New 445nm Kryton Groove/MicroBoost build blinking

[AJ_Dual]

I just finished assembling my Kryton Groove with A140 diode, and Dr. Lava MicroBoost V1 jumpered/soldered for 540-1000mA.

It didn't do it when I benched it, but it was never on that long. Now, after a few seconds of use, it starts to blink.

I thought it was possibly low battery, but it's fully charged, at least according to my charger. Is this an overheat problem, or something else?

 

[jimdt7]

I think it is overheat. Turn the laser on while you are touching the drivers IC and check if it is getting too hot.

Jim

 

[DTR]

Have you tried to bypass the clicky by completing the circuit between the negative of the battery and the host walls?

Also is it a slow blink or a fast strobe?

 

[AJ_Dual]

Have you tried to bypass the clicky by completing the circuit between the negative of the battery and the host walls?

Also is it a slow blink or a fast strobe?

I just bypassed the switch by connecting the case to the rear battery contact with a penny.

It started strobing after a few seconds, then it gets faster.

 

[AJ_Dual]

I think it is overheat. Turn the laser on while you are touching the drivers IC and check if it is getting too hot.

Jim

Yeah, I ran it till it blinked, then disassembled it quickly, the MicroBoost was pretty hot. I guess I need to sink this bad boy pretty thoroughly.

 

[Blord]

The microboost are rated at max 1000mA but you must heatsink them at high current.
The user manual of the microboost will you tell this.

 

[AJ_Dual]

The microboost are rated at max 1000mA but you must heatsink them at high current.
The user manual of the microboost will you tell this.

You must have newer documentation. The two sided sheet that came with mine over a year ago didn't mention it.

The closest it comes is mentioning a wrapping of electrical tape if it's in tight quarters inside the host to prevent any conductive edges on the driver from shorting out.

I'm not complaining, and I intended to heat sink it from the start, but I wasn't sure if it was heat, or some sort of short or other problem causing it to blink like that, which others might have known about.

 

[proud2deviate]

What battery are you using? My 445+MicroBoost was doing the exact same thing with a cheap UltraFire cell, but it was cured (after much hair-pulling,) by an AW brand battery. I suspect high internal resistance in inferior cells is to blame.

After that, the laser would come on at ~ 1.1 W after Aixiz glass (AR coated for blue,) but output would decrease as the driver heated up. I added some small bits of aluminum to various chips (I wasn't sure which ones needed it exactly, so I chose a couple of likely culprits.) and output was stabilized even further.

Right now, with a 405-G-1 lens and a fresh charge on the battery, it'll output 1.5 W at startup, with a slow decline thereafter (it reached 1.4 W after 60 seconds.)

It could do better, but I plan to stick a MicroFlex in it @ 1.5A and a ton of heatsinking, and see what happens

 

[AJ_Dual]

I'm using an AW I bought from Lighthound.

So I think it just needs some major heatsinking. I'm going to grind, cut up, and fit a bunch of pre-'82 solid copper pennies with Arctic Silver thermal epoxy, and get it a path to the Kryton's head.

I'd like to route the driver heat to the body, since the head is already "busy" with all the diode's heat, but I can't think of a good way to do it since the head needs to spin to thread on and off for maintenance etc.

 

[Xtrm2Rick]

i have had this to on a couple of builds to

It was either the driver heating up or not enough juice in the battery.

I put a piece of copper heatsink from DX on one of my builds and it seemed to work, it stil starts to blink but it just takes a bit longer before it start to blink.

 

[AJ_Dual]

I'm going to put a few more charge cycles on this AW. Because of the long timeline on the Kryton group-buy, It sat for a year before I used it. I'll run it down in one of my LED lights, then throw it back on the charger.

The charger light was green before I used it, but perhaps it wasn't right.