scott.cr
Flashlight Enthusiast
My WF-500 came in the mail yesterday (actually a Trustfire TR-500 but it is probably the exact same light).
This light is made of powdered aluminum like most of the Chinese lights of its ilk, and powdercoated. For those who don't have one, the main parts are the head, primary battery tube, extension battery tube and cap. The negative electrical path is via flats cut into the tube faces. The flats butt against each other when the barrel parts are threaded together. With the extension tube in place the light fits two 18650s; without the extension tube I believe two 18500s.
It looks like the raw aluminum parts are powdercoated, and then the electrical contact flats are hand-sanded to expose the aluminum. When I noticed that the flats were hand-sanded I figured that they aren't making the best electrical contact, because hand-sanded flats generally means they are not exactly parallel to one another, which in turn means that the contact area will be very small.
So, I disassembled the light, chucked each piece in my lathe and trued the contact faces.
Now check this out, before machine work, my light drew 2.60 amps of power. After machine work, it drew 2.62 amps of power on the same cells! A small but measurable gain, probably due to reduction of resistance in the electrical path. BTW, before both tests, all electrical contact areas were cleaned with a generic contact cleaner (nothing fancy like ProGold).
I'm really liking my new $27 light, for the money it offers unbeatable bang for the buck. It's cheap enough and bright enough that I can keep one in each car or wherever I want a bright, cheap, semi-disposable light.
Now let's see how the lamp holds up...
This light is made of powdered aluminum like most of the Chinese lights of its ilk, and powdercoated. For those who don't have one, the main parts are the head, primary battery tube, extension battery tube and cap. The negative electrical path is via flats cut into the tube faces. The flats butt against each other when the barrel parts are threaded together. With the extension tube in place the light fits two 18650s; without the extension tube I believe two 18500s.
It looks like the raw aluminum parts are powdercoated, and then the electrical contact flats are hand-sanded to expose the aluminum. When I noticed that the flats were hand-sanded I figured that they aren't making the best electrical contact, because hand-sanded flats generally means they are not exactly parallel to one another, which in turn means that the contact area will be very small.
So, I disassembled the light, chucked each piece in my lathe and trued the contact faces.
Now check this out, before machine work, my light drew 2.60 amps of power. After machine work, it drew 2.62 amps of power on the same cells! A small but measurable gain, probably due to reduction of resistance in the electrical path. BTW, before both tests, all electrical contact areas were cleaned with a generic contact cleaner (nothing fancy like ProGold).
I'm really liking my new $27 light, for the money it offers unbeatable bang for the buck. It's cheap enough and bright enough that I can keep one in each car or wherever I want a bright, cheap, semi-disposable light.
Now let's see how the lamp holds up...