Romisen RC-H3

[rebelbayou]

Hello,
I bought a Romisen RC-H3 a couple of years ago and it was one of the first LED lights that I acquired when the "bug" hit. At first, it was bright and impressive. Since then I have added several newer LED lights(A1, TR-801, TF 2C, Mag LED, etc. plus a couple of custom jobs). The old Romisen sure looks weak and greenish tinted now. I emailed shining beam and was told that I could not run a 14500 because it would blow the driver and I needed to upgrade to a 3 mode driver to make it brighter. What would be the easiest way to be able to run 14500 and really boost the output? Is there a drop in available for this light that someone could suggest or link to give me some ideas?

p.s. It has a cree LED on a white board and is 1 mode.

 

[baterija]

I had one too, although it was given away. I really liked that little light. Unless you bought the Q5 binned shiningbeam variant you are probably looking at it being a P3 binned Cree as it was originally spec'd. There's no convenient drop in but you could make it quite a bit brighter even on the same driver/NiMh by replacing the emitter. Just sticking with an XR-E going to an R2 binned emitter give you about double the light at the same drive current versus a P3 bin.

You could instead replace the driver with something that gave you higher drive current and 14500 support. If you are taking it apart and breaking out the soldering iron though the emitter change probably is the "low hanging fruit" for return on effort.

Of course you could do both while it was apart - driver and emitter. :devil:

 

[rebelbayou]

I think that if I tear into it, I might as well replace both the driver and emitter. I haven't ever done it before but I feel pretty confident in my ability to solder and swap those out. I have been reading CPF every day for the past couple of years, but I still don't know what kind of driver or emitter to look for. Am I correct in the fact that I need an X-RE R2 binned emitter? I really like the light and I'd prefer a thrower over a flooder any day. I would also like to use a 14500.

 

[baterija]

I'm not sure what size driver you are looking for since I never took mine apart. Torchboy's driver list might help you find one.

An R2 binned XR-E is the easy emitter upgrade since the light/reflector was designed around an XR-E.

 

[rebelbayou]

Thanks for the link. Mucho information on that page! But first, I need to find out what size driver I need. Could someone point me to a link to explain how to measure what size driver I need? For instance, if a driver is 24mm x 14mm, what is being measured? The thickness of the board, across the board??? I'm sure there is a sticky or link somewhere that explains the basics of swapping out drivers. I just can't seem to find it. Thanks for advice so far.

 

[baterija]

Thanks for the link. Mucho information on that page! But first, I need to find out what size driver I need. Could someone point me to a link to explain how to measure what size driver I need? For instance, if a driver is 24mm x 14mm, what is being measured? The thickness of the board, across the board??? I'm sure there is a sticky or link somewhere that explains the basics of swapping out drivers. I just can't seem to find it. Thanks for advice so far.

Diameter is probably the key dimension since you need to be able to fit it inside the pill setup. After that the height/thickness. That's a little less critical in some cases since the bottom of the driver is probably the contact point and somewhere in the battery system is a spring.

 

[rebelbayou]

That's what I needed to know. Thanks for the help!