Revealed! Anatamy of a Bushnell *Long*

Based on the recent threads on the Bushnell multi level light,

I felt I had to have one. Well it showed up the other day and I was fairly impressed for a store bought light. On high, it is brighter than my BOG 3 watt. I think there should be more difference between the 3 levels but I guess that is a personal thing. I decided to have a look-see inside so I got out the screwdriver and went to work.

The overly complicated tail cap:



I measured about 6.5 ohms resistance across the switch circuit. I'm not sure if this because of the find it feature or just a bad switch. Later I am going to clean and apply some Pro Gold to it and see if that fixes it. I may disable the find it feature based on the warning thread by toomannygizmos.
Now to the top end. The reflector and Bezel/window:

The Star:

Got lucky on this one. One of my favorite tints.

Rotary switch and driver assy:




The rotary switch needs some lube or Pro Gold or something as it is dry from the factory.
And finally...

None of the screw together joints had any sealant on them. Everything came apart very easily.
I may experiment and see if I can figure out which resistors control the different levels and change them to suit my needs.
Overall, I think I'm going to like this one.

Nice Work.

I am so confused though. Another thread had a light reading over time and it clearly does not look regulated despite the designer's claims (via e-mail). But you just proved there IS a driver in there. I'm so confused. anyone?

Maybe it's only regulated on low and medium.

Archangel said:

Maybe it's only regulated on low and medium.

Click to expand...

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooo. That'd be neat.

Bajeezers! that's one complicated driver and switch! Q10 (P/N BI104) looks like the output transistor...darn big one! What's the rotory switch for? It looks like the tailcap changes the output levels (looks like a couple of transistors with bias resistors), so I don't know what the rotor switch does. Pretty complicated light.

Tail is master switch with batt indicator, rotary for selecting hi/med/low/strobe/sos/off. its all on the specs.

Archangel said:

Maybe it's only regulated on low and medium.

Click to expand...

I just did a run test on medium setting. Very flat regulation for 2 hours 36 minutes then drops fairly rapidly.
The high setting doesn't seem to be regulated at all and only runs about 1:18 to 50% output.
The Medium setting is approx 70% of the high setting's output.

I just finished a little more testing, the batt/find me circuit draws about 3ma. The light on high measured from the battery draws about 1000ma, on med about 500ma, and on low about 250ma.

Good call archangel!

Thanks for doing the testing. With your picks and the regulation graph, you just convinced me to buy this light:goodjob: . Why'd you have to go and do that?

Dawg is wagging his tail. :goodjob:

...... ledaholic , EXtremely nice thread , .. :kewlpics: , much info , thanks for the hard work !


... Dawg , sorry I rained on your parade ....... new info :

EDIT : AS OF 7/18/2006 , I have retracted my Cautionary warning on this light -as I have been UN-SUCCESFUL in recreating the first two total failures , using the very same batteries(6) in my testing . I do , however , see continual minimal draining of the batteries if the *find me* feature is left ON .

I will post my batt. drain findings - later .


Keep up the GOOD WORK ........... LEDAHOLIC :goodjob:
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.... Bye-the-way ,

The *SHORT* Bushnell 1-Watt ( 1 cell ) , does NOT have a " OFF " detent on the rotating head . only continual cycles of HI- S.O.S.- STROBE . So you can NOT use the rotating head to shut the light OFF - only the clickie will turn it off .

Also - it does NOT have a glowing "B" tail-cap like the *Long* model .(so no battery-drain issues with it) ... Very long plunger travel to turn ON . Not as easy to turn on with thumb - as the *Long* model is.

It is a scaled-down version in size . It is NOT just a shortened version of the *Long* model . Everything about it is smaller .

It IS quite bright - very white tint - brighter than a *stock* Fenix L1P 1-Watt .

The *Beam spot* on both of these lights CAN BE IMPROVED ....... by modifying the focal point of the reflector .

From the factory- they are a BROAD , un-focused beam - to look more like a LuxV,than a LuxIII or Lux I .

Both models can be modded (easily) to a tighter , even brightness spot .


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Wow, thanks for those terrific pictures! :goodjob:

I love dismemberment pictures. Of flashlights, that is Nice job.

hsjrev said:

I just did a run test on medium setting. Very flat regulation for 2 hours 36 minutes then drops fairly rapidly.
The high setting doesn't seem to be regulated at all and only runs about 1:18 to 50% output.
The Medium setting is approx 70% of the high setting's output.

Click to expand...

Is it possible that the output drops due to die temp heating up? Kind of a waste to put all that electronics in there only to regulate the medium and low settings.

I think its possible its due to the die heating up if its driven at 1a, but it seems like the heatsink in there should be substancial enough, and although it appears they use WAY too much thermal paste, it seems like a HUGE drop for just heating the die.

Also, its wierd that the output increases over the first 15 minutes. I don't think i've ever seen that before!

Thanks for all the work tearing this thing apart, and good luck with the mods.

schiesz

schiesz said:

Also, its wierd that the output increases over the first 15 minutes. I don't think i've ever seen that before!

Click to expand...

Very similar to the runs with intentionally mismatched cells in a Scorpion Xenon light done by Quickbeam on his site. Not sure if it's a sign of mismatched cells or just a characteristic of an unregulated high-current light run on multiple CR123A cells.

Graphs near the bottom of the page:

http://www.flashlightreviews.com/features/123burst.htm

I think we may be looking at this the wrong way. According to the current draws for Hi/med/low of 1000/500/250ma, medium and low being regulated. With the voltage of 6V, the led is likely seeing pretty close to 500ma on med, which would be most other lux light's "high". It looks more to me like High is actually "burst", drawing as much current as possible, or perhaps only hindered to 1A by a resistor to prevent dusting the led. So, I'm thinking that this light was intended to run on "med" as the standard setting. We may be getting caught up in the labeling of hi/med/low. If Bushnell called it low/high/burst, nobody would be questioning this.

so... based on this. it seems like it is an obvious and easy 'mod' to just swap out the stars on these.
would there be any significant risk in using a different Vf (given the 'burst' mode). specifically I was thinking of dropping in a uwaj
or would I be better off just sticking with a uwok
discuss
and if it makes a difference
as per this post
https://www.candlepowerforums.com/posts/1501855&postcount=95
I plan to use either 3.7v rcr123's or the lifepo4's (3.2v iirc)
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also anyone know the window/lens size, composition?
edit2: do we know the if this is HA II or HA III?

.... Has anyone actually tried using 3.7v to 4.2v RE-chargeables in this light ?

Does the complicated circuitry look like it would handle it ?


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