Good driver for P7?

I bought myself a Christmas present (Shh, don't tell me, it's a secret). It's an Ultrafire WF-1000L, from Dealextreme.

The fit and finish of the light looks nice, and it looked like a good solid base for modding. I heard the driver is not very good though, and that some have had the driver fail and burn up the LED.

Any suggestions for a good quality driver that would take full advantage of the P7?

I have a p7 Mag that I built, and I used the 3.0a buck converter from Kaidomain. It seems to work quite well and its cheap. I did have to heat sink it to the wall of the light with thermal grease to be able to run it on high for long periods of time here is a link. Hope this helps.

Any chance of some beamshots from the WF-1000?

Also how much Amp draw from 2 18650 freshly charged would be nice, I have the WF-900 and want to know if the 1000 is really any brighter.

Thanks...

tobjectpascal said:

Any chance of some beamshots from the WF-1000?

Also how much Amp draw from 2 18650 freshly charged would be nice, I have the WF-900 and want to know if the 1000 is really any brighter.

Thanks...

Click to expand...

I will try to get these as soon as I can, but the light has not shipped yet so I probably won't have it for at least a couple weeks.

From what I have read, the WF-900 and WF-1000L supposedly draw almost exactly the same current from the bateries, so I believe they probably have the same output!

Kinda makes me wonder what the difference is between the 2 models...

For starters it would be nice to see some thorough pictures of all the parts of the two lights dismantled, and compare the size and depth of the reflectors, how big the pill is and how good the heatsinking is, etc. to see what (if anything) is different.

Hellbore said:

Kinda makes me wonder what the difference is between the 2 models...

Click to expand...

WF-900L has old WF-500 style body, 1000L has completely new one (better heatsinking). WF-1000L also has bigger (wider and deeper) reflector which provides really good throw (it's really noticeable even though both has the same driver).

Hey guys my Ultrafire WF-1000L came in the mail today!

I get off work in a few minutes, then I will go and check it out and post pictures and measurements!

Got the light, fired it up, it worked for about 5 minutes then the driver board fried itself. It won't give the LED more than 100 mA now. There is a part on the board that burned up. Lucky for me, at least the driver died in a way that didn't harm the emitter.

My advice, do not buy this light unless you intend to install a different driver. The driver that comes in this light is utter crap and is known to fail. I have seen several other stories from WF-1000L owners who had the board fail, sometimes in ways that cooked the emitter.

What else sucks about this light? Let me see. The soldering is horrible. The pill is not copper, which you would like to see in a P7 light, it is aluminum. There are no less than 3 places on the light where the bare AL threads are conducting the electricity (I know you guys don't like threads conducting). The star is not affixed to the pill with thermal adhesive, instead it's just thermal grease, and the star is held down by the pressure of the reflector smashing the emitter.

Oh well, time to get a real driver, like I expected I would have to!

P.S. - Incidentally, when I ordered this light I also ordered one of the Aurora P7 900 lumen tactical assault crown 1x18650 yadda yadda yadda lights. Guess what? The Aurora works great and is a real treat to use. 100% satisfied with the Aurora so far, and it was about half the price. Too bad it doesn't have the nice huge reflector that WF-1000L has.

vestureofblood said:

I have a p7 Mag that I built, and I used the 3.0a buck converter from Kaidomain. It seems to work quite well and its cheap. I did have to heat sink it to the wall of the light with thermal grease to be able to run it on high for long periods of time here is a link. Hope this helps.

Click to expand...

Did you ever measure the current it was supplying to the LED? Was it truly anywhere near 3A? I saw one review for this board where the guy said it was only feeding his LED 1.2A on high.

I just want to make sure I get a driver that will push the P7.