Manker e14 help!

Wondering if anyone here can help me. Just got the Manker e14. It works fine on a half-charged battery, but on a full charge (18650 or RCR123a) it will not go into the special modes (strobe, etc). It just does a quick flash and turns off. I am not able to go past full brightness, back into low, or visa-versa. It will just flash and turn off. It's like the fully charged battery is just too much for it or something...

Any ideas? Thanks for the help!

How many brightness levels are you able to cycle through on mode one? Is it the full 7, or just 6? The special modes might use the turbo, which won't work on a protected cell-- if you are using protected cells.

Thank you!

With a protected 18650 I am only able to cycle through 6, but with a protected rcr123a I can get through all 7 (most of the time). When using either battery I am never able to go backwards in the mode cycle from true moon to turbo and strobe.

Do you have any recommendations for a good unprotected 18650?

Both of those batteries I am trying are protected cells, btw.

Anything that's rated for high drain applications will work well with the E14-- something like 10amps will do. IIRC, the manker e14 draws about 8-9amps on turbo for the Nichia version, not sure about the XPG version.

http://www.mtnelectronics.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=59_88&product_id=559

These LG3500s will do just nicely.

Please excuse my ignorance, but would a higher amp battery be better? Like this 20A: http://www.batteryjunction.com/lg-h..._V6WFddWqaW3-sYUs72nx1TQwmhd4LHW3QaAuBQ8P8HAQ

The reason I ask is because that 20A is a 3000mah battery (which hopefully is smaller in circumference because my 3400mah nitecore 18650 is too tight in the tube so I'm wondering if the 3500mah 18650 you linked to would be to fat?

Sorry for all the questions and thank you for the help!

Yes, anything higher than 10a continuous discharge should be fine. I can't comment on the width of the battery personally, since I don't have the 18650 tube for the E14.

The thread over at blf probably has some good discussion about batteries for the light: http://budgetlightforum.com/node/46698

Ok, thank you for your help! I will try an unprotected battery.

I've used HG2, 30Q, and keeppower IMR 18350 all successfully in this light.

When end trying to go backwards are you holding the button down for half a second at least? Try holding it down, count for one second and release. There is a chance your driver isn't functioning properly as well

Flashlight World said:

Ok, thank you for your help! I will try an unprotected battery.

Click to expand...

UPDATE: I just went to a local vape store and bought this battery: http://www.sale-batteries.com/high-...8.html?zenid=e9c662d893ae36ff6f918a450af717ea. It works just fine! The guy at the store told me it was a protected cell. The light does get very hot a lot faster with this cell than the others.

Anyway, FYI for those who may have the same issue.

And thank you again for all the help with this!

Yes, I was holding it down long enough to go in reverse order. I just bought a 35A 18650 battery and that seems to have done the trick. Thanks!

Flashlight World said:

UPDATE: I just went to a local vape store and bought this battery: http://www.sale-batteries.com/high-...8.html?zenid=e9c662d893ae36ff6f918a450af717ea. It works just fine! The guy at the store told me it was a protected cell. The light does get very hot a lot faster with this cell than the others.

Anyway, FYI for those who may have the same issue.

And thank you again for all the help with this!

Click to expand...

I wouldn't suggest using a battery that heats up hotter and faster than normal. JMO

Also, that doesn't look like a protected cell. Protected cells are longer than 65 mm and it would mention protection in ad.

recDNA said:

I wouldn't suggest using a battery that heats up hotter and faster than normal. JMO

Also, that doesn't look like a protected cell. Protected cells are longer than 65 mm and it would mention protection in ad.

Click to expand...

Ok, thanks. What battery would you recommend for this light?

With a high drain cell like the HE2 on turbo or close to it this light will get very hot very fast. This is normal. Reason being is the driver is designed to run direct drive which will pull a lot of amps and couple with the fact you have 4 LEDs running direct drive in a very small body so you can see where the heat is coming from. I recommend when using turbo and 2 steps before it to make sure you are holding it so you can be the judge of when it gets hot and step it down then.

expanded: Manker in their infinite wisdom used a driver with a built in thermal step down meant for 1 XPL not 4 XPG2 or 219b so you can imagine the heat generation difference between the two setups and why heat is not properly managed with this light. The fact that it is getting hot with a high drain cell is normal technically but it is due to a poor driver decision by Manker not because it is broken.

