Romisen RC-G2 with SSC P4

Hrvoje

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Thanks to BessieBenny great review, recently ordered Romisen RC-G2 (actually few of them:rolleyes:). I will leave one in stock form, because even with inferior Cree P2 it is still a great flashlight. My intention is to be able to use both AA and 15400 cell in modded form. I had 5-mode buck/boost driver from DX (sku 15880) lying around, which looks ideal for this purpose. I didn't like idea of ruining original heatsink trying to remove glued LED and soldered driver, so I decide to make my own. My heatsink is 0.5 mm larger in diameter then original, so I was able to press fit driver in heatsink without to much sanding (only about 0.3 mm, from 17 mm to 16.7). I could use driver in original shape, but then thickness of the walls would be only 0.25 mm, maybe a little to weak.
LED is SSC P4, USXOH from Kai, with Vf of 3.25 V. LED is glued in place with Arctic Alumina thermal adhesive.
Before I soldered leads to LED, I measured current. From Sanyo AA 2500 mAh NiMh current on high at led terminal is about 0.3 A. Didn't measured mid. and low. At the tail cap current is 1.3 A on high, 0.37 A on mid. and 0.06 A on the low mode.
Unfortunately, I don't have manual settings on my camera, so after many attempts, I didn't achieved useful beamshot at different settings, because there is barely visible difference on the images at low, medium and high output, but in reality difference is very obvious. High is brighter then stock output, medium is like my MiniMag 2AA with TeraLux MiniStar2 LED upgrade, and low is like Solitaire, but still usefull.
So I only showed stock and moddified high output beamshots. Distance is 1 m from white wall. Compared to stock G2, throw is about the same, but spill is much more usefull. Original Cree was a little bit greenish, P4 is more on the white side. Anyway, great flashlight is now even better. I already ordered pair of 14500, with that Lithium power this will be one mighty EDC flashlight. Will post current draw and beamshot when I got that.

Hrvoje

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Fallingwater

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I cannot see a single one of your pictures. Is it just me?

Edit: it seems geocities is temporarily unreachable from my location. Oh well.
 
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Scott_T

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I cannot see a single one of your pictures. Is it just me?

Its just you.

Looks nice. I just put a Q5 with an 800ma driver in mine and its very very nice. I'm not sure if I want to keep the 5 modes yet. I prefer them for saving the battery but you never know what mode is going to show up when you turn it on.
 

Lynx_Arc

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I get this message. I think Yahoo servers are flakey right now

Sorry, Service Temporarily Unavailable.
The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later.

Additionally, a 503 Service Temporarily Unavailable error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.
 

nanotech17

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nicely centered emitter :thumbsup:
sure hope the emitter is driven hard by this driver.
i use the same driver to power my home made drop-ins with K2 TFFC TWOF and surprisingly it can be power up with a single AA alkaline.
 

Fallingwater

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I can see the pics now. I too like the SSC's floodier beam a whole lot more than the Cree's throwy one. Your mod is very similar to what I did to my L-mini, by the way (coincidentally, it too is about to get one of those drivers).
How did you insulate the positive slug of the SSC?
Good job ;)
 

Hrvoje

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Zagreb, Croatia
Thanks. When I glued bare emitter to the heatsink, just didn't press to much to avoid metal to metal contact. Regarding emitter centering, Arctic Alumins cured faster then I expected (it was hot in my room), so centering could be better (error is maybe 0.2-0.3 mm), but there is not visible effect on the beam quality. I'm very satisfied, the only thing that is annoying is mode changing with forward clicky switch.
I just received new driver from DX (sku.7302), looks like a good candidate for replacing original driver in my other RC-G2. Or maybe I should try MC-E? I like mighty LED-s in the pocket lights :)

Hrvoje
 

PlayboyJoeShmoe

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Shepherd, TX (where dat?)
I'm a fellow who prefers beam quality about 80% over maximum throw.

My RC-G2 is cute little critter that is pretty bright. But since it's all about spot it doesn't get a lot of playtime.

Cool mod! When it gets more popular I'll have to see about getting it done to a light or three!
 

Fallingwater

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Thanks. When I glued bare emitter to the heatsink, just didn't press to much to avoid metal to metal contact
I'd be worried about lousy thermal transfer if I did this.
On another board I was advised to use some talcum powder mixed with the epoxy/goop. If the two surfaces are flat enough, the talcum dust is enough to prevent conductivity.

Or maybe I should try MC-E? I like mighty LED-s in the pocket lights
You couldn't drive it at anything like full power without either a massive heatsink (which would defeat the purpose) or forced air cooling (good luck with that :p ).

He he, tek sam primijetijo otkud pises. :p
 

Hrvoje

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You couldn't drive it at anything like full power without either a massive heatsink (which would defeat the purpose) or forced air cooling (good luck with that :p ).

Yes, I know, but RC-G2 is slightly bigger then average 1AA flashlight. I can make solid cooper heatsink and put some thermal grease between the heatsink and tube. Anyway, I can't drive it at full power from 14500 cell, but some 1.2-1.4 A at the emitter would be more than enough from such a small flashlight. With multi mode driver, full power will be used only for short period.

Hrvoje

P.S. Pozdrav, zemljače. Nas Hrvata svugdje ima :). Ima li još koji na ovom forumu?
 

debeli

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Yes, I know, but RC-G2 is slightly bigger then average 1AA flashlight. I can make solid cooper heatsink and put some thermal grease between the heatsink and tube. Anyway, I can't drive it at full power from 14500 cell, but some 1.2-1.4 A at the emitter would be more than enough from such a small flashlight. With multi mode driver, full power will be used only for short period.

Hrvoje

P.S. Pozdrav, zemljače. Nas Hrvata svugdje ima :). Ima li još koji na ovom forumu?

Ima :)
 

Hrvoje

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Oct 13, 2008
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Zagreb, Croatia
Just modded another RC-G2, this time with Cree R2 I took from P60 drop-in module from DX (sku. 14442). Home made heat sink pill is the same as in previous SSC P4 modified G2. Driver is 19 mode from DX (sku. 7882). Pot is so adjusted that voltage at the LED is about 3.15 V, current at LED is about 0.5 A and current draw from the Sanyo 2500 mAh NiMh battery is about 1.6 A. Now this is the real pocket thrower :)
I'm curious to compare this with SSC P4 modded G2 intended to run on 14500 cell which is on the way.
Anyway, I compared original P2 with modified P2 and better 5 mode driver (DX sku.7302). Original driver is pretty unefficient, with only about 0.2 A and 3.2 V at emitter terminals, drawing about 1.5 A from the battery. This 5 mode 7302 driver is in fact pretty good, driving good old P2 at 0.56 A (slightly above max. current) and 3.52 V, sucking 1.87 A from the battery (Sanyo 2500 mAh NiMh). Priced at $3.50, this is relatively cheap way to improve stock RC-G2 without to much modding and emitter swapping.
Of course, adding GITD O-ring also improve performance :)
I will put some beamshots when I borrow better camera with manual settings.

Hrvoje

creer2.jpg


pillsb.jpg

drivers.jpg


grayr2.jpg


r2vssscp4.jpg


gitd.jpg
 
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