New Thread on Kai 3W Cree (Elly--Elite)

HarveyRich

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Just received two "Elite," or Cree 3W "Ellys" from Kaidomain and thought the old lengthy thread could use a new one for people who actually have one of these. I'm expecting a couple of what appear to be the same or very similar light from DX and will compare when they come in.

First, the quality control is still an issue as it was with the Elly. Both of the arrivals had slight flickers. I soldered the negative terminal to the tube, but the flicker continued on one of them. Eventually I soldered a piece of wire to the negative terminal and then screwed it to the tube edge with one of the star screws. I also applied a little solder to secure it. The flicker then ceased.

One of them had a perfectly centered led, the other one was clearly off center. The centered one had a very nice narrowly focused beam which was clearly much brighter than the original Elly (light outputs below). The off centered one was taken apart and a wire place in it (as done with pictures in the original Elly thread) through the hold at the bottom of the bezel, below the star, and the other end to the positive terminal. This bypassed the boost circuit, thus making the flashlight direct drive. There is some focusing ability by twisting the head a little. You would need to tighten the reflector and head down with some teflon tape or the like, though. The hot spot doesn't spread hugely, however. The reflector is smooth, not OP–some thought Kai had an OP type.

I used this with a 14500 li-ion battery–exceptional results. Because the led was off center, the hot spot resembled a slightly lopsided sun with solar flares rather than a perfectly rounded hotspot with an abrupt dropoff to the spill. Since the hotspot was larger than on an earlier direct drive Creed Elly (mod done by me) and the spill was very large, I decided to leave it alone rather than attempt to file down the star to recenter (it was the placement of the led that was off center, not the reflector). My approximate light outputs (hand held for optimum numbers), in lux at one meter:

1. Creed Elly with NiMH battery 1475 lux

2. Direct Drive Elly (led off center), with 14500 battery; very tiny hotspot at center. Nice spill, though 3600 lux

3. Direct Drive Elly with 14500 battery (Creed from Elly earlier–led centered nicely) 4700 to 4800 lux; tightly focused beam, typical cree rings visible, but some spill (enough, though)

Conclusions:

1. Nice light with the Cree only, but some problems (e.g. flicker) may need to be dealt with. I'd agree with the tests that showed the Creed light to be 2 1/2 to 3 times as bright as the original Elly.

2. Off center led caused some dispersion of the beam and consequently more spill and less throw; still decent throw.

3. Changed to direct drive, using a 14500 battery, the light is a "monster." If the led is centered is has fantastic throw with some decent spill. If used with the off centered led, the throw is still very nice and considerably better than with the boost circuit active using aNiMH battery.

4. I'm driving the led directly from the li-ion battery and have found that the current at the led appears to be about 1.3 amps on a fairly fresh battery. Thus, I may be overdriving the led. However, so far, even with a run test on 14500 to about an hour, the led seems fine. It heats up somewhat, but is warm, not hot. This may diminish the light eventually, but it's just great in this mode right now.

5. I'm doing a run-time test of the NiMH version of the regular Creed version with a LaCrosse 2400 mah battery. So far, at 1 hr 50 mins it is still going strong. The hotspot is smaller, but the lux at 1 meter is still around 1250, which is pretty substantial.

Final conclusion: Great little light and even better on direct drive–assuming you get a decent and functional one.
 

axolotls

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I could've sworn I read that you shouldn't use a 14500 in this. Or was that another light? I have a couple coming from Kai (hopefully this week). The tracking comes up with nada.

Good Review!
 

2xTrinity

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axolotls said:
I could've sworn I read that you shouldn't use a 14500 in this. Or was that another light? I have a couple coming from Kai (hopefully this week). The tracking comes up with nada.

Good Review!
Note they specified direct drive with 14500 -- running a 14500 in there will cause the circuit to burn out, so I believe many have simply bypassed the circuit entirely and installed a direct wired connection (with a resistor, perhaps) in its place -- giving up the ability to run AA.
 

