Surefire A2 Aviator Fan checking in

[thermal guy]

Oh. I'm not sure I like that. Well I'll hold off judgement till I can find out more about it.

 

[Bullzeyebill]

Sounds sort of complicated, The A2 runs on a regulated voltage driver. How does that mate up to the driver in the LED drop in?

Bill

 

[calipsoii]

Sounds sort of complicated, The A2 runs on a regulated voltage driver. How does that mate up to the driver in the LED drop in?

Bill

The primary lamp in the A2 is powered by the raised bump in the middle of the body.
The 5mm LED ring is powered by the raised metal ring that surrounds that bump.

Since this dropin touches both the 5mm ring AND the lamp bump, it receives two different voltages depending on how you've activated the tailcap. They're taking advantage of the different voltage sources to provide a low and high mode vs. just a high.

 

[Viper715]

So if that's the case I wonder would it be possible to put some type of insulating layer in there to stop it from lighting on low?

 

[archimedes]

Interesting approach, thanks for the explanation. I was wondering about that too.

 

[thermal guy]

So another words the low now is 40 lumens?

 

[Lumen83]

So another words the low now is 40 lumens?

A 40 lumen low for a light that was designed for use in a cockpit so as not to wipe out your night adapted vision, is a little odd. Clearly the intent of the dropin is not to maintain the initial use case that the light was designed for. And, that is fine. But, a 40 lumen white LED on low is also going to render the other colored LEDs completely useless.

 

[bykfixer]

Mark indicated that without actually going inside a particular A2 itself, the lack of resistance of an LED vs a light bulb led to the final product. Due to size of the drop in doing something inside said drop in was impractical.

For those with white LED A2's these will be pretty nifty. Red? Not so nifty unless you just want an A2 to run on high all the time.

 

[thermal guy]

I'm going to wait till someone gets one and reports back.it looks interesting but not sure on this yet.

 

[bykfixer]

I like the idea of an LED "high" with an A2, especially for added fuel mileage but am sticking with incan bulbs in mine.

 

[thermal guy]

Ya think that's where I'm headed as well.brings back good memories 😁

 

[bykfixer]

The Tads system is pretty good for A2's. Nice beam from the stock A2 bulb model (forget the model # something 18 iirc but it's listed on the chart for which bulbs can do what).

 

[ampdude]

I like the idea of an LED "high" with an A2, especially for added fuel mileage but am sticking with incan bulbs in mine.

Yup. I don't even worry about that at all. I have been using rechargeable cells in A2's for well over ten years without any problems. I have a couple of sets of IMR's that I currently rotate between my A2 and another light. My A2 is the main light I carry around the house at night.

 

[thermal guy]

2X16340's won't blow a stock A2 bulb?

 

[Viper715]

That's the thing the driver is in the light so within a certain range no matter what you feed it the driver regulates the voltage to the bulb so no poof on rcrs.

 

[archimedes]

It does overdrive the stock LED ring though

 

[Viper715]

Very true. I run onion rings and Calipsoi rings in my A2s

 

[chainsolid]

I Have one
A2 4 flat black, I love it

 

[ampdude]

It does overdrive the stock LED ring though

 

[ampdude]

Yes it does overdrive the led ring. I haven't had any problems with my Surefire stock rings or onion ring though. With the bulb's soft start feature I hope it will continue to run for a very long time. Got spares though.