What did you mod today?

Fenix HP11 with replaced led and cable

Nichia 219C 90CRI

And Olight S15 baton, fried and with ledil optics and driver from bronte v3 (buck-boost 0,9-9v)

Nice work above from Pulsar, g_damian and Hemionline, modding still thrives at BLF!

g_damian, did you consider using the switch leds?, I think that maybe both the Sofirn C8f host and driver support it.

Thanks djozz, now need to decide on what emitter to use in it. It’s got a nice tint xml2 already though…
Kept playing with my ut02 today. Would love to get the GT UI on it, but looks like the driver board is kind of a unique shape. Maybe can be flashed? Dunno…

Can’t wait for Lexel to start making ut-02 sized boost drivers. They will enable any BLF UI as well as give a nice power boost.

That would be pretty sweet.

Thanks! I have focused on NarsilM modifications, but that’s definitely the good idea.

I did cosmetic work on a Sofirn C8F host this morning, the inside is still empty. Blowtorched the body parts for a fading dark to middle brown, then lots of disc-sanding: added a Foybezeledtm SS C8 bezel from Simon, and removed the ears from the tail (I never use lanyards).

Nice work djozz and I dont even have to Goggle what a Foy bezel is. :slight_smile:

:smiley:
But perhaps a cross-reference is in place here: Foybezel.

That’s sweet looking Jozz! Nice work!

Awesome!! Looks way better!

To my surprise I got the light finished before fetching my son from school. Did it a bit selfish though: did not make pictures of the build apart from the result. These are the steps I took though:

*removed the switchboard from the host and fully test-wired (with test-XM-L2) the 17mm NarsilM driver that I got from Lexel (his service is a real help for the BLF community, thanks!) It worked fine, including the switch-led functions.
*removed all internal parts and blowtorched the three body parts (not the bezel because is not used. The tail got a bit too light-brown so I stopped earlier with the tube, and still earlier with the head.
*attached the Convoy SS bezel and sanded the bezel flat with the disc sander, took a while because I need to replace the sanding paper disc. Bevelled the edge
*sawed of the ears of the tail part and sanded the tail flat. Bevelled the edge
*replaced the green leds of the switch-board with orange ones, and replaced the two 33 KOhm resistors on the switch-board with 3.3 kOhm ones, so that the orange leds are at least as bright as the green leds were.
*the Lexel 17mm NarsilM driver has 7135 chips on the battery side so the driver retaining ring hardly screws in. So I bevelled the inside of that brass ring quite a bit, but also filed the corners off the 7135 chips.
*Soldered a connecting wire for the swich leds to the switch board (the host comes without one)
*reflowed three Nichia 219C SM4070e R9050 leds ( :heart_eyes: ) on that great DTP copper triple board that this host comes with.
*opened up the center pieces a bit with a hand-countersink device (they were blocking a bit too much light to the side)
*attached long (~7cm) ledwires to the board.
*assembled the head tight, with generous Arctic Silver 5 under the ledboard.
*soldered the five wires sticking out of the head to the correct pads on the driver, the led+ wire directly through the center hole of the driver to the top of the driver spring.
*pushed the bundle of wires into the hole, pushed the driver in position and closed the retaining ring.

Done! And everything went well without too much troubleshooting needed.

A few performance results on a 30Q battery:
*11A with battery full, the long ledwires limit the current quite a bit.
*2080 lumen at start, 2040 at 30 seconds. Just 2% drop, this light is steady alright!! Efficiency at max is about 50 lm/W, which is not great.
*perfect tint and colour rendering, great beam: beautiful hotspot, tintshift as little as you would ever wish
*UI= :heart_eyes: , as expected from NarsilM, with lighted switch when off.

Pics:


^ white balance was on auto, above picture shows the beam quite well, but not the tint.

Conclusion for this Sofirn C8F host: you get an immense good host for almost no money, well done Sofirn+BLFdevelopers! It is a bit more challenging building this up than a simple C8 or a S2+, but there’s at least no stupid design flaws that needs building around. The amount of aluminium in the right places, the thick and flat shelf and the copper DTP board make for great heat spreading, I still need to check but in my build a stepdown may not be needed before 10 minutes.

Edit, costs (not too bad this time :slight_smile: )
Host $13.21
SS bezel $4.50
Driver $14.50
Nichia leds $14
Switch leds/resistors $0.70
Total $46.91

Nicer than mine… Good job, djozz.

I have 3 4070e leds, but saving them for FW3A.

Very nice! Purple light is quite cool. Something different!

Cool :+1:

Nice build djozz, like it a lot. Cool customization on the bezel, tail and bake.

also liking the XP-L HI throw g_damian.

Got a few C8F hosts to play with. Just haven’t touched them since modding the first C8F I got as complete light.
Thanks for posting your info and specs guys.

Wow Jos, i like that smooth bezel!
Looks like a lot of work as well as patience!

I’m just getting back into modding and upgraded a Thorfire TG06S with a FET, XPL2 (4000K) and Efest 14500 (2017 ver).

Not sure how many amps its pulling but based on battery sag and XPL2 Vf, it’s hopefully somewhere around 6-7 amps for 1700 lumens!

Pretty bright for a keychain flashlight and blows my old Astrolux A01 out of the water.

I highly recommend the TG06S as a 14500 modding host/EDC. They can be had for around $13.
The XPL2 die is exactly the same size as the XPG2 it replaced so no need to mess with the reflector either.

Thermal management is OK, but it didn’t heat up as fast as I was expecting. I think the aluminum pill/shelf is a bit thin.

I have upgraded a cheap silver S2+ from GB which had the V21A xpl hi and 3/5 mode convoy 105 driver.
Replaced it with an XPL2 HD 5000K and a BLF A6 driver to make a small pocket rocket, it gives a lot of light, did not measure current draw, but i am not happy with the tint, it’s ugly as hell!
Hot spot is OK but it has an ugly yellow corona which is very annoying to me.

Instantly ordered a XPL hi 4500K 4B from KD.

Are you sure about that? :slight_smile: