6*AMC, XM-L2. There’s a place for another couple of AMCs ready, so I just need to add them. But I’m waiting for the programmer to arrive before I unsolder the light.
I think I’ll try several firmwares…thanks for suggestion.
Lightened switch would kill the chance of any major performance improvement, so I guess it has to go.
I’ve got a couple of KD DTP boards on the way, I want to use one on B158B, have no use for the other yet. But that’s about the same cost as AR coated lens and together they don’t fit the budget…
The ones on the way are 20 mm. I guess I can trim them to size or…order smaller too, dropping the price slightly (even if just on paper). There are $1 Noctingons on sale now, but minimum order of 20 is a bit too much.
BTW, KD has a cheaper lens than the Fasttech one that I’ve seen before, but slightly small. $1.5 with 19.8 mm diameter. Will it work?
Thanks for the suggestion. However, I find that firmware can make or break a light and that of East is definitely a breaker for me. I searched for alternative firmware, it seems to use some unpopular MCU, so no easy fix. I see a similar driver that doesn’t seem to be very popular. Still, no different firmware available.
Nevertheless the following:
dedomed SST-40
BLF A6 driver
DTP MCPB
AR coated lens Narrow TIR
bypasses of both springs
can be had for just over $15.
is interesting too. Will the stock switch survive? Anyway, 52% over the budget won’t do.
Thanks TBone, that’s a great info. I did nothing to focus the lens, that may be the problem.
Also, I used the cheapest lens that I could find. Should I expect a Convoy or LEDDNA one to be better?
Some people like TIRs more than reflectors as there is less spill.
“The cheapest I could find” usually is not the best quality. Check the Convoy TIR thread and see if you like it.
I just experimented with focus. Before, I didn’t remove the centering ring. Now I did and it helped a lot, judging by the eye the hotspot is brighter than the reflector now. It seems that the LED itself doesn’t let it sit low enough, so there should be further gains after dedoming. Anyway, I’ll try a better lens too.
Instead of filing down a 20 mm PCB it might be easier to file down the protruding part of the pill where the 16 mm PCB sits. (Just an idea, haven’t done this yet.)
And I don’t believe it’s worth to do spring bypasses as long as you don’t use a FET driver or stack plenty of 7135. Same with thicker wires.
Dedoming is good for throw - and not too difficult with XM-L2.
Coated lens gives only little lumen gain but might worsen the tint.
Most easy mod for throw probably is to get a cheap XP-L HI on DTP board - KD usually has fair prices - and a BLF A6 driver (look for coupons). And spring bypasses and thicker wires in this case.
Most beautiful mod of course is a triple with carclo and high CRI LEDs but this will exceed your budget slightly. KD has triple boards with Nichia 219C 4000K CRI92 for little money, cheaper than single LEDs. But the boards are crap, you should reflow the LEDs to a noctigons. I did this mods with copper spacers but I’ve seen some old posts here where members did it even without spacers.