What did you mod today?

did you have to shave the driver edge to fit the pill?

I had today the opportunity to compare the NW GT driver modded Niwalker with a CW GT driver modded Thrunite TN42

all pictures 50m from target

a bit overexposed on the first shot

reduced ISO on camera for control shot

zoomed iout both lights

TN42 CW

Added a Nichia 219C D240 4000K 90CRI to my Utorch UT01. It was purchased with an XP-L 1A 6500K which is way too cool white for me.

Mod was fairly easy too:

  • Unscrew the bezel and you have loose front glass/oring
  • Unscrew the reflector which is threaded to the inside of the body tube
  • Take the centering ring and set it aside so you dont lose it (it’s important)
  • You can either unsolder the LED wires now or lift the pcb from its base and do it while the pcb is suspended
  • The LED pcb is not screwed down or anything it only had some thermal paste under it, you can work it out with tweezers from the flat edges and/or the wire holes if you are careful
  • I cleaned off the paste and reflowed on the stove top. The pcb isnt clearly marked but the anode/positive side is the same side as the positive LED wire mark and the solder they used seemed to be some leaded low(er) heat stuff so it wasn’t too hard to work with
  • Resolder LED wires and try to stuff them back through the holes. I only got one side completely back in. The other side I folded over and ran the extra along the edge of the PCB leaving room for the centering ring since there is a good size gap between the reflector base and the pcb/body tube.
  • Centering ring back on > screw reflector back and re-center everything with the last half turn since the pcb is floating on thermal goo > oring > glass > bezel

Put couple of Simon’s lighted switches in. One in a clear C8, one in a short S2±sort of. Anybody know roughly what the current draw is on those? I love them so far.

ETA: According to my cheap HF meter, 7.5 ma. I don’t love them so much now.

Bought a Convoy M1 host and put a 70.2 in there. FET zener modded from MTN. With 2 aspire 18350 it’s pulling 13A at the tail. It gets hot quicker than the D4 but it’s by far my brightest 18650 sized light
by a huge margin! Also replaced the lens with an AR coated one.

SOFIRN SP32A Turned into a triple :wink:

ORIGINAL > SHORTY > TIR LENS > TRIPLE

“Pill” – I bought a piece of brass, as I didn’t find copper in the adequate diameter; later it was cut in some pieces, tall enough for the height need for a pill to sit over the in-built shelf. I filled it and made a hole in the middle. The rest you see below :wink:

The MCPCB used is from Jaxman Store and this is the CW XP-G2, and the TIR optics was also from Jaxman.
I soldered new wires to the driver and re-done the spring bypass as the original was not in place anymore.
I added glow-in-the-dark tape all over the fins and other places, including arount the TIR, on the inside :wink:

Nice application of the glow-in-the-dark paint MB! Sweet build! :smiley:

Thank you Dale :wink:
BTW, it is GITD tape, I don’t know how to apply the paint or powder + resin (as CRX makes in some mods), so I opted to use the GITD tape (that I have in almost all my lights :smiley: ) !

Nice. I was wondering about doing the same thing, since the D4 driver has a spare pin. It could totally have a lighted switch or a super-efficient moon mode. There’s even a pad for it already on the driver, but it’s not connected to anything.

Emisar D1S, XPG2 S4 2B d/domed;

Mascaratum, the purple background really makes the parts show nicely, your pics look great!

And see? Told you the mod bug would infect you! Welcome to club Flashaholic! :smiley:

Yes, it’s doable with stock driver, I built the first version this way:

Meanwhile I did some tests with different resistors and found a reasonable configuration with 3k for XP-G2, which results in about 500 uA for a useful brightness.

Nice, but the pictures don’t show up for me. That is such a cool little light. Do you have measured throw numbers?

Wow what a powerhouse. And with those aspire 18350s the capacity is more decent.

Pills that were equipped with convoy retaining ring had no slots for unscrewing. I think Ive sold ~100pcs (several assembled) but nobody even asked me how to assemble it. Pretty simple, assemble everything outside host, screw hard driver ring while pill is fixed for cylindrical part, and then use same holes on ring to screw it inside host.
All new pills are equipped with custom rings and both pill and ring have milled slots.

Thanks Dale :wink:
I like that background as well, despite sometimes it is hard to make a good colour balance (well, it is juts a cellphone :smiley: )!

Yup, you did tell me that and that’s the reason why I have your “saying” in my signature, you predicted it all! And inspired it in some way seeing all the nice “enlightened” creatures you bring to us :+1:
Thank you!!! :blush:

Sorry - been having difficulties with google images lately - pics should be back now.


& I’m not even going to mention the “T”word until my new lux meter turns up
. :nerd_face:

Thanks for your answer
Since i had to file down the retaining ring quite a lot for the TA driver, i could not get it as tight as i would like (since the notches were gone from the ring)
Thats why i filed down the nothes on the pill :sunglasses:

I’d bug Hank about adding this by default, but I think he might have more ambitious goals in mind. Still, it’d be nice to have a supermoon mode built in to the stock light.

Have a couple x5/x6 drivers from BG, and a couple lighted switches. Been waiting to find a host that will accept the lighted switch PCB, but no luck and got tired of waiting.

Went through my parts bin and found a few 219b’s a few Noctigon boards, a bunch of p60 pills and an OP p60 reflector. Soldered the Noctigon to the pill, reflowed the 219b to the Noctigon, and installed the driver. Did not work, not one bit. Visually, I could not find nothing wrong with it. Maybe 219b dont like the DTP pad on the noctigon, or maybe bad reflow? I dont know.

Took the driver out and looked at my shelf
 Saw an old XinTD X3 sitting there, unloved. It had a decent driver in it, think it was the 4 mode qlite. Nice tint emitter. Put the X5 driver in it, and fired right up in moonlite.

I ignored doing an emitter or driver swap in the X3 because it just seemed like it would be a pain in the arse to work inside the head, but was surprisingly easy.

I had put a royal blue switch boot in it as soon as I got it, like all my lights that will take it. The switch boots have a shorter nub that the X3 came with. With the new UI, I felt the slop in the switch felt wrong, so set out to fix it. I found a mechanical pencil eraser that fit in the switch spacer hole perfect, kept trimming it down until it was a solid responsive feel. But at that time it was too short and didnt stay in the spacers hole securely. So I chopped up a black boot to fit, was too tight, so chopped just the nub out and same result as the eraser. Finally I tried the switch with out the plastic spacer ring, and perfection. Nice responsive feel with out being too sensitive to touch.

Another problem I had and fixed a while ago with this light was issues with using a 26650. I thought the 26650 was too long and pushing on the driver and causing shorts. turned out it was contacting the metal switch assembly. I had cut out a washer of sorts to fit around the brass negative contact, but isolate the switch assembly. Never had a problem with any of my 26650s again in it.

Love the options with this new driver. I have been sitting here for 30 mins or so trying to set thermal regulation. Just shut the light off and decided with the XML2, it does not need it in this host.