Maratac REV 3 (copper): a few questions about 10440 and PWM.

The drop just shipped from Massdrop for my Copper Maratac. I have sized down my EDC light over the years from 18650 to 14500 sized lights and have happily settled on AAA sized lights since seeing what they can do on 10440 power.

I plan on running this Maratac exclusively on 10440 as well, I have a few questions:

-Any known troubles on 10440?
-Does anyone know the approximate brightness are each level on 10440? I'm just hoping for a low somewhere under 20 lumens.
-Does this driver (REV 3) have current control on all 3 levels?

THANKS!

The original PWM-laden Maratac Rev. 3 circuit (PWM on M and L only) could technically handle 10440 voltage, but not for long with the stock aluminum heat-sink. Copper-bonded LED provides much better performance, endurance for these, throwing away destructive heat.

The newest batch of Current Controlled (CC) Rev.3 (some CPF-members title it "Rev. 3.5") circuits (no PWM on any mode) are predicted to instantly on 10440, according to the manufacturer, Lumintop, which uses a near identical driver in the new Tools. This is not due to heat but the voltage limits of the new driver.

I have not seen any reports of anyone, successfully or otherwise, using 10440 in CC Rev. 3.5 Maratac lights, which voids the warranty.

Well, that's due dilligence.

So if you are braver than we are, and throw circuit voltage limits and caution to the wind, please let us know what happened to yours.


edit: looks like somone has tried 10440 in a new Tool:
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb...-REVIEW-Lumintop-TOOL-AAA-(XP-G2-1xAAA-10440)

so there is a slim chance of the hard voltage limit of the new CC Lumintop driver (also used in Maratacs) being exaggerated... need more data.
edit2: My guess is that Tool was from the last batch, with PWM, not the new CC driver.

To add to this my Maratac rev 3 titanium was shipped with a copper led star, so the heatsinking capability should be better from that perspective. I haven't tried running it on 10440 but what you may want to try is get a 10mm direct drive circuit board from somewhere like Mountain Electronics. You can choose your customer output levels and mode order (L,M, H) or vice versa. Using something like that you would probably get 200-300 lumens from a 10440 easily with a good quality battery. I'm considering this as well. You could also do a LED swap while you're at it and put in a neutral XP-G2 or Nichia 219b/c emitter.

It's tempting to run it and if I blow the board just replace the guts. Are the boards a pretty easy swap? I used to swap emitters and boards years ago when the XR-E was king but I've been running stock lights for the past few years...

I have a couple that I purchased used that were using 10440's. The seller stated that that after the very first use, the lights will no longer work with anything other than 10440's. They are at least 40% brighter, but on high it is limited to about 40 seconds before heat becomes too hot to handle & I would expect solder to be flowing at 60 seconds if I left it on...

Crazyeddiethefirst said:

I have a couple that I purchased used that were using 10440's. The seller stated that that after the very first use, the lights will no longer work with anything other than 10440's. They are at least 40% brighter, but on high it is limited to about 40 seconds before heat becomes too hot to handle & I would expect solder to be flowing at 60 seconds if I left it on...

Click to expand...

You don't say, but that sounds like the Tool that has PWM from the last generation. Do these you purchased used have 3-modes and PWM? If you're talking about the NEW Rev.3(.5) Maratac, with no PWM, this is very interesting... please share a little more detail, thanks.

michaelmcgo said:

I plan on running this Maratac exclusively on 10440

Click to expand...

You will be the guinea pig, share what you learn.

Click to learn why putting an IMR10440 in a regular AAA light is bad

IF your light has the LED centering ring as in the picture, it is the new NoPWM circuit that came out in approximately October 2015. But imho, it makes no difference, neither is rated for LiIon voltage.


If you want a LiIon AAA light, consider the Eagletac D25aaa

If you want a copper LiIon light, consider the Copper ToolVN (whose head might then work on your Maratac also, not sure yet, Im waiting for my N219 Tool to arrive so I can try it on my Maratac)

So far I find the Worm N219 head lights on my Maratac, but not vice versa. And the Tool head lights on the Maratac, but not vice versa.


You can see the Worm head does not screw down as far as the Maratac head normally does, on the Maratac body.

michaelmcgo said:

It's tempting to run it and if I blow the board just replace the guts. Are the boards a pretty easy swap? I used to swap emitters and boards years ago when the XR-E was king but I've been running stock lights for the past few years...

Click to expand...

You could try it on 10440 and report back, to my knowledge no one has tested it out and reported the results since they switched to the new non-PWM drivers. It might work or it might fry the circuit, no way to know for sure until it's tested. The LED is mounted on a copper mcpcb if you have the newer one so it should wick heat away, however it very well might overheat as mentioned.

The emitter swap would be very easy to do and the driver is also easy to replace, uses a 10mm board. You could get a customer 10mm driver from Mountain Electronics with the amount of modes you want and mode order of either LMH or HML and up to 6 different brightness levels. It will use fast PWM but won't be noticeable to the eye. That way you can use 10440 with a circuit designed to handle it and pick your own levels. It might be worth trying the stock one first to see if it can handle it and then if something goes wrong you could put one of those custom ones in it. It's entirely up to you though, if you try it please let us know the results!

I have a brand new Lumintop Tool just purchased from FStop that I was under the belief it was the latest model with no PWM. After your post, I compared it with one of my 10440 copper Maratacs & they are identical-not only to each other, but also to the tool in the photo in this post. They both have PWM so they are not rev 3 as I thought. Sorry, your question about 10440 is still in need of an answer...

Crazyeddiethefirst said:

They both have PWM so they are not rev 3 as I thought.

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Well actually your Maratacs are Rev. 3. Maratac introduced PWM with the Rev.3. But as jon notes above, Maratac refreshed the Rev.3 drivers a couple months ago to current controlled, but did not change their named revision, made no changes to runtimes or any info on the sales page. So the first few batches of Rev.3 Maratacs have 3-modes and PWM. The latest batch available is current controlled. This is why we're calling the Rev.3 current controlled driver "Rev.3.5"

CountyComm is going to cause a lot of confusion by not differentiating these models, as we have already seen.

Crazyeddiethefirst said:

I have a brand new Lumintop Tool just purchased from FStop

Click to expand...

I got one of those too, it is pictured above, including the lack of ring around the LED.

Maratac Rev3 had a second production run, I bought one in October, pictured above with the ring around the LED and it is the first Maratac Ive owned with No PWM. We have started calling it Revision3.5, but that is not CountyComms designation, they still list it as a Rev3. I bought Rev3 Maratacs in April and in June also, they both had PWM and no ring around the LED.

Honestly, I dont think it is any better to run a 10440 on a stock Maratac with or without PWM. Its just wrong to use a battery that exceeds the voltage rating of the driver. I do not recommend 10440 in lights that were not designed for it, though many here report enjoying living more dangerously..

I hope the OP does not fry his light dead, but I dont think he will. Im pretty sure regardless of Rev3 or Rev3.5, that once he starts using LiIon, the light will no longer work on AAA batteries, Ive read that report often. Not that it matters to people who want to use 10440.

As to the question of brightness modes on LiIon, figure about 4 times the levels of AAA.. Stock Maratac Rev3+ modes are 40-1.5-138, so on LiIon I might expect 160-6-552(for a few seconds)…

night.hoodie said:

CountyComm is going to cause a lot of confusion by not differentiating these models, as we have already seen.

Click to expand...

,
The key is to look for the ring around the LED. FstopLights was selling the earlier PWM based Tools with no ring.

I look forward to the OP sharing whether his Maratac has the ring around the LED, and how his LiIon experience works out.