DX1400mAH drivers?

Just checking to see if anyone has had issues with DX 1400mAH drivers? I've heard that the solder job on most of them is poor...but has anyone ran into them not running at 1400mAH?
Are they finally shipping them also? Or do they just say they will be shipping 5-10days? I remember them being on backorder for 3-4months....

What is the input voltage for the 1400mAH?

I'm wanting to make a 2 mode MC-E w/2 1400mAH...is that going to work for the MC-E's?

just get a shark driver.

Here is a great thread on test results of 7135 drivers. In short, you need Vin close to 4V to get a good Iout.

I have just received that board from another member and have build a light with it.

The soldering on the board I received was good

Infact I will be ordering more of these boards but I will expect the shipping time to be long

Why dont you try a "Want to buy" thread in the BST section

I got a 10-pack in record time (for DX). 12 days from china to California. They were "waiting for supplier" for the longest time, as I checked daily for 4-5 weeks. The day they flipped the switch to "in stock" I placed an order.

I attempted to mod one to 1000mah, by removing a single 7135 IC. But I think I messed up the mod because it only draws 370mah from any of my 18650 cells, and barely emits 100Lumens (via ceiling bounce comparison with my L1T-V2-HIGH). My other 1000mah build (using DX:6190) completely smokes it. So I think I messed up the 1400 board in attempting to remove the 7135.

I am going to swap it back to 1400mah tonight and see how that goes.

just an update...
I removed the mod-attempted board (the one that only draws 370mah) and swapped it with a new 1400mah board. Problem solved. Clearly I messed up the first one in my mod attempt. One of the resistors had cracked and split in two. So "half" of the circuit was disconnected and not driving the LED. I'm guessing I only had juice flowing from one of the three 7135 drivers.

I think I used excessive force/heat when soldering the LED+ to the circuit, this caused the ceramic resistor to crack.

A better way to solder the LED "+", is to strip away little extra wire and run it through the hole. Flow the solder from the battery side of the DC-DC board, such that the wire is direct soldered onto the battery-spring+ contact surface. This way heat from the iron is not directly transmitted to the resistors.

Do you mean the two diodes in the center of the board? You can remove them completely and bridge the connections. The board should work. Shorting the diode connection will in theory reduce the Vdrop by about 0.6V, which matters only if you have a low Vf LED. As a trade, you lose reverse polarity protection.

Justin Case said:

Do you mean the two diodes in the center of the board? You can remove them completely and bridge the connections. The board should work. Shorting the diode connection will in theory reduce the Vdrop by about 0.6V, which matters only if you have a low Vf LED. As a trade, you lose reverse polarity protection.

Click to expand...

That only matters if you have a high Vf LED.

Since it sounds like kramer5150's diodes got roasted anyway, my point was that it shouldn't matter. You can remove them completely, short those connections, and the board should work.I think that if you don't short the diode connections, that is the same as not connecting Vdd for two of the AMC chips. That's probably why kramer5150 got only 370mA out. If he shorts the diode connections, he should get the full 1050mA.

Justin Case said:

Since it sounds like kramer5150's diodes got roasted anyway, my point was that it shouldn't matter. You can remove them completely, short those connections, and the board should work.I think that if you don't short the diode connections, that is the same as not connecting Vdd for two of the AMC chips. That's probably why kramer5150 got only 370mA out. If he shorts the diode connections, he should get the full 1050mA.

Click to expand...

Cool... I'll give it a try. I broke one of those red/orange things. I still want to use it at 1050 mah, thats preferable for me.

thanks

So bypassing the diodes will increase the voltage too the LED?.. that sounds risky... wouldn't I cook the emitter?

No, removing the diodes should not cause any problems in terms of risk of frying anything. In fact, if you read StefanFS's P7 Mag mod guide, for example, he removes the diodes as part of building his AMC sandwiches.

The diodes are connected to the Vdd pin of the 7135 chip. Thus, the minimum Vdd is 2.7V + the drop due to the diodes, or another 0.6V. That means Vdd needs a min of 3.3V with the diodes installed. If you have a low Vf LED, it may have a voltage less than 3.3V, meaning the AMC7135 won't be in regulation.

