Bought an Okluma DC1 ti, please enlighten me on triple options.

Like the title says, I bought an Okluma DC1 ti with the stock light engine. It is great, and it's my first triple and 18350 light. I'm looking around for higher capacity cells (it came with 700mah batteries), and I'm curious about upgrading the driver.

The 219c 4000k are awesome, nearly incan quality emitters. My question is about the drivers themselves. I see the h17f and Dragon options. Is there anything else? What I'm able to gather is sort of fragmented bits and pieces of info around the web. Dual mode would actually be great, as I could use the light around a cockpit. I am more interested in a sustained high level output. The OEM driver is pretty bright for 60 seconds, but steps down to a lower than medium setting. I would like 80% of the high mode for more like 5-10 minutes at a time.

Is there a good be-all-end-all thread discussing the in's and out's of triple builds. From what I can tell, it's basically a generic platform with a lot of different options. The different light manufacturers that build in this format are essentially body designers and machinists.

Keeppower make a 1200mAh capacity 18350.

daffy said:

Keeppower make a 1200mAh capacity 18350.

Click to expand...

I just actually bought 2 of them on Amazon. I'm pretty happy with the output, so I'll just wait and watch for emitter updates. I've been following LED flashlights since my first, which was a Lumapower M1R at 160 lumens. That was a lot at the time, but LED upgrades seemed to be fast and furious for a while. It seems to have slowed down a bit in the last few years. I wonder what the ultimate thermal efficiency of LED's will end up being. For example, we've got 1,000 lumen 2 CR123 lights that are pretty common with decent run times. Will we ever see a 2,000 lumen LED light that runs for 60-90 minutes on 2 CR123's? Will the triple platform ever put out 1,500 lumens on a single 18350 with long run times?

Obviously, lights can only get so bright before it becomes detrimental. So the best thing that can happen is 500-800 lumens for very extended run times. Considering where we came from with over 100 years of stagnant incandescent technology, it's a little ridiculous to say we want more, but I seriously do want more.

Congrats on your Okluma
I hope you post a photo

High CRI alternatives to the 4000k 219c includes the SST-20 and the LH351d

as output goes up, so does heat, and in small lights, thermal regulation will kick in above 500 lumens

to increase runtime at high outputs, we need larger flashlights with more thermal mass, and lower CRI

Im not a high lumen user, but it seems to me that 1000+ lumens are not sustainable in the lights I read about, such as the FW3a.. Maybe take a look at that lights LED options, and also the D4, to give you some idea of the initial output differences among LEDs

dont know what driver you have, but I hear good things about the H17f..

wonder if a buck/boost driver would fit in then ?

I'm a huge fan of pocket triples for beam shape and range of available tint/emitter/outputs. The small single cell ones are best thought of as 4-500 lm sustained with a nice burst if you need it. Physics can't be fooled no matter what you do. A few ounces of metal can only disperse so much heat so fast and a small cell can only run so long flat out.. More output for longer requires mass to heat sink and higher cell capacity. Period. You can fool with thermal limits, hand holding, etc for only so long. The H17f can be set up as a two stage light, as can the 371d driver Oveready and some other builders use.