What did you mod today?

Did some reflector mods to a couple old Zoomies I had laying around:

Placing a small reflector inside an aspheric zoomie is something I tried years ago with mixed results. Adding a small reflector around the LED below the aspheric lens does the following:

  • It eliminates rings caused by reflections off the inside of the bezel giving a very even ring-free beam… in flood mode.
  • It adds a hotspot to the center of the flood beam pattern. The hotspot typically isn’t very bright or focused, which is not surprising considering the reflector is tiny and not particularly well focused. However, it does dramatically increase the usefulness of the floodbeam as the hotspot is at least twice as bright as the rest of the flood. The reflector makes beam pattern in flood resembles a floody conventional reflector flashlight rather than a typical zoomie.
  • The downside of adding reflector is spot mode can look quite awful in white wall hunting. In typical well-built aspheric light, in spot mode all you see is an image of the LED. With this mod, you still see the image of the LED, but it is also surrounded by an image of the reflector surface. This typically looks like a gigantic, rather dim “donut” surrounding the LED image. And if there are any scratches, spots or defects on the reflector they’ll be in sharp focus. While this “donut” does look ugly, it should be noted that it doesn’t affect the throw at all, and it is dim enough to only be an issue for white wall hunting.
  • Effectively the reflector gives greatly improved flood beam, at the cost of an ugly throw beam, while still maintaining max possible throw.
  • With the reflector the flood mode is as wide as that typically found on a decently built zoomie. However, it should be noted that most zoomies can be modded for extra-wide flood by making it so the bezel can retract further bringing the top of the LED closer to the bottom of the lens. This is not practical with the reflector mod described here.

Recently I installed new reflectors on a couple lights: A Sipik 58 (the silver one) and a Probe Shiny generic zoomie (the black one). The Sipik already had a reflector I’d installed years ago, but had done a poor job on it and the reflector image was very ugly. The new reflector has much fewer defects in donut mode. The Probe Shiny did not have a reflector before. I didn’t do quite as good a job cutting and filing the reflector as on the Sipik, but it still works.

Both lights now use the same reflector: I took the reflector from a new 2xAA Incan maglite, cut off the tabs on the side of the reflector, filed off the bottom and chopped off the top. Result is a very small and shallow reflector that I then placed around the LED in these zoomies. Incan maglite reflectors work well because they are much wider at the base than reflectors designed for LED lights.

Here are some beamshots from very close range in max flood mode. These are cheap aspheric zoomies. Notice how the beams have a nice hotspot now courtesy of the reflector. Without the reflector the beam pattern is a perfectly even circle with no hotspot. The one on the left is the 4000K 5D. The one on the right is the slice-dedomed SST40. NOTE: my phone camera’s colors are off as the SST40 doesn’t look at all green in-person.

To hold the reflector in place I glued the reflector to a plastic retaining ring using Fiberfix glue I love this glue. It’s essentially super glue that comes out of the tube slightly gooey. What makes it unique is the dispenser has a blue LED in the back. After you stick on some of the glue, flip the dispenser around and shine the blue LED on it. It full cures instantly (less than a second) when the LED is shined on it. And it seems strong enough to take the heat from the sides of the pill without melting.

  • I installed the plastic retaining ring
  • Held the reflector in position
  • Dabbed on a tiny amount of Fiberfix on one side between the reflector and ring then cured it.
  • Repeated a few more times until the reflector was completely anchored.

Unfortunately, I don’t have pictures of these lights in throw mode right now as I need a bigger blank while to produce them. Will try to get some up so you can see the donut.

This reflector mod works best on zoomes that use a press-fit retaining ring. I’m not sure it would work with a screwed down 16mm star as the tops of the screws might get in the way of the bottom of the reflector.

Both of these lights have been previously modded:

Sipik 58 - with following mods:

  • Reflector mod
  • Noctigon Copper star with XPL HI 5D 4000K neutral tint.
  • DrJones lummodrv driver (3 amps, ramping firmware).
  • tailcap electronic switch with contact wire running along a channel carved down the inside of the battery tube.
  • runs on one IMR 14500.
  • stock 18mm plastic aspheric lens replaced with uncoated glass lens (soon to be replaced with coated glass lens).
  • Anodizing removed and bare aluminum polished up.

Probe Shiny 18650 zoomie - with following mods:

  • Reflector mod
  • Noctigon copper star with slice-dedomed SST40
  • DrJones H17F FET+7135 driver
  • Stock tailcap guts replaced with lighted tailcap and retaining ring (original tailcap had press-fit switch guts, but did have threading for a retaining ring. I salvaged a compatible ring from another light).
  • Run on Sony VTC5A or VTC6

On max power, the Probe Shiny is much brighter than the Sipik 58

Dang, the CUTE-4 has the TIR cups on a 17mm C/C pattern where this board is laid out for a 19.8mm C/C pattern. Leg holes will fit, emitters won’t be in the right place for the CUTE-4. I like the CUTE-4 as it has larger individual TIR cups for a 12º half angle vs the Angie’s 21º. :frowning:

Look at an overlay, the CUTE-4 has intersecting TIR’s while Angie has independent TIR’s, the CUTE-4 center’s for the emitter pads are in green.

