Completed my BLF D80 UV Mod (Seoul Viosys Z5). I salvaged a old AMC based driver (removed 3) now working with 5 AMC for 1,75Amps.
Its bright! On your skin you can feel the heat after a few seconds. To bad my phone is not able to get a good picture of a blacklight picture. It is so bright when i use the light that my phone is not giving a usable picture.
So i took a picture of a box with tailcap rubber boots and some GITD o-rings. One with the light 1,5m away and one a few second after i turned of the light.
That D80 looks good with the black filter and the ss bezel!
It fits nice together. And the light can handle the heat of the led much better than a S2. Even after a few minutes its not getting hot ( you get more output). But i did not notice the interesting pattern in the middle yesterday.
I’m glad that you regard that pattern as interesting 
Is it just that the light is very close to the piece of wood so that you see the middle of the reflector and further away you have a normal spot? Or does that spot remain at distance, in that case you could try to project the led with a projection lens and see what is wrong with the led.
Not keen on soldering in a set of high quality springs in my brand new Sofirn Q8, I decided to do an old fashioned spring bypass. Not from the top of the spring to the tailcap switch (which does not exist), instead I put in four 20AWG connections from the top of the spring to the spot where the base plate is screwed to the body. The loops are wound around the screws between the base plate and the body. Four leads may seem a bit crowed, but there is a lot of empty space between the springs. Output improved from about 90 to 93 kCd.
To compensate for the fact that the loops add an extra mm between baseplate and body, I exchanged the Ø2.5*4mm screws with longer ones from my spare parts can.
Edit: for reasons of visibility the picture shows only one bypass.
I played a bit with the light and if i remove the led centering ring the pattern is gone. But without the reflector is not centered right and i loose preasure on the MCPCB.
So i live with the beam. If you hit something uv reflective the pattern is also not visible (the glow is to bright).
Rebuilt the tail switch on my triple XP-G2 3D PK Paladin for some waterproofing and added a tritium vial.
The reverse clicky tail switch is housed in some copper tube & sheet covered with a silicone boot.
I installed a 4mm x 0.5mm green tritium vial in the titanium switch button backed with glow powder.
Carbon fibre wrap in the battery tube to stop any rattle.
Start around 1900lm DD, 928lm stepdown 30s.
Length – 64mm
Width – 24mm
Weight – 77g (with 16340 cell)
Max – 1900lm
I was reading BLF Q8.
THAT would be a UV mod that heats your skin… :smiling_imp:
A few of you guys asked me about my C8TT mod from this post:
Well, great news. I ordered a CUTE-4 ~20° medium optic (C10447_CUTE-4-M) instead of the smooth spot ~12° and it got rid of my donut problem entirely. You still get a slight “starburst” on the very outside of the spill but it’s noticeably less square with no donut in middle.
With direct drive enabled I only lost 200lm (4%) as well which is exactly what the datasheet claims. Also, 20 degrees is still pretty narrow so it still has a nice hotspot.
I purchased it from Allied Electronics (www.alliedelec.com) they have world wide distributors too. It sucks I had to pay as much for shipping as the optic but the beam is pretty much entirely fixed so worth it.
Just received Novatac Gold Storm, modded to N219b 4500k 9080, on right is a Novatac w stock LED (and B42 tail)
beams
lumens, on my homebrew meter
Gold Storm max 94 lumens, min 0.23 lumens w N219b
Pewter SPA max 74 lumens, min 0.08 lumens w stock LED
Under UV light (lights are Off)
That 4500k looks so pink. My ROT66 look nothing like that especially at lower lumen levels, it’s natural white.
yes in some relative comparisons the SW45 is Very pink, but that all depends on what it is being compared to, and the white balance of the photo
some examples of the N219b 4500k looking “white”, at low levels, and in full darkness
the next 2 photos look like what I saw with my dark adapted eyes
Note that photos with single beams will tend to white balance to that beam, our brain does the same thing, so in the following photos, we see no Pink, just “natural white”, as you said.
here is that same sw45 shining on a ceiling next to a 3000k Incandescent, as you can see, it does not look pink at all… the white balance is essentially set to the 3000k incandescent. My brain does that too. So the 4500k looks relatively cool, by comparison.
the above photo actually looks very close to what I see with my eyes. I have been sitting under that 3000k light for more than an hour, my eyes now see it as white light… even though during the day it looks rather “orange”, at Daylight white balance of 5500k.
