What did you mod today?

Don’t know if you could call it a mod, exactly, but I’m very very happy with DBC-06.7… 24 hours of lathe work, then final assembly including building an A6 driver.

The emitter is a de-domed XM-L2 from MaxToch, clean job on the de-dome they did. It’s new gen, so it only pulls 4.61A but makes 1652.55 lumens. Final tuning it does 815Kcd for 1974.57M throw, which is 1.122 Miles!!! :smiley:

I made the tail cap (more of a plug) the body (from a single bar of 2.75” 6061) the reflector adapter (from a 4 1/4” bar of 6061) and the bezel (also from the bar of 4 1/4” 6061) The copper pill is 35mm dia and 35mm tall. Cell is the TrustFire 32650 by design, the plug in the tail has long threads to allow the use of anything from a 26500 to a 21700 or 26700, even the protected variation of 32650 works. Lens is a custom order 3mm thick 104mm UCLp from Chris at flashlightlens.com.

I went with an oversized variation of the small 18350 light I built last year where the battery tube looked like twin thread spools stacked, this allows cigar grip even on this 1234 gram light! :smiley:

Edit: PS, if you think turning a 4 1/4” bar of 6061 on a 5” chucked Grizzly 10x22 lathe is easy, you’re sadly mistaken!

1 Thank

Wow Dale , what a beast !

Did you use KD 86mm reflector ?

The hot spot is actually smaller than what shows in that last pic, the tiles in the picture on the wall are 12” square, the hot spot is about 8” at this distance.

Not exactly sure where the reflector came from George, it’s bigger than that though. A friend sent it to me and laughingly said see what you can do with this! He said there weren’t any more and the mfr quit making them. I was planning to build this light already, had the battery tube bored for the 32650 and was intending to use the reflector out of my Olight SR-90 Intimidator since I have the Lum 5-90 in that light. I think that’s what inspired my friend to send this one, going big go all the way… lol

I was talking with another friend with machining experience about the sheer size here, I only had the 4 1/4” bar and it wouldn’t be big enough to machine a head for this 98mm reflector, so he said why not just use it as a stressed member, like Ducatti does their engines? And so I did, threaded the reflector to fit the machined body part and bezel. Out of the ordinary, but then, it’s no ordinary light. :smiley:

So I guess I modded 2 bars of 6061 into a flashlight. hahahahaha

Edit: This pic should show how it all started, the full sized bars are pieced together for testing of an emitter inside the reflector. I used my power supply for this test, but you can see the sheer mass of aluminum I had to carve away, hence 24 hours on the lathe…

Very nice

Thank you CRX, appreciate it.
Sure has been a black hole for my time. lol

That’s pretty neat there Dale! Your machining skillz are off the hook!

i love that thing ! well done!

Thanks Kawi, appreciate it, coming from someone that knows real lathes!

Excellent machine work!

The last picture kind of remind me of the Statue of Liberty torch.

Couple of beamshots from DBC-06.7

DBC-06.7 at 610 yds to the barn, 1st shot is at 28mm 1/2 sec exposure at f/5.6 ISO1600, second is same settings, but zoomed in at 112mm.

Just look at that big spot… Awesome !

George, look at how the hot spot throws a shadow onto the building from the tree between me and the barn…. the tree is 296 yds from where I was standing and 315 yds from the barn!!

The hot spot probably looks larger than it really is because I couldn’t hold the light steady in the 1/2 second exposure. The meds I’m on for nerve pain make me shaky. It is what it is.

Here’s a shot where I mounted the light on the tripod, same settings. I don’t like the lower light position as much as the overhead shot, but it is more stable for sure…

That was interesting . I guess it will light this barn even from 1000yds . :wink:

What is the diameter of the reflector ? I would guess it’s over 85mm to give such a throw on a xm-l2 !

97.5mm, opening.

Massive ! Always handy to have spare reflectors when you own a lathe…

In retrospect, I could probably have used the 4.25” bar and threaded the end for an internal bezel, more of the retaining ring variety. Wish I’d thought of that when I was figuring out how to go about it as I’d like to have had the reflector encased inside a head as usual. Oh well, little to late to do the right thing now…

I don’t think you will make anytime soon another bezel Dale , haha !

Nope, got parts in to rebuild DBC-05, looking for more lumens and better throw by swapping out 50.2 ’s with 70.2’s.

I took a chance on the ArmyTek Barracuda, they claim to have a redesigned style, new reflector and redesigned regulated driver. The very deep reflector is not quite mirror finished, but not exactly orange peel either, sort of a satin look to it. As such, the XHP-35 HI has fuzzy edges in the hot spot and it’s more blue/white than I like. So I ordered a new XHP-35 D4 from Richard in HD with 5000K tint.

Swapped it in and the hot spot is more defined, probably lost some throw but I like the beam more and the tint is a lot better. Easy enough to do, and I gained a 26mm XP footprint MaxToch MCPCB in the process. :wink: