Upgrade driver?

Hey everyone,

I'm pretty new to 'real' flashlights if you will. I have a few but one of them is a Ultrafire C8 T6 and it performs ok, but I feel it could do better. If I wanted to upgrade to a better quality driver that delivers around 4 amps what would my options be? I can solder so that isn't a problem I just don't really know what to look for. Thanks! Here is a link to the light. Also, what does the C8 and XM-L stand for?


http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00934M9YO/?tag=cpf0b6-20

practically there are no ptions other than piggypacking extra AMC7135 chips in such drivers

There are soem drivers that are spec'ed to above 3A found in fatstech and intl-outdoor
but a friend did not measure than much and their performanc e is highly depened on battery quality.

Welcome to CPF and the flashlight modification party.

I am not sure about the C-8 portion, but the XM-L is the Cree LED part. If you look at Cree's web site, there is quite a bit of information about their LED products and using them.

I looked at the XM-L data sheet and some of their other publications very quickly. While it is very true that higher currents / power lead to lower LED power efficiency (and heating), some people have success running lights like this at 1 000 HZ pulse mode. It might be possible to direct drive or lightly resistor the power, skip a conventional driver, and just run it in this pulsed on/off mode.

The idea follows the concept that a "pulse train" can output very high brightness "peaks" and persistence of vision will continue at filling in the image details. Of course this assumes that you don't mind what the LED lifetime. This is a pretty reasonable assumption for people playing with power boosting their flashlights.