Clickies

Has anyone successfully found a way to modify tail clickies to handle more current? Seems like it tends to be the spring that goes on them. Really weak point in flashlight hosts.
I'm not looking for buy a host with a higher rated one. I just believe that there's got to be a thicker gauge spring out there that will still have the correct tension to make it work properly. Suppose I'm asking for the moon but I believe there is a solution.
To make this "easier" lets just choose standard C6.
One of the reasons I am asking is because of the 8 amp rated LED out there. Trying to decide what to put my red one in without spending big $ on a host that comes with a 10A switch. Have a much larger host than the C6 on hand but the C6 is very common.

-Pete

I'm a big fan of moving away from relying on hardware to handle the current, and just doing it with a mosfet.

For $3 you can get a 60 Amp capable surface mount P-Mosfet (like the Si7141DP) that takes 5mm x 5mm and adds 0.002 ohms of resistance........ no brainer. Your spring probably adds more resistance than that.

And since 60 Amp is crazy overkill, if you "only" need 10 Amps, something like the DMG7401SFG-7 costs $0.70 cents, takes 3mm x 3mm of board space and adds 0.01 ohms of resistance.

I don't know why we aren't seeing soft-on circuitry in all drivers now. It's such a trivial feature to add, and if someone doesn't want to use it, it's trivial to bypass with bridging, etc.

^^ Can you show me what you are talking about? I looked those up but how would you actually replace an existing switch with one. I can easily see with my own eyes how the physical/mechanical works with a regular switch. It sounds like the host must be built with this kind of setup in mind. How do you "activate" the mosfet?
I agree what you are talking about makes more sense and would be much safer also but it still must be cheaper for manufacturers to use the other types. I say that because most things are all about $ so why "switch" (couldn't help myself).
Thanks a bunch ahead of time for the information. I'm very good at troubleshooting electrical issues but NOT at component level. Own many Flukes (such as the 87V, 381, 52II, 561 etc...) but I've only had to troubleshoot down to a faulty component. In other words in what I do or rather did before this latest injury I would replace a board and not go looking for a faulty component on that board.
Used to know electronics much better 30 years ago but after learning it I never had to troubleshoot to component level so it pretty much all went away after 30 years of not doing it. Think you know what I mean by now and I'm just dragging this on

I think there are threads on LPF or BLF re: using MOSFETs as switches, but here's the basic idea:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...ircuit.svg/1107px-Mosfet_n-ch_circuit.svg.png

It works really easily with forward clickies. Might be more difficult with tail clickies, haven't really thought about that.

Looks like a very simple battery, couple resisters, switch, diode and MOSFET. Pretty basic stuff once you know the values of the components.
Any kits out there or do you need to purchase everything separately?

Pman said:

Looks like a very simple battery, couple resisters, switch, diode and MOSFET. Pretty basic stuff once you know the values of the components.
Any kits out there or do you need to purchase everything separately?

Click to expand...

If you google "mosfet switch mod" you'll probably find something.

Though honestly, it's basically just the mosfet and some really common resistors that are not at all value sensitive really. The mosfet is just on or off for your purposes here, it's not current regulating. You can toss any old resistors you have at it, as long as they're roughly what's called for.

I have thought about making a simple PCB (if I knew how, I would ) that fits the "angel eye" type switches, with just your basic Vin Vout connections, that would use a mosfet like that (since I have found those angel eye switches cant tolerate much current), but would also take care of the wiring for the light in the switch itself. Reason being, there are 5 pins on the switches, and virtually no documentation for how to wire everything correctly. You end up having to tie one pin to another which in turn ends up being Vin or something...its overly convoluted. Some small PCB you could just stick on the switch and solder the pins through hole would be nice.

Have you looked at the "copper braid" mod, think there are tutorials over on BLF or CPF, but basically you get some copper braid which you usually use for removing solder and some flush cutters and you solder a piece on the inside of the spring from top of spring to bottom of spring, cut it flush for a flat top to decrease a bit of resistance

I think Rhd has a lot better idea though, sounds a lot more Profesional, especially if you are talking about 10A etc