What did you mod today?

no spacer needed?
i use this same KD triple and very soon all wires are disolved….the mcpcb is not good material or this 10 amp…only the one from intloutdoor sadly…

Nice one! What fwd clicky did you use? They are hard to find in a somewhat small formfactor.

did you trim too long legs of optics? kaidomain’s mcpcbs are only 1mm, legs have to be adjusted.

What wires do you use? Mine are from intl-outdoor 22 awg, so far, so good.

well i used the one soldered on fet driver:))
optic is the same from kd…

These , disguised as reverse clickies :wink:

Today a mod that gave me one of my best flashlights ever (but not perfect of course :expressionless: )

Yesterday I received a Sofirn SP33 single26650tubestyle flashlight and I could not believe how nice it was, I love the design, it is built very solid and as vestureofblood already noticed in his video-review this form and size feels incredibly gooood in the hand. I even do not mind that it is somewhat bigger than my DQG26650, it looks better and has more to offer (like a proper beam that goes a distance instead of a wide flood). The UI is ok but not perfect (1100 lumen high, the low, 16 lumen, should be lower of course and has no direct access from off, and I’m not too fond of memory), can’t notice PWM, the used XP-L has a very nice neutral tint, the beam from the perfect smooth reflector is as perfect as an XP-L can produce.
This is a proper flashlight!

Today I got the 4000K 90+ CRI Samsung LH351D leds from BLF-member AEDe. After a jubilant report about this led from maukka, and remembering TA’s very promising test of another version of the LH351D I wanted to use it in the SP33.

Of course you loose considerable output when going high CRI, so to compensate it somewhat the SP33 got some extra modifications:

*as said, the XP-L led was swapped for the Samsung. I found the stock MCPCB to be DTP so I used it again (Dale in his review of the SP33 said that his stock board was non-DTP)
*ledwire thickness went up to 20AWG
*0.1Ohm was soldered parallel to the .068 Ohm current limiting resistor (=not a sensing resistor as Dale mentioned in his review)
*both springs were bypassed. Managed to break open the tail cap btw, it was a tough job, a kind of hard golden coloured rosin was in the threads, not normal threadlock.
*the switch button did not engage the switch very well, had to press deep and hard to get contact, so I lengthened the switch a bit by letting a drop of Norland-64 UV-harden on top of it.

Result: this my new favorite camping light, everything said about this led is true: output very good, tint great, CRI wonderful, beam in a smooth reflector great (one of the best ever with little tint shift and certainly better than the beam from the stock XP-L).
Current is now 3.8A on high, output 950 lumen at 30 seconds, very useful numbers for this size flashlight. The output stepdown at 5 minutes from the SP33 driver is appropriate.

I’m sorry to not have taken pictures from the modding steps, will do better next time :frowning:

Now I found the problem with goshdogit’s help.
I uploaded an Andúril which hex made for Emisar D1 and therefore it doesn’t control the indicator led. So I changed to the Q8’s Andúril hex and modded the switch board a little.
Cutted the red led trace to put there a 4,7K resistor and now it is working both two blue leds soldered to the switch and the red controlled by firmware.


The blue leds are always on except when switch is pressed. The red led controlled by Anduril so I can set off-low-high mode separately to flashlight’s OFF and Locked status.
I set mine that way:

After that picture was made I changed the lockout red level to low so it looks the same as On state 7135 only.
Now I only need to look at the switch and if I see red in it I know it is locked.
The parasitic drain and standby times are:

OFF/ Lockout is the same results.
Blue always on

red off: 0.174 mA /Aspire 18350: 311 days /Sanyo 18650GA: 838 days
red low: 0.224 mA /Aspire 18350: 240 days /Sanyo 18650GA: 651 days
red high: 0.596 mA /Aspire 18350: 90 days /Sanyo 18650GA: 244 days

Sometimes it’s hard to stop and take pictures when you’re having fun! :smiley:

Very nice! :heart_eyes: I may need to try this on one of my Q8 bezels.

Can you share a bit about your technique?

Also good to hear you got your H03 with Andúril running properly. :+1:

Thanks!
I want to make the most color so I put in the gas fire like you see on top right pic until it started to glow. Than rotated to the opposite side. I putted it in the fire where the bezel has ha bumps. So heated it on 6 sides. Next time I try to rotete the C8 bezel to get even color circles.

+1
That was my first thought when I held this one two days ago. Closest I had up to now was the Ultrafire F13 (longer, and clicky light) but this one feels juuuuuuuust… right. Got it dirt cheap from Sofirn during the Aliexpress anniversary sale and I’m really glad I took it.

Good mode spacing, nice tint, protected 26650 fit well. It’s even a good light out of the box.
But the driver has… say… potential. I really want a ramping firmware on that one.

With a ramping driver you do throw away what seems real current controlled modes: in the stock driver I can not detect PWM at all, and that I see the led tint shifting with every mode change also supports that.
And current control is always highly valued by flashoholics, only a few tint snobs dislike it because of the tint shift.

:smiley:

I always considered myself a tint-snob, but only to the degree of differentiating between cold/neutral/perfect/warm, all below this certain black curve, of course…

But ever since I got into designing, programming and flashing my own driver, I became a UI-snob.
Besides other features, I don’t use wrap-around. To avoid this “Am I in highest mode? - click - hey, I really was in highest mode, now I’m in the moon…” This is when a good UI makes up for other disadvantages.

Yes, the UI of the SP33 is only so-so (but certainly not the worst around). I find the UI for my small daily EDC very important because typically it gets instant use without time to think and then I must know what mode I get. The SP33 is more of a light for longer use, in which case the UI is less critical, as long as the right modes are there. Speaking of that, I do miss a 1 lumen moon mode, but that void is also filled by my EDC that runs for 4 continuous days on moon mode.

I’ve been wanting to build a triple dropin for my Elzetta ZFL-M60 host and this is it.
The shell is made from P60 shell drop-in with much sanding here and there to fit Elzetta’s host.

It works!

BUT…

I used to much force to install the optic and it crushed one of its LEDs.

My buddy got one of those “military grade” zoomie’s, he got it on the cheap and wanted to compare it to a co-worker’s more expensive TV advertised one. He measured it at 460 lumens and 26Kcd on a Li-ion cell, then sent it to me to tweak. :smiley:

Now it makes 1360 lumens and 62.75Kcd utilizing a de-domed SST-40 from Richard. :wink:

EDIT: My buddy measured the TV advertised light at 460 lumens and 26Kcd, so this cheap one he bought now annihilates the advertised one. Which is, of course, why he sent it to me. lol

Hi all, new guy here. First post so here goes:

Girlfriend had a 2D MagLite laying around so decided to upgrade it. Used a Terralux TLE-310M-EX and changed out the batteries to 2x 26650 cells. Still waiting for the glass front lens to come inl

Light output is very good compared to the incandescent bulb that was in there.

I got a Sofirn SP32A yesterday, very nice little flashlight with a very capable driver but the tint shift of the XP-L2 I just don’t like so I put in a Luxeon V emitter:

The JAXMAN E2L battery tube for 18350 makes for a very nice compact EDC :

It is quite a little beast with a Samsung 30Q @ 4.10V it pulls 7.87A on turbo.

^ very nice with the shorty tube khas. I’m glad that Sofirn uses the same threading as Jaxman and Convoy. You may post this in the what lego’s with what thread, or has that already been done?

That’s a nice looking light. Welcome to BLF by the way.