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in some cases, the sw45 photographs as violet, but that is not how my eyes see it
left to right, N219b 4000k 9050, 4000k XP-L, N219b 4500k 9080
“white” is relative to White Balance, iow, the Color temperature that our brain, or camera, is set to.
White Balance will drastically change the apparent color and tint of an LED. That is why I always include more than one beam in my photos, so people can make a Relative Comparison of tints.
in the case of the SW45, I agree it definitely looks “white” when compared to warmer CCTs, it can even look relatively Blue
otoh, during the day, when my brain is adapted to Sunlight, the SW45 definitely has more Pink Tint than Sunlight…
in fact, the SW45 is one of the most “Pink” LEDs I have (furthest below the BBL), it simply has some of the highest R9 of any LED I own… I absolutely LOVE its versatility as an EDC… Not too warm during the day, and no hint of Yellow (which I love to hate). I find the SW40 9050 “too” yellow, during the day, but the SW45 9080 does not have that “problem”…
one more example of Relative Tint and Color:
what the camera sees is not necessarily what my eyes see, it depends on what ambient light my brain is adapted to, and that is certainly not necessarily the same as what the camera sees… The auto white balance tends to bias itself to the coolest and or brightest light in a photo. In the photo above, the auto white balance is setting itself to the light on the right, a 6000k XP-L…. Tint is relative to the white balance of the brain of the beholder.
I created a ‘Rosy Rotary’ by swapping a Nichia 219B R9080 sw45k into my new Sunwayman V11R.
It’s the newest member of ‘Team Rosy.’ :partying_face:
EDIT: Correction, the Eagle Eye X1R is the newest member of ‘Team Rosy.’
It just arrived and had a 219B swap, but was too late for the group photo. We’ll have a re-take when the ROT66 arrives next week. 
I did SC64c #3 last night. Also I am bad at sticking on labels.
I made a couple adapters for my chargers—I have a few D cells i wanted to test and some 21700—- I used Teflon wire , a little stiff for the small magnets I used— with these you can also test your chargers output— there seems to be a little resistance—might be the galv screws I used—any way they serve their purpose—Hook to the battery first—Don’t want to short your charger
That’s a cool idea, chops! :+1:
Well I tried to mod something today… after a long time in shipment, my Virence order arrived. First time handling the e21a. Attempted a quad reflow. All went well the first try. No extra solder, alignment reasonably good. Go to the power supply to test them… 2 work, two don’t. One must’ve rotated on me. Back to try mounting them again… lifted the suspect emitter with a pair of tweezers and… flick… there she goes. Few minutes later after resorting to the UV light, I found it in the floor. Chipped the edgeand exposed the blue chip… :cry:
This dummy only bought 4. Anybody stateside have 2 sm453’s they can part with?
just some S43S Lego 
Not that much real mods but a busy afternoon anyway :
- Since i received my usbasp a few days ago i converted all my convoy S2 that weren't already from 3/5 modes to Biscotti firmare (had to cut the pcb on pin 5 because it was tied to ground on the old drivers)
- While doing that i confirmed that all 7135 are not made equal. The ones i had on a 3/5 modes driver i got for GB were not working in moonlight mode. Nice i had some spare from a 8x7135 i converted to 4x7135 so it's working now ... almost working actually as the light output and current show that only 3/4 are doing their job but since the pcb is now soldered into the pill i'll invastigate that later (bad solder ? Fried 7135 ?). I was hesitating to make it 1A or 1.4A anyway ;-)
- Baked a Utorch XLP-V6 in the kitchen oven. Looks like i have to find something hotter as i got some chocolate while i was expecting "coyote" or "desert tan", not bad anyway and still better than the stock black anodization.
- Started paper-sanding an other Utorch XPL-V6 to remove most of the black anodization (you guessed i don't like it very much ;-) ). I am expecting some "worn old tool" look but the "too much sanding" is hiding nearby so who knows what i'll get