Also I would imagine that protected in the vape world more often than not means protection against venting with things like PTC thermistors and layers in between the layers in the cell to help prevent catastrophic explosions and fires. This is different than the flashlight world where protection includes that but also adds a IC board that includes protection against over/under voltage, reverse polarity, and short circuit. Thr HE2 has the former protections but not later. However, in a fully working Manker E14 the driver has protections against short circuit, under voltage and reverse polarity, so a naked cell is OK.

Also, the light is going to pull more amps from the 18650 than it would from the 18350. It will get hotter off the 18650.

twistedraven said:

Also, the light is going to pull more amps from the 18650 than it would from the 18350. It will get hotter off the 18650.

Click to expand...

My recommendation is to use AW imr 18350 because this setup simply draws too many amps from high output 18650. The thermal step down only happens in the highest output setting but flashlight can get way too hot even on settings below that, especially with 18650. To be honest I wish I could program it to a 4 or 5 amp maximum draw but no such setting exists. Vinh sells this host with his driver for significantly more money so that is one option.

Flashlight World said:

UPDATE: I just went to a local vape store and bought this battery: http://www.sale-batteries.com/high-...8.html?zenid=e9c662d893ae36ff6f918a450af717ea. It works just fine! The guy at the store told me it was a protected cell. The light does get very hot a lot faster with this cell than the others.

Anyway, FYI for those who may have the same issue.

And thank you again for all the help with this!

Click to expand...

That's an LG HE4 cell. It's a good quality high-drain IMR cell similar to an Efest 35A or Samsung 30Q. It's an excellent choice for the Manker E14.

FYI: like all other high-drain cells, the LG HE4 is not a protected cell.

recDNA said:

My recommendation is to use AW imr 18350 because this setup simply draws too many amps from high output 18650. The thermal step down only happens in the highest output setting but flashlight can get way too hot even on settings below that, especially with 18650. To be honest I wish I could program it to a 4 or 5 amp maximum draw but no such setting exists. Vinh sells this host with his driver for significantly more money so that is one option.

Click to expand...

Actually I think the host is fine with high-drain 18650 cells. The copper head will get very hot to your hand... but still cool enough at the LED, driver and battery. The hot head is a side-effect of having a large copper head with no pill. Heat gets out fast... but almost too fast. If the copper is too hot to touch, just hold it by the aluminum body tube. As long as that also isn't too hot to touch the light will be fine.

If you want a better driver I suggest the DrJones H17F from Mountain Electronics. It's the best and most advanced clicky switch driver I've ever seen. It has some great features:

• all modes fully programmable.
• add or remove modes as desired.
• can enable or disable memory
• built-in temperature sensor, which you can manually set. Will automatically ramp output up/down to maintain set temp.
• 3 channels: 1x7135 for low modes, 7x7135 for med modes, FET for direct-drive high modes.
• double-click shortcut to turbo.

This is the only clicky driver I've ever used which approaches an e-switch driver in the ease of use of the UI.

Fireclaw18 said:

Actually I think the host is fine with high-drain 18650 cells. The copper head will get very hot to your hand... but still cool enough at the LED, driver and battery. The hot head is a side-effect of having a large copper head with no pill. Heat gets out fast... but almost too fast. If the copper is too hot to touch, just hold it by the aluminum body tube. As long as that also isn't too hot to touch the light will be fine.

If you want a better driver I suggest the DrJones H17F from Mountain Electronics. It's the best and most advanced clicky switch driver I've ever seen. It has some great features:

• all modes fully programmable.
• add or remove modes as desired.
• can enable or disable memory
• built-in temperature sensor, which you can manually set. Will automatically ramp output up/down to maintain set temp.
• 3 channels: 1x7135 for low modes, 7x7135 for med modes, FET for direct-drive high modes.
• double-click shortcut to turbo.

This is the only clicky driver I've ever used which approaches an e-switch driver in the ease of use of the UI.

Click to expand...

Yes that does sound great.