Will 20mm copper Noctigon dissipate the heat???

Are you describing attaching the Noctigon ‘via the sides’ like if you were to place the Noctigon inside a pipe where there would be no shelf…just the outside edge of the Noctigon touching?

Thanks, but sorry for not being clear before. I was asking if the Noctigon copper MCPCB itself can dissipate the heat “through” the sides of the Noctigon (not from the backside as usual). I already know what LED I am going to use, as stated above it will be the XP-L HI and I was planning to use the BLF A6 for the driver. But this crap 26650 host I was asked to mod happens to be hollow (image below), so the ONLY mounting is through the side on a 1mm lip. So the Noctigon needs to do all the heat dissipation “thru” the Noctigon itself and then out the “SIDES” of the base. Or I may be forced to melt some extra aluminum and pour it in to create my own heat dissipation base, which I would like to avoid doing if the Noctigon is already up to the task as-is.

See the 1mm lip below? It is 20mm wide with a 17mm (or 18mm) stupid hollow hole down the center. I have modded dozens of cheap hosts in the past but I have never come across a hollow LED flashlight before (stupidest host I ever seen). So again I am wondering if the 20mm Noctigon can dissipate the heat via the “sides” of the MCPCB itself, as apposed from the back per usual. I hope I was clearer. Anyway, I plan on going forward with this mod regardless, but I would like to avoid damaging a new emitter if at all possible, especially since this is not my flashlight. Thanks

https://i.imgur.com/I117CRTl.jpg

Okay now I see what you’re doing. This is clear now. Sorry I did t understand earlier post. Man, that’s a funky host. What was in there before? Do you think the reflector will work with the led down that far? Sorry, now I have questions. Haha! I would think it would disparate the heat. Might try stacking the noctigon with led on top of a bare noctigon staggered so the plates cover the empty space below. Make sense? More heat absorption with two noctigon s may be better. You would have to solder completely around the noctigon on every “fin” to make sure it is securely soldered/mounted to the host. Can you talk the owner into using another host? Maybe a Convoy C8. They can be bought pretty cheap. I’ve got 4 of the new version collection dust if you need one.

Yep that is almost exactly how it will look, unless I add some extra dissipation base to it. Which I have plenty of ideas if I need to do that.

Besides, I just realized I have a bunch of copper heatsink shims 20x20mm I could drop down into the hole (pipe as you called it) behind the Noctigon and just solder that into place, instead of trying to melt some aluminum (ouch). That might give me about 5mm thick of extra heat dissipation and be easy enough to do I hope.

Thanks for replying to my inquiry.

Yeah, its for my brother actually as he is used to me modding everything for him so he just thought I could do this too. I’ve modded MUCH worse hosts before, like $5 truck stop specials and they turned out OK in the end. Anyway, I think he got this to hit the $25 free shipping limit at Amazon, lol and he knows I have to mod every light regardless of quality. I already have some finished C8’s here but they are mine. What do you mean by new version? You mean the XP-L High Intensity versions?

Oh and I just remembered why I need to mod this, its because he has two 26650 batteries going to waste that he bought just for this flashlight. So I feel compelled to try modding it just because of that reason alone.

To answer the questions, its a BYBLIGHT X800 and it zooms without a reflector. That is why it looks shallow in that pic as I have it zoomed forward to gain access to the fake cree emitter. And that emitter is held into place with a fairly decent plastic ring and what looks to be a brass emitter holder that screws it down. This holds it decently in place, but again the backside of the MCPCB is empty for about 20mm or so until you get to the driver. Its plenty of room for me to add extra metal if I have to. And, I see no reason why he wouldn’t take a C8 in its place, all I would have to do is tell him its much better and he would be happy (but he already has one of those too I believe). The only mod I want to do to this crap host is a better emitter that already has tight beam on its own, and a better driver of course. But I need to solve the dissipation issue first, if its an actual issue, but I am not sure if it is if using a fully copper mcpcb. Surely the copper mcpcb can dissipate a lot of heat right? So long I solder it to the sides? Know what I mean? Seems like that would be OK to me.

I guess I better ask how much you want for the C8 now? I’m in the USA though :slight_smile: Thanks

Old pennies are ~19mm in diameter, and if filed flat and soldered together, you can make a Cu slug that almost fits. Fill the rest with JBWeld to avoid that air-gap.

