$1.78 AAA zoomie XP-C dedomed

Oh yeah… :sunglasses:

Okay, the tailswitch sits too deep so it’s a bit hard to press it, and i couldn’t get it out to do something about it…
The anodizing is not the best, and i super-glued the clip to fix it so it won’t scratch it anymore.
But at least it has a clip. :slight_smile:

So it’s the smallest AAA zoomie i ever saw, ridiculously cheap, so i got one.
It’s a genuine SKYWOLFEYE :+1:

Yeah, so let’s put an outdated LED in it, to replace the Lettuce Bite fake XP-E !!
And since it’s a zooming thrower, let’s de-dome it !

Because it only has a 11mm aspheric (and not even too bad) plastic lens, it’s better to have an LED die as small as possible.
Sure, the XP-C is a low power LED, maximum recommended / rated current is around 500mA, but this little light only has a tiny driver.
I forgot to take a pic of the driver, sorry…
But it’s one with a 6 legged IC, looks better than i expected for such a cheap light.
It seems to work well too. :slight_smile:
1 mode.

The pill was of course hollow, so i put in a copper disc (press fit).
This moves the LED about 1mm forward, so i had to cut some of the bottom ridge (where the head stops at) away to be able to focus zoomed in (head moved forward).
This also means the lens will be closer to the LED when zoomed out, so you have a wider zoom out flood spot beam.
So now you can illuminate a whole wall… … with 1 Watt… :smiley:
I don’t know, maybe it’s 1.5 Watts. :slight_smile:
I had an option for a different lens as you can see, but decided to use the stock lens afterall.

It was quite a challenge to get the dedomed LED on that tiny 8mm MCPCB in there when i decided to shorten the wires by half, without damaging it or getting thermal grease all over it.
And i even got it wrong the first time, because i had the polarity wrong…
You can see that in the 3rd picture… :person_facepalming:

The beamshots i took to show the difference in size of the projected LEDs.
The 11mm lens has the same focal distance as the 18mm SK68 lens.
[edit] no it hasn’t, it has a shorter focal distance than the 18mm SK68 lens. [/edit]
But with the dedomed XP-C the light is focussed in a much tinier spot.
Of course the SK68 clone with XP-E2 is brighter.
Not only because of the better LED, but probably a better driver and the lens simply catches more light because of its much larger diameter / surface area.
This is why i got some small sized lenses with much shorter focal distance, so it would catch more light from the LED.
But it would have made the projection of the LED much larger
The stock lens is quite okay, better than expected.
No ‘donut’ when half zoomed, nice projection of the LED die when zoomed in.

The tint is quite nice too.
I bought “WD” color bin, which is 1D and 2A as we know it now.

I have one more pic:

I actually reviewed that other AAA zoomy in 2014. :slight_smile: cheap 1xAAA zoomie (short review)
I think it was $4+ at the time, but in all this SKYWOLFEYE is better for less than half the price.

The XP-C LEDs can be bought on AliExpress.
I paid around $5.75 for 20 pieces.
But maybe CREE still has some super tiny die LEDs, i don’t know the specifics of the XQ-A, but could be interesting.

Yes, i can understand you’re all speechless. :partying_face:

Yep, speechless. Nice mod on the genuine SKYWOLFEYE. Whats next on the modding hit list?

I was thinking about buying a XQ-A and using that in an aspheric light.
Very low lumen output but it’s the smallest LED I’ve seen, the die is like 0.6x0.6mm of something like that, haven’t found any actual measurements.

I won’t be, cause 2 of these (the reds - 2 greys and 2 blacks were decent) I bought for $1.84/pc (at 11/11) were a piece of crap (~10 Lm output - most probably fake Cree LED), so I intend to mod/fix them sometime. :sunglasses:

Good job Jerommel. :+1:

That’s possibly the same size as the XP-C die, which is 0.65 x 0.65 mm (guesstimated with help of the picture of the dedomed XP-C)
Yeah, i learned about the existence of the XQ-A when i had already ordered these XP-Cs, but wasn’t sure about the die size.
They’re more difficult or expensive (shipping!) to come by too, but maybe i’ll pursue getting them one day (along with some Oslon black flats perhaps).

This:

It’s nearly done. :slight_smile: Only the head still needs a nice finish.
I put in 8 of these: http://www.ebay.com/itm/282235131958?\_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT on a AK47 1050 mA 3 mode driver. It takes a 18650 now and 21700 will also fit.
Great LEDs by the way.
No tint shift / rainbow effect.

Nice mod of the Skywolfeye zoomie! The XP-C is a fun choice and a welcome unfamiliar die-image :slight_smile:

Coincidently I modded one with a dedomed XP-E2 R4 3C two weeks ago, but I caused a loose contact somewhere so I have to disassemble it one of these days.

I think it is a fun light, I want to do one with 10440 cell, XP-E2 Torch and a FET-driver one day.

For the difficult switch: push out the press-fit switch, insert a 2mm thick silicon disc (cut from the inside pillar of a 14mm silicon tailcap) between tail cover and switch button, re-assemble.

Pushing it out, it didn’t want to…
I didn’t want to ruin the boot either.
I’ll do it some day though, even if it means replacing the boot and perhaps the switch.
But this light has now cost me only $ 2.10 :smiley:

Will do a better mod on the other AAA zoomie too.
it has more potential because the bezel opening is 15mm.
I already replaced emitter and lens, but will put a dedomed XP-C and a filed down 18mm SK68 lens in it.
Should do the same size projection, but with more output.

If you check the few images there are on google, it is definitely smaller.
Cree’s LEDs are sorted by size, there is A,B,C,D,E,G,L
Here you can see the G vs E vs C size:

A would logically smaller than C :slight_smile:
Unfortunately there are like 0 tests or head-on images of it anywhere…

Yes, it does look smaller actually.
Following the logic, surface area approximately:

G = 2x E
E = 2x C
C = 2x A

C = 0.65 x 0.65 mm = 0.42 mm² therefore A = 0.42 : 2 = 0.21 mm² so therefore A die measures 0.45 x 0.45 mm.

Looks smaller though, but hard to tell by the pictures i found.

Sweet, thanks for the math.
Some time I’ll try ordering a few and maybe try dedoming one.
The only place I found that sells them on stars is this place in france: http://led-mounting-bases.com/en/led/13276-led-cree-xq-a-xqaawt-02-0000-00000l5e2.html?search_query=xq-a&results=1361
It can do almost 100lm at 300mA but who knows how far it can be pushed…since there is no djozz test :stuck_out_tongue:

You can probably reflow them on ‘Djozz MCPCB’ intended for Nichia 119 emitters (and their UV LED)

UPDATE :stuck_out_tongue:

I got the switch out and glued a piece of tough rubber on the switch button, so that’s solved now.

And then i discovered i can add a piece of Smiling-Shark® to it and run on 2x AAA !
Big difference! Pretty bright actually. :slight_smile: