Nuwai Q3 vs Dorcy AAA Driver Circuits with Li-Ion

[twentysixtwo]

Playing around with Li-Ion R123 and AAA, put one in my Dorcy AAA, fried the LED but FAST! Bummer, it was a 26K LED too.

Here are the stats

Dorcy with Li-Ion running a TWOJ: 500 ma at the TWOJ, .65 ma at the battery. Fairly efficient.

Nuwai: .59 ma @ the Luxeon, 1.15A at the battery. Wow, that's really a crappy driver.

I'll let you do the numbers, but it really argues for putting the Dorcy circuit in the Q3, perhaps using an H binned star instead of a J. As pointed out before, the Dorcy circuit isn't as hot as the Q3, but definitely more efficient.

 

[rscanady]

Something doesnt seem right about only getting .59 ma at the Luxeon in the QIII, did you mean 0.59 A ? or 590 ma?

Ryan

 

[Bullzeyebill]

Re: Nuwai Q3 vs Dorcy AAA Driver Circuits with Li-

He meant 580mA, or 0.59A.

Bill

 

[twentysixtwo]

Re: Nuwai Q3 vs Dorcy AAA Driver Circuits with Li-

yeah, my bad - my vom reads in amps, not ma...

 

[rscanady]

Re: Nuwai Q3 vs Dorcy AAA Driver Circuits with Li-

cool, thanks

 

[goldserve]

Re: Nuwai Q3 vs Dorcy AAA Driver Circuits with Li-

twentysixtwo,

I am looking to do the same when I get back. Thanks. Do you have any pictures of the internals of your mod? Also, how are you measuring current? Take a resistor and measure the drop across it?

 

[twentysixtwo]

Re: Nuwai Q3 vs Dorcy AAA Driver Circuits with Li-

My VOM is in-line for current (10A Max)

I simply disconnected one side of the star and completed the circuit with my VOM.

No pix yet - I was simply measuring the benefit of using the Dorcy AAA circuit. Some people had estimated the QIII Driver efficiency at 60% but it can vary with input and output voltage.

Here are the stats:
QIII Driver efficiency with R123/TWOJ: 51%
DAAA Driver efficiency with R123/TWOJ: 77%

Current & Est run time on a 700 mah R123/TWOJ:

QIII: 36 min, 590 ma @ emitter
DAAA: 56 min, 500 ma @ emitter

So if you have a Q3, you can get 55% more run time if you sacrifice 18% current which probably is less than a 18% drop in brightness.

Me? I'm defintely going to buy another Q3 and mod it. Now if I could only figure out how to get a 85%-90% efficient driver that could pump out, say, 750 ma with a R123 that will fit. Will the Nexgen BB do it?

 

[wasBlinded]

Re: Nuwai Q3 vs Dorcy AAA Driver Circuits with Li-

Something is wrong there. You are using an R123 and not a CR123, and only getting 590 mA at the emitter? That is way low, and not characteristic of the R123/TWOJ/Q3 combination. I get about 600 mA at the emitter while pulling about 800 mA from a CR123. With an R123, current to the emitter is likely closer to 1000 mA. I suspect something is wrong with your methodology.

Still, the Q3 circuit IS inefficient.

 

[rscanady]

Re: Nuwai Q3 vs Dorcy AAA Driver Circuits with Li-

wouldnt the R123 cell bypass the converter due to the voltage rules on the converters. I thought that a R123 cell basically bypassed the circuitry and goes direct drive to the emitter, at least on the QIII???

Ryan

 

[twentysixtwo]

Re: Nuwai Q3 vs Dorcy AAA Driver Circuits with Li-

IIRC, there was some discussion that there is a ripple in the Q3 curent, so perhaps a DC current reading is incorrect.

The Q3 gets warm after ~5-10 minutes, enought to make me think it's receiving at least 750 ma

 

[mike101]

Re: Nuwai Q3 vs Dorcy AAA Driver Circuits with Li-

Resistance of the DMM was added to the driver circuit when you connected the DMM in series with the circuit. The current flow reduced due to the higher loading resistance.