Man, you got your hands full with modding that. Haha. The C8 I bought from Mtn electronics two years ago and it was the new version then. They called it Convoy C8 Flashlight Host - Version 3. Here’s what C8 they are selling now. C8 host

I bought 4 of these, 4 of the XHP70 led and 4 of the fet driver modded with 12* 7135 chips to increase current. I just never put them together. I paid $11.45 for them. They sell Now for $11.85. I would rather keep the host, driver and led together. You would have a bright light. I paid $17.29 for the led on 20mm copper noctigon, they had just come out and were expensive, I think the XHP70 on noctigon is now around $14 bucks? I’m guessing could be more or less… the driver was $16.79 with the modding of extra 7135 chips. That’s a total of $45. Bucks. If you just want the host I guess $11 bucks plus shipping which is just a few bucks. Don’t know if there are any deals for a XHP70 flashlight with a modded fet driver for $45 bucks. But I do t think that’s too bad for a badass light. And that’s my cost. I’m not going to sell parts for more than what I paid. If I had put them together I would prolly add around $25 bucks.

It will dissipate less heat, but yes it will still help dissipate some heat.

Wow what a great idea, and it beats me losing out on my copper shims. Thanks.

Yes, what he said. Excellent idea! And pennies aren’t expensive, just .01 cents each.

Make sure they’re pre-1982 for solid Cu. After that were “zinkies”, Cu-flashed Zn slugs.

Take a recent penny and scrape it with a sharp knife. You’ll expose the silver-colored Zn underneath.

Sounds like fun. I like modding anything, but good flashlight hosts always make the job far too easy. Without a challenge it just becomes boring. JBWeld never even dawned on me, but that means I wont be using the heat gun, and I love finding uses for my heat gun or the blow torch for that matter. I just spoke with Richard at mtnelectronics and he isn’t sure either if that Noctigon will dissipate heat properly thru its sides, so maybe the pennies idea is a go. Cheap pennies for a cheap host. Besides, I am not sure the Noctigon can handle 500f, so maybe JBWeld is a safer bet.

I will try that. Thanks for that great and cheap idea guys.

Well, you got a great idea and some shitty ideas. I hope your mod comes out excellent and your brother is impressed and appreciates what you do for him. :+1: :beer: :sunglasses:

Thanks again guys,

I already changed my plan on this budget host haha.

When looking at pennies and how they fit I realize a nickel is 21.2mm, about identical to the actual star hole. So, I took the nickel and set it on top of the star hold down ring and its exactly the same as far as I can tell. So I am going to use this nickel as a template for a real 20x20mm copper slug/shim (1.2mm thick heatsink pure copper shim made just for PC mods). This will give me 4 corners that are actually 21mm wide and thus a near perfect base for an actual 20mm Noctigon MCPCB. And, instead of using Uniweld solder or JB Weld for the securing of this copper shim, I have decided to use some of my Artic Silver Thermal Adhesive, which is comprised of microscopic silver powder. This is actually made for thermal transfer and it works well between copper and aluminum, thus greatly reducing any risk of galvanic corrosion, which is of concern to me. I’m going to polish one side of the copper slug (the Noctigon side) and just clean the other. Then once it is silver epoxied into place, the next day I will simply drop about 5mm thick of JB Weld on the backside of the slug facing the driver. Then the next day drill two access holes for the leads and use some decent thermal paste between the Noctigon and the polished copper slug, which is now my solve to the thermal dissipation issue. I have never had to do anything like this to a Host before, but man is it a fun journey.

With any luck 1.55mm of the Noctigon mcpcb + 1.2mm of copper slug/shim + 5mm of JB Weld should provide plenty of heat transfer material into the hosts body. If not I will be very surprised. Looking closer at this Host today it doesn’t look at all that bad, in fact its nicer than many of my other mods. Might as well fix’er up into something useful. lol

It would be better to dump heat from your Noctigon both from the edges and on the bottom (through a shelf).

That said, Noctigons do work fine even when the only point of contact to dump waste heat is through the edges. Just make sure to use a lot of thermal grease at the edges to get a good connection.

Example:
The Sunwayman C10R is a relatively small single-CR123 EDC light. A couple years ago I modded one of these into a triple powered by an 18500 cell and FET driver. In order to make room for the much longer cell I mounted the new driver on the front-side of the shelf, with a small air gap for the wires and then the star above it. Effectively, this was a “hollow pill” arrangement with almost nothing touching the underside of the star (just a thin strip of copper sheet bent into a C-ring to keep it in position). Virtually all thermal connection was through the edges of the star into the head.

