Golston “7W” is so so hot…

Here in Hong Kong I just picked up 3 7W Golston flashlights and 9 3V rechargeable (IC limited) 123A Li-ion batteries and 2 chargers for them from a local shop. Now I am busy testing them and I have noticed something very interesting about this light... the body gets very hot! I am talking after only a few min you can feel it heating up, and after about 15 min it is already up to 37C (to hot to touch really)... The LED itself and the batteries both stay cool to the touch. Are other people experiencing this kind of thing? On another note the quality of the machine work seams nice enough and it does look to be a real Lumilides LED. Everything has double o-rings and I bet it really is water proof. I am thinking to mod this light; it seams to have plenty of space to add a regulation circuit to it.

P.S.

Don't expect them all to be the same, I got 3 and they have 3 totally different beams. One is bluish and a bit dimmer. One has a very tight spot when the head is totally screwed down. And one has a bit of a flood when the head is totally screwed down but can be adjusted to spot.

Edit:
Images father down the thread

Does this "to hot to hold" happen while holding the light or when you touch it after its been on a while?
It sounds like the case is being used as a heat sink and some of them rely on your hand being part of this process.
That the batteries and front of the LED are not hot is a good thing.

Mike Painter said:

Does this "to hot to hold" happen while holding the light or when you touch it after its been on a while?
It sounds like the case is being used as a heat sink and some of them rely on your hand being part of this process.
That the batteries and front of the LED are not hot is a good thing.

Click to expand...

The head of the light has fins built in for cooling, but they do not actually work as they seam to be the coolest part of the aluminum housing. I have not tried holding it in my hand the whole time. The "to hot to hold" that I speak of happens after touching a light that is sitting on my desk on for 15 min.


On a battery/charger note:

The company here sold me some IC limited 3V Li-Ion batteries (I believe they are IC limited anyway). The charger they sold me for them has 3.2V or 4.2V, they told me to use the 3.2V setting however I have found this is just wrong. The charger will shut down in less than 5 min on this setting but the batteries will die in less than 5 min too! Running on the 4.2V setting nothing gets hot, and it charges better, but it still dies in 19 min... If they really are IC limited should they not be charged at 4.4V? Also they claim to be 800mAh batteries but I bet that is just false.

thefish said:

it does look to be a real Lumilides LED

Click to expand...

Does it have a bin number on the bottom?

thefish said:

P.S. Don't expect them all to be the same, I got 3 and they have 3 totally different beams. One is bluish and a bit dimmer. One has a very tight spot when the head is totally screwed down. And one has a bit of a flood when the head is totally screwed down but can be adjusted to spot.

Click to expand...

Interesting...

I bought 2 and found exactly the opposite: I can't tell any difference between the beams of the two.

Photos here: https://www.candlepowerforums.com/posts/1232876&postcount=97

SuperNinja said:

Does it have a bin number on the bottom?

Click to expand...

I am not sure, I have not yet removed the LED, it is on a Star and mounted with just 2 screws but the hard part is that it uses stiff wire, so it would need to be unsoldered to pull it.

thefish said:

I am not sure, I have not yet removed the LED, it is on a Star and mounted with just 2 screws but the hard part is that it uses stiff wire, so it would need to be unsoldered to pull it.

Click to expand...

I didn't know the LED itself had a bin number.
I thought the bin number was on the bottom of the star?

SuperNinja said:

I didn't know the LED itself had a bin number.
I thought the bin number was on the bottom of the star?

Click to expand...

Oops, my bad, I meant to say the star... instead of using flexible wires, they used some kind of solid stiff wire, looks like it maybe be the lead for the Resistor is directly soldered to the star...

thefish said:

Oops, my bad, I meant to say the star... instead of using flexible wires, they used some kind of solid stiff wire, looks like it maybe be the lead for the Resistor is directly soldered to the star...

Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure someone posted that it is.

Fish, have you noticed a difference in brightness between the light running on the rechargeables and running on primaries?

I'm really itching to know what's printed on the back side of one of those stars.

What are the chances of there being nothing at all printed on the back of the star??

Here is the link I was looking for (found it in another thread on this forum).

It shows the front and back of a fake Luxeon.

http://www.flashlightreviews.com/reviews/amart_nonlux_123a.htm

Trashman said:

Fish, have you noticed a difference in brightness between the light running on the rechargeables and running on primaries?

Click to expand...

Yes, it seams to be a bit dimmer, running with the 3V recharageables... I have not tried standard 3.6V recharageables as the shop told me that would be a bad idea with this light.

SuperNinja said:

Here is the link I was looking for (found it in another thread on this forum).

It shows the front and back of a fake Luxeon.

http://www.flashlightreviews.com/reviews/amart_nonlux_123a.htm

Click to expand...

The front of this Luxeon looks much different than the fake one in that link, compared to some that I know are real it looks exactly the same as a LuxIII.

Here is another thread on the Golston:

https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/101174

Here are some images of this light, notice the poor soldering job on the star... it seams to be controlled by a 1.5 ohm resistor (or so my meter indicates). It draws 1amp from a fresh set of charged 3V batteries and there is 3.5V across the LED itself (making it really 3.5 watts).

thefish said:

...the body gets very hot! I am talking after only a few min you can feel it heating up, and after about 15 min it is already up to 37C (to hot to touch really)... The LED itself and the batteries both stay cool to the touch.

Click to expand...

I'm having a hard time understanding this. How can the body be hotter than the heat sources? Heatsinks don't work like that. Also, 37C is body temperature, certainly not dangerously hot to touch.

HammerSandwich said:

I'm having a hard time understanding this. How can the body be hotter than the heat sources? Heatsinks don't work like that. Also, 37C is body temperature, certainly not dangerously hot to touch.

Click to expand...

I am also unsure about this but it feels very hot to the touch, to the point that it is not comfortable. As for the temp, I got that just by placing a temp probe from my millimeter on the surface and holding it there with my thumb (not so accurate). I cant really explain the LED, but I unscrewed the head put my finger on the LED itself and it was cool to the touch.

thefish said:

I cant really explain the LED, but I unscrewed the head put my finger on the LED itself and it was cool to the touch.[/size][/font]

Click to expand...

So does that mean the heat is coming from the batteries? The Resistor?

brad cook

DigMe said:

So does that mean the heat is coming from the batteries? The Resistor?

brad cook

Click to expand...

37 C is coming from his thumb..The body of the light should be warmer and maybe he is cooling it with his thumb..If body of a light is 37C I will never say it is warm..If you hold a flashlight in your palm for 5 min it will heat to 37C-human body temperature