This is my understanding:

Vbatt > Vf + AMC7135 drop (=0.12V) for the board to run in regulation. For the usual LED Vf of say 3.5V, Vbatt > ~3.6V. Should be easily achievable using one Li-ion for most of its run time. For low Vf LEDs, with the AMC7135 Vdd pin fed through a diode, Vf also has to be greater than 2.7V (Vdd min for an AMC7135) + diode drop (=0.6V), or Vf > 3.3V to stay in regulation. If you remove the diodes, then Vf > 2.7V. But you'll benefit from this condition only if you have a low Vf LED.

sailor612 said:

Just checking to see if anyone has had issues with DX 1400mAH drivers? I've heard that the solder job on most of them is poor...but has anyone ran into them not running at 1400mAH?
Are they finally shipping them also? Or do they just say they will be shipping 5-10days? I remember them being on backorder for 3-4months....

What is the input voltage for the 1400mAH?

I'm wanting to make a 2 mode MC-E w/2 1400mAH...is that going to work for the MC-E's?

Click to expand...

You could get one of the 16-mode 1A AMC7135 drivers, and assuming you the the one with the extra spot for an AMC7135, you can bump it up to 1.4A, and run the MC-E 2S2P with 2 -18650 or 6AA. That will run the MC-E at the full 2.8A, with just one driver.

You can get the 16-mode into the "menu" where it only has low-med-high.

I did this in a 2C Mag just recently, worked awesome.

https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/212835

Oh yeah, I've never had any issues with the drivers, other than the screwup of the manufacturer putting a 20k resistor in R1, instead of a 10k resistor, on the 16-mode driver making it only blink. But as far as soldering and such, all the boards I have ever had worked just fine.

My 20 pack of DX 1050mA AMC boards looks clean and well-soldered. The chips all look good, no scratched-out surfaces or other indications of using reject parts. The pack came with the boards already configured for full 1050mA output. I didn't have to make any solder bridges.

I have used many of the 1050mA boards and the last one was modded to 700mA (C3 SS R2 mod). When traced I noticed that one diode feeds two chips and the other one the other to chips. Since I only used half the board I only shorted one diode (both diodes were removed). Works great. Kramer it seams like the diode feeding the two chips on one side is the one that is fried.

Heres a pic of the board I ruined on the left. Good 1400 mah board on the right.


I'll wire jump the diodes tomorrow. If I wire bypass the diodes, the circuit is really simple right? It looks like just 4x7135 ICs in parallel, regulating current flow through the "-" half of the circuit.

In one of my drop ins I am driving an XR-EQ5 at 1400mah, but it only draws 1A-1.2A at the tailcap depending on the 18650 cell I use.

Am I correct to assume that I am not really pushing the LED with 1.4A?

Initially I was worried I would cook the LED at 1.4A. But, if in reality I am only driving it at 1-1.2A... I really have nothing to worry about right?... and my removing a 7135 IC doesn't really buy me anything (?)

thanks again!!
:thinking:

If you look at the tracks you will notice that the current from the bottom two chips should flow through the broken diode. I am positive that it will work if the diodes are shorted. I am thinking of using the one salvaged chip with a XP-E R2 Cree in a Mag solitaire as soon as I can think of a solution for space, heat and still using the original switch mechanism.

Can you piggy-back the individual 7135 IC's? Like, unsolder some from one board and put them on top of the ones on another board and solder the pins together? or do these things put out a decent amount of heat? I was thinking of either getting two boards and connecting them, which would require figuring out where to get that extra space from, or just piggybacking chips, which would take up much less space.

You can make a parallel sandwich using two AMC7135 boards, as shown in StefanFS's Maglite P7 mod tutorial:



You can also buy them ready-made from Kaidomain (ProductID=1770). The overall thickness is about 6mm.

I used 3 of the 700mA to get 2100mA on an MC-E. Seems to work just fine. I normally use the 700's for XR-E's

I purchased these http://kaidomain.com/ProductDetails.aspx?ProductId=1802 they came with room for an extra 7135 making it a nice two mode 1400 mA driver.


Norm