The light has quite good output, running on an IMR 18500 cell, FET driver, and triple XPL HI on 20 mm copper Noctigon. It pulls a lot of amps and is very bright.

With no thermal grease at the edges the star heated up too quickly. So much so that the wires to the star desoldered themselves and the light failed.

But after I added a generous helping of Arctic Silver 5 thermal grease around the edges of the star, the light worked perfectly and has continued to work perfectly ever since. The outside of the head heats up quite fast showing that there is a good thermal connection to the star.

Bottom Line: Yes, you can safely use a copper Noctigon with nothing underneath. This works even in very highly driven lights. Just make sure to add extra thermal grease at the edges.

THANK YOU for taking the time to tell me your experience.

As I said above though, I have decided to build a “Shelf” (is this what everyone calls the Heat Dissipation Base or Integrated Heat Spreader, a “Shelf”?) as you call it. So maybe I do not need the JB Weld after all, but I will probably still use it anyway because why not.

Thanks Firelight2

Someone gave a rude mark for the post above this. I was joking that the advice I gave was shitty and what others said was great ideas. If you thought I was saying your ideas were shitty please dont be offended. I was joking about my my ideas being shitty. Guess I could have worded that different. Sorry about that statement, it was meant to be a joke about me and the ideas I presented.

That is weird because I surely didn’t see anything you said as rude. IMO it is shitty of me to be using crap hosts, but I can’t help it. I actually enjoy taking something that is crap and turning it into something that is not so crappy, if you know what I mean.

One of my favorite lights that I have I paid only $4.95 from a truck stop way back in 2006. It was branded Norlite and used two AA alkalines and a small incandescent bulb. It took me weeks to figure out how to turn it into a LED flashlight. Not even sure why I did it, but I had to build my own driver just because the space I had did not correspond to any know driver size, so I had to make my own. Plus I had to cut down a XML emitter star because 16mm was far too small and 20mm far too big for the space. Then I had to find a 2xAA holder sleeve because the host was so bad that the AA’s bounced around. Then I had to find a tail switch, lens, reflector etc just to make it all work. What I was left with is a single mode 2xAA (eneloops of course) thrower that produces more light than any other AA light I have ever seen. 5 years later every time I pick up this ugly light I smile. Why, because I took serious piece of junk and turned it into something I could love. Sure its ugly, VERY ugly, the paint don’t stay on and I seriously doubt anyone would ever steal it. LOL

IMO what I did was a bad idea, but heck what can I say, it was the challenge I wanted, not the end result.

The 1.6mm thick copper star will conduct heat better than a lot thin 0.8mm alum stars on thin shelves
The point is how much surface you will have in the end with a very low gap to fill

If you can really solder it to the pipe the heat conduction will be for sure good enough for DD
just look that you got about 40mm² surface to bind to the tube that’s 9 times more than from the LED thermal pad to the star

and the thermal resistance is a lot lower than for heat paste on the same surface
for thermal paste the area is 8 times bigger but the thermal resistance is about equally worse

“Should” be able to solder it using a Wagner heat gun and Uniweld P4KD9S Soft Solder, which is made for soldering soft metals such as copper to aluminum, unless you guys here at BLF have a better solder to use I’m not aware of. My issue with this is possible damage to the Noctigon and/or solder climbing up the pipes hold down threads. If the entirety of the threads happen to soak up solder then that could potentially ruin the project entirely.

I guess one could solder both the copper shelf AND Noctigon to the pipe? That would be 1.55mm plus 1.2mm of copper for the heat to transfer through. I like the idea of adding a copper shelf regardless because I have control on exactly how I shape it to fit, thus making the shelf much tighter than the Noctigon would be on its own. But like I said solder might fill the threads that are responsible for holding the ring that holds the star into place.

I’m not even sure how to solder this Noctigon to this pipe or shelf. I mean, do I do so with or without the LED already installed? Will my Wagner HT1000 damage the LED? Do I heat it from the sides only, from the bottom only? Normally I use a stove and old pan for reflowing LED’s, but this is far different. Which is why I am thinking thermal adhesives and jb weld work only here.

Thanks for sharing your experience.