HarveyRich

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Originally Posted by 2xTrinity:
Note they specified direct drive with 14500 -- running a 14500 in there will cause the circuit to burn out, so I believe many have simply bypassed the circuit entirely and installed a direct wired connection (with a resistor, perhaps) in its place -- giving up the ability to run AA

That's exactly what I did for these on 14500. I can do it, so that makes it pretty easy to do on this flashlight. Didn't put in a resistor, though. If I burn out an led, not a big deal. However, then I might add a 1 ohm resistor as suggested in the big Elly thread. I do like the massive light from this on a 14500, as is, though.
 
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axolotls

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Thanks guys. I'll probably do that with one of them if it's easy enough. I have a direct drive Seoul 18650, which is my fave carry around now.
 

Melven

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What state are you in? I also have a Kai Elly on order and wondering if I can expect it to be waiting for me at home?
 

Omega Man

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Here's hoping this thread catches on, or gets merged maybe. The other thread kinda looks like a bunch of PMs and monolgues(I'm guilty too of coarse).
I got mine today and I guess I got a good 'un, absolutly no flickering. I smacked this guy around really good, too. Stayed on solidly with repeated blows to the head and body. It won't come on if the bezel is screwed down super tight, it needs to be just so the bezel resists and you'd normally stop turning. Stays constant while unthreading the bezel, and my gosh it looks great in candle mode, lit my whole bathroom up very well. The switch is a bit meh, you need to push it straight inward or it'll stick, so your thumb needs to be centered on the button and not pushing on an angle.
It's smaller than I imagined too, I'd say pocketable. I'm pretty happy with it.
My multimeter blew a fuse so I can't measure what it's voltage cutoff is. Looks nice on a fresh NimH though. I'll do a runtime when the 3w dropin is done hogging the stopwatch.
 

Minjin

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The low voltage turn on problem was too much of an issue for me since I would use it predominantly with NIMHs. It also means that the light can't extract as much power from a non-rechargeable battery as it should. Thats a deal breaker for me.

If they could fix this issue, I would recommend it whole-heartedly at its current price.
 

True

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Yapo, it is just a turn-on voltage, not a cutoff. If you are running the light and it falls below this threshhold, it will continue to run - but if you power cycle, the light will not turn on.

The reason why (and a fix) can be found at
http://candlepowerforums.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1899558&postcount=501

Keep in mind, each unit is different. My Seoul'd Elly cuts off at 1.04v, which is acceptable. My DX Cree'd Elly cuts off at 1.17v, which is a bit high for my liking, so I may modify this one to keep turning on at lower voltages.
 
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HarveyRich

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True: Thanks for the post about how to mod the Elly driverboard to trick the flashlight into starting below 1v reliably. Maybe it's not as complicated as it sounds. However, I have some information about runtimes on my Creed Elly that should interest those who are concerned about the turn-on voltage threshold. I did a runtime test on my Creed Elly (Elite) from Kaidomain, running it for 30 minutes (on a 2400 mah LaCrosse NiMH battery), then testing the battery voltage. I left it off for about 10 minutes between runs. Here are my results.

Starting at time zero--#1 (in general, after 10 mins off between runs, the battery voltage is up about 0.02v from the turnoff voltage)
1. 1.38v (time zero)
2. 30 mins 1.27 volts
3. 1 hr 1.28v
4. 1hr 30 min 1.25v
5. 2 hr 1.22v
6. 2 hr 15 min 1.18 v (now running and checking at 15 min intervals)
7. 2 hr 30 min 1.10 v light won't restart, even after 15 mins off.