So close, but so far from working. :stuck_out_tongue:

Very, very interesting.
ADDED: may we get throw beamshots?

Rofis JR10 Triple, Lighted side switch, USB Rechargeable

Just saw pictures of D4S…I’m assuming it’s using this combo with 26650.

What’s a D4S? Is that a new emisar model? I’m assuming it’s not the D4 you’re referring to since it doesn’t use 26650s.

Won’t the short tube version of THAT be fun!

Good thing I have some 26350’s on stand-by…. :wink:

Chunky to the max! :partying_face:

Surely Hank’s making short tubes for these, surely he is….

Well you also have the Haikelite SC26 that’s available on preorder right now that is similar to the D4S. I guess depending if you want a single emitter or a quad, you can pick one or the other. Good to have choices!

New bezel for one of my modded Sipik 58 clones last night.

This Sipik 58 clone previously had an LED Lenser style optic installed. However, the optic was just a little too wide at the top and protruded above the top of my previous bezel. I had epoxied around the top edge of the optic and glued a thin aluminum ring to the very front of the light to cover this gap.

I never was satisfied with this setup. If I dropped it on the bezel I was concerned the ring or optic might fall off the bezel.

To fix this I took another optic and filed the widest part of it off. This was a used optic from previous mod attempts and wasn’t in great condition. I also shortened the to edge of the optic slightly.

This new smaller optic fit much easier inside a fresh bezel. the optic is now fully recessed and I am confident if I drop it, it won’t fall out. It also looks prettier than my prior bezel.

I used my new favorite glue (Fiberfix) to attach the optic to the bezel. Fiberfix is a gooey superglue that instantly cures when the little blue light in the back of the dispenser is shined on it. First I carefully aligned the optic and tested the beam, then tacked the optic down in 3 places with Fiberfix, then went around the edge of the optic with more Fiberfix. The glue is gooey enough not to flow past the edge of the optic and the instant cure with the light is extremely handy.

Aligning the optic is critical with LED Lenser optics. If the optic isn’t perfectly straight the focal point for the outer portion of the optic will be offset from that for the inner aspheric lens. When done right both spots should overlap.

Here are some pictures:

Spot mode:

*
Flood mode*:

Incidently, by far the BEST source of LED Lenser style optics for modders that I’ve found is OSH. The small optic I’m using (same size as on an LED Lenser P5) is from this light . The entire light only costs $9 and gives you an LED Lenser P5 sized optic, along with various other parts.

Also, the optic on these cheap OSH lights has the same focal length for both elements of the optic. This means that in spot beam you get a single spot just like an LED Lenser. You don’t get a spot+spill with less throw like you get with Coast or Fenix Lights (in those lights the focal length for the two elements is intentionally different to produce that beam pattern).

This particular Sipik 58 also has a lot of earlier mods inside it, including the following:

  • Tailcap electronic switch
  • E-switch driver from Mountain Electronics with Moppydrv firmware
  • Interior of battery tube widened to provide room for a plastic sheet bent into a tube and brass sheet bent into a tube. This provides the electrical contact to the tailcap e-switch (Same concept as in the FW3A).
  • XPL HI emitter on multi-layer post on Copper Noctigon.

Well that’s nice, very rare to find TIRs like that outside led lenser.
How does the quality and ring artifacts compare to the real led lenser optics?

I compared the beam with my OSH optic to that in my LED Lenser M1. The OSH optic had a better beam and more throw, but it was a slightly wider optic.

Overall, I think the quality of the OSH optics is about the same as LED Lenser optics. Not sure if the plastic is as good quality but the shape is great. Rings are mostly caused by bezel reflections. My modded Sipik has no rings outside the beam in any zoom position.

Led4power will have some cute-4 dtp mcpcb’s ready soon !

I actually have found that the CUTE-4, with it’s smaller individual TIR’s, is more floody than I like. So I quit building quads with it some time back. I have 3 or 4 of the optics, just no real desire to build them.

Edit: Angie is new to me, maybe she’ll be “Cute”. :wink:

I had an Angie for a while, pain in the ass :smiley:

We had an Angie around here for a while too, sweet as could be, the kids absolutely adored her!

This old zeusray Warhawk gave me years ago. Driver and LED were still good from when I originally built it, the plastic press in tail cap had since died when I lent it to a buddy.

Used a driver retaining ring filed down, a new PCB and switch and some patients to get it sized and pressed in there.

That’s some pretty good looking work circa 2015

My first MOD and first time soldering, everything´s new for me. Thanks for this aknowledged forum a really nice people :slight_smile: - Convoy M1 (new version with rigid shelf), X5/X6 DD driver (changed wires for silicon AWG18), KD Copper DTP MCPCB, XP-L HI 5000K, bypassed springs (silicon AWG18 wires), convoy clip. I had to sanded the bottom of reflector to clear the space, modified C8 spacer (cutted down and lowered), kapton tape just for to be safe and I had to go as flat as I could, when I have been soldereding wires to MCPCB.
Top quality of Convoy host, smooth intense neutral white beam with decent throw. I think this will be a really nice alround flashlight :).