Maximum amperage in brass P60 pill?

I'm trying to build a new P60 drop in using an empty brass pill and reflector like this one:


I realize there is not a lot of heat sinking capacity to this thin brass, so as don't want to go overboard with my driver selection. What is the maximum current his style drop in housing can support?

Thanks!

You'll need to wrap the whole thing in copper to transfer the heat around instead of sagging the LED. I've solved the P60 problem with an aluminum slug. I'd say that you have a good 2.2a for XM-L and 1.4a for XP platforms.

Improving heat sinking on P60 style drop ins.

Norm

Thanks guys, that's perfect!

I really like the soda can shim idea, simple and brilliant.

keep in mind that the pill is still brass. there are some copper pill P60 blanks just like the ones you mentioned, creyc

What kind of emitter do you plan on using? If you use a copper mcpcb such as a sinkpad or noctigon you can overdrive emitters pretty hard. A noctigon mod takes care of the brass bottleneck in terms of the thermal pathway to the host.

I'll be using an XP-G2 most likely, on a sinkpad. The noctigon mod looks cool, I may give it a try as well.

I learnt the solder filling method from Vinh & I thought it is quite useful, on top of using a copper MCPCB..
Creates a little more thermal mass & makes the dropin feels heavier & more solid.

- JonK

JonK, where did you bought your solder paste? The syringe bottle that contains both fine solder bits with flux mixed together.

DellSuperman said:

I learnt the solder filling method from Vinh & I thought it is quite useful, on top of using a copper MCPCB..
Creates a little more thermal mass & makes the dropin feels heavier & more solid.

- JonK

Click to expand...

Do you happen to have a link to this technique?

Tiresius said:

JonK, where did you bought your solder paste? The syringe bottle that contains both fine solder bits with flux mixed together.

Click to expand...

creyc said:

Do you happen to have a link to this technique?

Click to expand...

Not solder paste, just normal solder.
Vinh said he uses fishing lead weights but I cannot find them ard here so I stick to regular solder.
I'm not sure how Vinh does it but this is what I do after several trial and error.
I melt a bunch of solder in small quantity, let it cool & removed the blackened resin deposit.
Remelt them before pouring them into the pill again.
I usually pour them slowly so that the solder will not flow into the hole (for the wires). If they do, I'll remelt them & start all over again.
Its not easy & might get a little messy.
I've solder potted over a dozen of my pills & I still need a 2-3 tries for each of them.

Oh yes, get those *flame* proof light with a large tank. Melting these solder needs alot of heat & I don't advise doing it on the stove, for health reasons..

*edit* WIND PROOF LIGHTER! not flame proof...

- JonK

I was trying to build a DD XML dropin on my own recently & was trying to squeeze as much metal into the dropin as possible.

I got a spare 17mm to 17mm ring brass ring & I used it to increase the height of the pill on the driver side.
I also bought some cheapo 16mm copper stars from FastTech some time ago but decide not to use them since the build quality was quite bad.

I filed off the top layer of all the copper stars, so it is just left with the bare copper on both sides.
I applied solder on each layer of the star so that there is maximum heat transfer.
After all 3 layers are nicely seated in the pill, I applied a layer of Fujik thermal compound over the top layer to prevent any unnecessary contact with the driver PCB.
And because of the shape of the copper stars, the wire can thread through from the driver to the emitter easily.

This method is alot easier than solder filling because the solder tend to cover the holes in the pill & they are hard to form into a nice shape.
I am sure alu stars will perform as well, at least better than no filling.
This dropin is significantly heavier than my regular solder filled dropin because of extra 3 pieces of copper.

I have no ways of testing the dropin's capability, both thermal & light output.
So far i have tested it with a NiteCore 18650 2600mAh & a Ultrafire 18350, no issues whatsoever.
I'll probably try to run it on a longer duration to see how long before it gets uncomfortable to hold.


From this photo, u can see that the pill on the driver side is slightly longer than regular pills.
Sorry, other than the finished product, i don have other photos to share.
Got too excited when i was building it & forgot to take more photos.


- JonK