• You must be a Supporting Member to participate in the Candle Power Forums Marketplace.

    You can become a Supporting Member.

I EDC a Downboy w/ 1 cell?? Have I lost it??

knifebright

Enlightened
Joined
Aug 23, 2004
Messages
740
Location
sanfran by way of boston
Hey all
I've been running a little experiment. Im a li-ion guy. Love them but they do have there limitations and concerns a out overdriving the led's forward voltage. So lately i've been running a downboy1000 with a single r123. Here is some results. I've compared a fully charged r123(4.1volts) against another downboy 1000 with 2x123. Both had twoj and both were in lightengies inside aleph 1 heads. With a ceiling bownce test they were of equel brightness when the test began. I then had a third aleph 1 head that had a badboy 500 and a twoj. For 30 minutes the downboy's both were of equel brightness (1xr123 and 2x123). At the 35 minute mark the 1 cell downboy started to dim. At 40 minutes the down'boy 1000 was at about the same brightness of badboy 500ma with my bounce test. At the 40 minute mark the r123 was reading 3.48 on the voltage, still plenty of juice left. I know you all may not think that 30-40 minutes off full power is a lot but for me and my edc needs it works. Plus i get to use recharable options and I get high drive currents in a small package without pushing a board and a battery to the outer limits of distater.
jimmy
 
DB is perfect for 1x R123 li-ion cell. DB don't like to light up at low voltage. perfect for low voltage li-ion protection

really happy with 30-40 minute of brite w/5watt luxeon performance with 1x R123. most of the time I'm using low anyways. so I get several hours of runtime.

Kl4 E1E/ R123 combo don't like to light up with low voltage. so with single R123 li-ion, you get natural low voltage protection.

aleph w/1x R123 & DB 917 works great!!

kl4 kl1.JPG
 
With the downboy and the li-ion cell, the light won't run in regulation, but in direct drive mode. This usually results in about 700mA or so getting to the luxeon.

It does make for a nice EDC, but the funcion of the converter is wasted. If you like using the R123 in an EDC, maybe you should consider having a direct drive LE built.
 
Hey tony
I did build myself a direct drive light engine. It seems that for a minute that the unit is is regulation. I could be wrong but directly comparing brightness with the downboy against my direct drive light enginge, the direct drive is brighter. AS it should be. I also could have a very isolated case so i don't want to stir up anything
jimmy
 
For what you are doing, using like emitters, the DD should be brighter than the running the DB on a li-ion. On the R123, you should be seeing about 800mA or so to the lux. With the DB, it starts at around 700mA and goes down from there.
 

Latest posts

Top