So, my conclusion is that (at least for this Creed Elly) the light will give one a full 2 1/2 hrs of use (or longer if left on at the end point), but that it will only start up again after being turned off up to about 2 hr 15 mins of use. My thinking is that despite the higher voltage threshold for turning back on, the runtime with threshold at or above 1.18 volts where it does turn on, is quite acceptable. That is, I could get it to turn back on after 2 hr 15 mins of use. So, I wouldn't hesitate to purchase this inexpensive light despite this "problem."
 

Omega Man

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I just started a runtime test using an Energizer 2500maH. I'll edit this post when it's finished. I don't have a working mutimeter unfortunatly, so I can't note voltages.
EDIT- The output stayed pretty damned constant for atleast 2.5 hours. At 2:50 it was noticably dim, maybe half output. At this point, 2:57, I turned it off and it did not come back on again. So I'm calling mine at 3:00 runtime, 2.5 before it won't come back on. Not bad.
Just wish I coulda checked the voltages throughout. Also, I did turn it off and back on throughout the test, atleast every hour.

EDIT2-Ha, came back on after the batt rested for a min! I'll let this sucker go for another half hour and see what the output is like.
 
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axolotls

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Got mine today (finally). Great Deal especially with the glass lens. Torn O-Ring on one (whatever). 2 Hours on a NiMH is fantastic on a Cree for $9.49!

As Harvey noted, I too see a slight flicker in one of mine also
 
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X_Marine

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Glad to hear they are finally shipping.
I've been waiting over well a month for orders from both Kyle & Kai.

Glad at least some have seen the light.. :rock:

If someone would scribble out that schematic for adding a twinsister, I would be happy to draw it up nice an purdee for all. ')

ThanX
X.
 

KevinCK

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There are too many other threads on this light.

Can someone point me to a thread that has a detailed description (even better if there's pictures) of what i have to do to bypass the circuit so i can use 14500s?
 

HarveyRich

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KevinCK: Glad to. Here's the URL: http://candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=141874&page=14&pp=30&highlight=elly. It's a long, long thread; so, specifically check out post #411 for pictures (which is what I did) and also look at #394, both posts are by joedm. It's really pretty easy. Basically, you unsolder the existing wire on the + terminal. You take a new wire and solder it to the + terminal and place it through a hole in the side of the star to a small hole in the middle of the printed circuit board (you can remove the whole head piece). With the wire through the hole, you can solder it to that piece on the underside rather than through all the circuitry. I'd do it the reverse way--attach the wire through the hole first and then reattach the start and solder the other side of the wire to the + terminal.

Good luck.
 

ace0001a

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I sort of "frankensteined" my Elly. I took the DX Elly I modded myself with a CreeXRE star, slapped on a Cree Optic, took the glass lens and "beefier" O-ring from the flckery KD Elly I got and now I have a good working one. The Cree optic works great and fits pefectly (of course you have to take out the stock reflector and ring retainer). Now I want to get a better driver in there to improve performance on common AA batteries as I really don't want to use Li-Ion batteries myself (got a boatload of AA batteries).
 

axolotls

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Cool. Thanks. Sounds easy. Disconnect the positive wire. New Wire from Positive of Cree to a hole in the middle of the pcb where the battery hits.

Will give it a shot.
 

Lighthouse one

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A have 6 Elly's..two Cree's from DX. My stock Elly's ( with a 1 watt Green Led) drawing stock ma- runs over 4 hours on a 2500 Energizer. I love this light. Great night light- And bathroom light. I also did a blue one. Led's From Besthongknog.com . My 2 cree's run great on 1.2 or 1.5 batteries- so I guess I'm lucky. They are great around the house lights- or loan to a friend type that it doesn't matter what happens to it! Oh,yes- I put my own Cree in one, the DX ones are better. Took that one to work for a work light.
 

abvidledUK

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I'm thinking of converting some of my (10) Cree'd Elly's back to original led.

Cree'd just too bright for some night-time wanderings.

I know some of the original LEDs had good white colour, just wish I'd marked them previously, now some sort of night-time test rig to sort them colour tint wise.
 
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