tobjectpascal
Banned
- Joined
- Feb 19, 2006
- Messages
- 177
I bought a $39 flashlight as a starter a few weeks back it's a "x-glow" cree XR-E now this is what happened, i thought i'd flatten this battery completely because i thought this ni-mh needed it so i left the light going for 3 - 4 hours it looked about 30 lumens worth of light still enough to make you look away if you shined it at your eyes but flat enough to give it a good charge.
Anyway i put in a brand new AA switched it on, it seemed to be only 1/2 the brightness, i thought damn it, this LED dead already so i thought id pump up the current so i slapped 2 AA's in series and the light sprung back to life so i put in a 3rd (which this series is capable of doing) and wow it was bright i let it run at 175 lumens for about 40 seconds it got warm pretty quick put back the AA..
This time not only did 1 AA bring it back to life but it was brighter than when i bought it so my conclusion...
The Driver Board in these things are absolutely terrible, it appears to remember the last amount of current going through it and tries to maintain it, it's memory so as the battery drained it seemed to stick at 20 - 40 lumens, not only was it brighter but in ma, it's pulling around 100ma more than it did to begin with.. it's visibly brighter. If i could id rip the driver out and replace it but in these lights there's a rim of metal at the top preventing you, i'll do some pictures tomorrow but the interesting thing for me was seeing it do around 180 - 200 lumens it's BRIGHT :naughty:
Anyway for anyone who owns one of these things (jaycar/torchworld/ebay) and it's getting dull it's probably down to the fact you used it with low power and it stuck that way..... it's working great again for me :twothumbs
Anyway i put in a brand new AA switched it on, it seemed to be only 1/2 the brightness, i thought damn it, this LED dead already so i thought id pump up the current so i slapped 2 AA's in series and the light sprung back to life so i put in a 3rd (which this series is capable of doing) and wow it was bright i let it run at 175 lumens for about 40 seconds it got warm pretty quick put back the AA..
This time not only did 1 AA bring it back to life but it was brighter than when i bought it so my conclusion...
The Driver Board in these things are absolutely terrible, it appears to remember the last amount of current going through it and tries to maintain it, it's memory so as the battery drained it seemed to stick at 20 - 40 lumens, not only was it brighter but in ma, it's pulling around 100ma more than it did to begin with.. it's visibly brighter. If i could id rip the driver out and replace it but in these lights there's a rim of metal at the top preventing you, i'll do some pictures tomorrow but the interesting thing for me was seeing it do around 180 - 200 lumens it's BRIGHT :naughty:
Anyway for anyone who owns one of these things (jaycar/torchworld/ebay) and it's getting dull it's probably down to the fact you used it with low power and it stuck that way..... it's working great again for me :twothumbs
