What did you mod today?

Another wee pocket rocket today, Tank 007 TK-703.

This light had been sitting empty and dinged up for a while so I installed a new reflector, glass, pill, driver, heatsink and magnetic forward clicky switch. Luminus SST-40 N4 BA emitter
10mm copper Sinkpad
FET 10mm driver
ARC glass
Copper taped reflector
MCPCB, copper heatsink & brass pill soldered
Forward magnetic clicky switch
Stripped ano
10440 compatible
Length - 80mm
Width - 15mm
Weight - 33g
Around 1500lm OTF at startup
1100lm at 30 sec, 957lm at 1minute.

Been a little while since I modded something...

My Makita 3/8" impact gun is nice & handy for light jobs, & you are not dragging around an air line attached to it. The only thing I didn't like about it was the underwhelming light, so I figured I'd swap something better in.

Luckily the voltage at the LED was 3v, so I had plenty of options for a replacement;

I needed a small optic to protect the LED, & I figured I could cut up a triple & somehow make it fit in the rather small space available...

After drilling out the hole in the tool skin, & enlarging the cavity a little with a dremel, I was able to jam everything in there, but unfortunately damaged the XPL2 I had intended to use, as it was very tight in the optic, & I broke the dome off...

I rummaged up an XPG3, which was a little more forgiving fit in the optic. After the stack length of the copper rod, LED, & optic was adjusted to fit snugly in the cavity, the LED was flowed onto the copper rod, which had been filed to fit the thermal pad. The original wires were lengthened slightly, & soldered directly to the LED base.

This was a little fiddly, & took a few tries to get right, & I neglected to take a photo...

Once I was happy with the positioning of everything, I filled the cavity with epoxy & re-assembled the gun;

The light is now much more functional :)

I can see you now walking the streets with your Makita light posing as an impact gun. :slight_smile:

Modified a Lumintop BLF SD10 with a BLF A6 driver running Narsil MQ and XPL led on copper.

Excellent work, FmC! Better output and no more angry-blue tint. :+1:

You’ll appreciate that mod each time you use the impact driver.

A Convoy S2 with a lighted switch (RMM 17DDm driver, Nichia 219C 90+ CRI 4000K LED, Astrolux double spring lighted switch, and an NCR1850B battery to keep the current down). Although the S2 looks a lot like the S2+ from the outside, I found out they are very different inside.

First, the S2 pill doesn’t have any notches to tighten it into the head like the S2+ has. So I put it in a vise and really tightened down the retaining ring just in case I need to remove the pill in the future. I was concerned if I didn’t do this, just the retaining ring would loosen up and I would have a hard time getting the pill out with the driver in the way.

Second, I had to use an extra retaining ring in the tail to make contact with the body since the S2 has a different switch design than the S2+. Luckily I had one that came with an Astrolux switch set: 2LED 17mm DIY Lighting Switch Set For Astrolux SS/SC/S2/S3/BLF X5 X6 LED Flashlight. I sanded it down just enough to give the proper amount of distance between the body and tail.

I’m really impressed (once again) with the tint of the Nichia and due to the extra length of the S2 reflector, it has a decent amount of throw.

Cool. I use a small square edge diamond file for putting slots in pills etc.

What firmware is on that? I could never get my 17ddm to work right with guppdrv and lighted switch.

Same goes for me.
As far as I can remember none of the pills in any S2 or S2+ I bought came with slots out of the box.
The S2 has a short pill and a deep reflector. My S2’s have longer pills and a shorter refletor. The pills are interchangeable between S2 and S2 with one exception: the thread inside the head of the S2 does not go so far in as the S2+. So if you want to put a short reflector inside an S2, you are running out of thread before the reflector is pressed onto the lens.

2800 lumens?? otf?

That’s what it says. That’s at startup from an Amp plus 18350. Bearing in mind my wee sphere is not calibrated, professional or laboratory standard.

I thought about “dremeling” a couple slots in the pill, but the pill wall on the S2 is very thin so I didn’t think there would be enough room (at least with my pliers) to use them anyways.

The pictures are a little deceiving since the retaining ring is thinner than normal in order to make room for the bleeder resistor.

I have Bistro firmware on all my MTN-17DDm drivers. What value bleeder resistor were you using?

Cool, do whatever works best for the situation, just I know what it’s like trying to get a stuck pill out without slots :weary:
I’ve had trouble with those drivers and lighted tailcaps too, used resistors from 400-5000 with no luck. Guppydrv.

Maybe I should’ve put slots in the pill just in case. :person_facepalming:

When I first tried to get the MTN-17DDm drivers to work with lighted switches, I tried 680 and 330 ohm resistors, but no luck. I had to go as low as 220 ohms to get the functions to work.

…and 220 Ohm makes 18 mA of waste current when the light is switched on, making any mode lower than 5 lumen totally inefficient :frowning:

Can I reflash my 17ddm from guppydrv to bistro without any other hardware changes?

No, Bistro uses the ATTiny25 MCU

I don’t use lighted tail caps, don’t like the idea of the bleed resistor and the additional drain on the cell. I use a trit vial in the rubber boot if I want to locate the light in the dark.

A trit will shine through a rubber boot? Do you have a picture?

Quick and dirty cell phone picture…

couple of years old trit, blue, behind a pink boot from the X6/X6 group buy lights.

Edit: Back in Sept of 2016 I carved a polycarbonate holder for a large tritium vial, like 2x20, and glued it to the flat tail cap (I think was the BLF GT).