Shiningbeam 3 modes 3A driver and XM-L only get 340mA!

I just got 4 Shiningbeam 3 modes 3A driver and 4 XM-L leds, want to see how the new LED works, power up by one IMR-26650 (blue) battery, but I can only got 340mA on high, battery is new, 3.9V. Change to another driver, the same 340mA, change to different group, but high always 340mA. I thought the battery maybe bad, so changed to 3 AA NiMH, still the same.



I measured Vf on LES was 2.77V, and Vin on driver is 3.33V.



I also try not use meter, but still the same, XM-L is not getting enough power, its no brighter compare to a 100lum light. Which part could be wrong

Did you find an answer? I was looking at this driver.

I haven't had any issues with this driver and I've used it in several builds. One thing I have noticed is that it is easy to "short" it out. I noticed you were using alligator clips in your pictures, is it possible they are clamping more than they should be? I shorted one out by making contact somewhere on the board and the output got real funny. The last question is real simple but I just want to be sure, the 3 modes cycle when you disconnect and connect the power quickly. Does the light out put change if you disconnect the battery and reconnect it for a half second?

Those alligator clamp leads are adding alot of extra resistance into the circuit. That's why your battery alone is reading 3.9V but when you hook it up you only get 3.3V on the input. You are losing .56V in the Shiningbeam driver (3.33 - 2.77) which is normal, and your LED is only getting 2.77V which would make sense given that your only getting 340mA. So your major losses are in the internal resistance of the battery and the connections from battery to driver input. Here you are losing .57V (3.9 - 3.33).

Charge your battery completely (4.2V), fix those connections (short leads 22awg or bigger) and try again.

Is it in regulation? Try 4 nimh bats to be sure. I have a blue imr battery as well and found out it doesn't like high currents. If Vin on the driver is 3.3v, the battery is too! And 3.3v is probably not enough to stay in regulation. Same goes for 3xNiMH. Try higher voltage to be sure. And thicker leads, it may drop a lot on those thin leads, even on 350mA

I don't think SB sells a 3A driver. Could you link the one you bought?

I found a 2.8A driver they sell, one that I have sitting in front of me but haven't used yet. It looks the same as the one you pictured (slightly different from the one pictured on their page at http://www.shiningbeam.com/servlet/the-132/3-dsh-Mode-Regulated-Circuit-Board/Detail in that you and I have some little stars on the pcb). If that is the driver you have there is 2 things that I think could be wrong:

1) it starts on low mode and goes to med, then high. But I think you addressed this.

2) your battery doesn't provide enough power. If it starts at 3.7 volts it may sag down and not be providing enough voltage to let the regulator give full output. http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?192925-AMC7135-Specs-Inside-**UPDATE** This is a post about drivers built with the amc7135, my driver's chips have 7135 writen on them so i assume thats what they are. Note that when given 3.6 and even 3.8 volts they provide less current out than maximum. If possible, try hooking up a 4 to 5 volt power source to the driver and see how that does for light output relative to the 3.7volt battery.

waterloodiver said:

I just got 4 Shiningbeam 3 modes 3A driver and 4 XM-L leds, want to see how the new LED works, power up by one IMR-26650 (blue) battery, but I can only got 340mA on high, battery is new, 3.9V. Change to another driver, the same 340mA, change to different group, but high always 340mA. I thought the battery maybe bad, so changed to 3 AA NiMH, still the same.



I measured Vf on LES was 2.77V, and Vin on driver is 3.33V.



I also try not use meter, but still the same, XM-L is not getting enough power, its no brighter compare to a 100lum light. Which part could be wrong

Click to expand...

You have multiple possible issues simultaneously, so you need to eliminate the extraneous variables.

1. Charge your Li-ion to 100% state of charge. 3.9V is not 100%. You want to make sure that you deliver the required voltage to the driver.

2. Your wiring is a mess. The skinny wires and alligator clip contacts are going to give you high parasitic resistance and thus undesirable voltage drop. Put the Li-ion in a quality battery holder, and solder short runs of say 18 ga wire from the holder to the driver. Solder short runs of quality wire (not those junk LED hookup wires that come with the driver) from the driver to the LED. Heat sink the LED. For one of the LED hookups, insert your DMM inline to measure drive current.

2.77V Vf is consistent with 340mA drive current to an XM-L. 3.33V Vbatt seems very low for such a small discharge current when using a 26650 Li-ion. Your 26650 appears to have sagged from 3.9V open circuit down to 3.33V under only an 0.34A load. This is very poor performance IMO. And then your voltage to the driver probably drops further because of the multiple alligator clip contacts. This piece of data alone suggests that at a minimum, you aren't delivering sufficient voltage to the driver.

As suggested above, power the driver with 4xNiMH to give yourself sufficient voltage headroom.

3. None of the "stars" on the SB driver in your photo above is connected to ground. Verify with SB what the modes of operation are when your board is configured with no stars connected to ground. It may be that this configuration is single mode and 10% output. When you say you changed to different groups, do you mean that you connected different stars to ground, but still got only 340mA drive current?

4. If you are in a multimode configuration, verify that you are in 100% output mode, and not some other lower output mode.

The star under the "N" is connected I believe, normally one is always connected.

And the board is three mode, so switch through the modes and measure again in high(if your are not).

And I say +4 for the wires, they are killing ya.

Looks like you are correct. The star under the "N" looks like it has a trace that goes to the ground ring.

That type of driver can be damaged if the output side is shorted (under load and shorted against neg input in my case). The microcontroller might be damaged as it is more sensitive than the 7135 chips.

what sku number is this driver in SB ?

riyadiari said:

what sku number is this driver in SB ?

Click to expand...

http://www.shiningbeam.com/servlet/the-132/3-dsh-Mode-Regulated-Circuit-Board/Detail

Cheap, you just have to wait a little longer

http://www.kaidomain.com/ProductDetails.aspx?ProductId=10995