Brinyte B158 mod thread

Very good my friend, I have a restlessness, I paint the pill black and centering to eliminate the annoying rings of light? Eliminates them completely? Thank you

It reduced em, but eliminate is not possible

I hope you’ll still like it when finished as some of the weight will be added back but with a significant increase in surface area(at least where the pill is located). To be honest though, it’s mostly cosmetic since any gain made by the copper could well be offset by the addition of the aluminum to copper thermal break. I could do wood only but fins just look neat.

DTP measured after LED unsoldered

Did some minor modifications
painted the lens side black

added black paint around the emitter

still some weak rings in the beam, but probably as much as possible with an uncoated lens

Lexel, what paint do you use? Is the paint the same type on the emitter, gasket, and centering ring? It looks much glossier on the emitter is the reason I ask.

I wonder if chalkboard paint would work well?

.
.
.
.

In other news, for those of us in the USA, I found a good material for doing flood modification, without losing spot capability: 3/4” Type M copper pipe.

The nominal ID of this pipe is 20.60mm, and the OD of the threads on the B158 pill are 20.72 (as measured by me). So you need to sand the ID of the pipe very little - I use sandpaper wrapped around a deep socket from my toolbox and it only takes a couple minutes.

The OD of the copper pipe is less than the ID of the B158 body, so the light can still zoom in to spot setting all the way without issues.

So basically you make a ring of copper about 5mm wide, and slip it onto the pill. I like 5mm because it still gives plenty of thread engagement between the pill and flashlight body.

You will need to add some length to the tailcap end to compensate for the 5mm that you just moved the pill. I solder 5mmx2mm brass bottons to the top of the spring cap:

Now you can get more flood in the widest setting, there is little downside because the light can still zoom out completely normally (no downside other than extra work involved).

I can take some pictures next week to better illustrate how it all goes together.

The paint on gasket, centering ring and pill is from a matt black spray can

For the LED I used an injection needle that was dremeled flat on a 0.5ml syringe with paint from a marker refill bottle

Would have been easier to paint the LED on star before I build it in

Thanks, nice results (forgot to say that the first time).

Part 4?
Stacked up copper fins and spacer rings(now 1.4mm) with brazing paste and extra paste up top (extra tube gets cut off) and ran the torch around it a few extra times to be sure of adequate wicking. Then the hot bath in Fuze Clean FS. Pretty regular on the spacing and it even still fits the tube. I’ll have to wait to clean it up and cut it to size but this was a major hurdle.

Nice progress Rufusbduck, this is a major mod, very hard to do. A bit of advice for cleaning /polishing the inside of those cooling fins: put it in a wise, find a tight fit rope and polish it (with polish paste) until satisfied moving that rope back and forth. Apply moderate pressure.

What brazing products do you use for this? I purchased a Durafix rods and they do the job great but don’t flow nicely like solder. It is thick material, very hard to sand.

What I’ve done in the past is spin the part on the drill press with a fold of successive grits of w/d paper in the gaps. Depending on the gap I’ll fold the sandpaper over different thicknesses of sheet stock to sand/polish the faces of the fins. I used to use only Radnor stay silv brazing wire and white paste flux but last year started using an SRA Products brazing paste/flux combo (similar to solder paste) for some things where secondary brazing steps favor the use of something with a lower melting point. I used the wire to braze both the main tube and the tube the spacers were cut from and the paste for the assembly. In both cases SRA Fuze Clean FS is used to dissolve the glasslike flux and heat scale prior to grinding and polishing. The reccomended water bath temp is at or above 160F. A sonic cleaner allows a lower concentration to be used so maybe I’ll get one someday. It’s pretty amazing stuff that completely removes the flux in a minute or less.

Yo Lexel, same problem here.

There are too much in my case. I do not know if I will succeed to remove all of it and to take this ring…
What you use to remove solder ? Solder wick ?

If I fail to remove all of it and not release the ring, it is good idea to solder driver directly on brass pill without a ring ?

Has anyone tried a UV emitter in a B158?

The plastic lens will block a large portion of the UV radiation.

Thanks!

Wow, looking good! You do great stuff, Rbd.

Question: How malleable are those copper fins? I’d be worried about bending them in use and never being able to get them straight again.

Ignore my question if it is mostly a light built for show / aesthetics.

All too malleable and yes it’s probably more for looks. They would need to be thicker and not annealed but at least they won’t stick out much past adjacent parts.

Nice ribs :wink: But it could be polished even better and then clear lacquer to protect copper oxidation?

I’m not done with it yet and you can see a lip on the smallest one still. I don’t like lacquer on metal, when it fails it’s hard to fix.

I measured my modded B158 dedomed XML2 U4-1A with stock driver

Cold start with 2.8A get me to 150kLux
5980 measured at 5m
770m throw