

Are you using two 18650s in parallel or just one?

Click to expand...

Thanks ,
I use a ProteK 608 connected to my Meterman LM631 for graphing. I import the data and graph it in Excel.

The runtime is with one 18650 - recovered from a laptop battery pack that was being discarded. There is no indication of mAh on the cell.

Paul

i need to do a new circuit to work with 18650 because needs more space?

marcos7007 said:

i need to do a new circuit to work with 18650 because needs more space?

Click to expand...

I'm sorry but I am not sure what you are asking. The 18650 is the same length as 2x CR123s so the circuit board position will not change. I changed circuit boards to the FLuPIC.

because in alx352l go 17650 / 70 = 168S or 600S

and not
18650 = 168A or 600A
did you make any mod to accept 600a instead 600s


http://flashlightreviews.com/features/pila_table.htm

marcos7007 said:

because in alx352l go 17650 / 70 = 168S or 600S

and not
18650 = 168A or 600A
did you make any mod to accept 600a instead 600s


http://flashlightreviews.com/features/pila_table.htm

Click to expand...

Well he bored out the body.

The only physical difference b/w 18650 and 17650 is the 1 mm extra diameter. Both have the same length @ 65 mm.