What did you mod today?

I keep telling everyone that itā€™s not a carved-in-stone kind of thing, always going to be variablesā€¦ we measure more for a reference point so we can see what our mod results are.

With a so many single point variables (cells, chargers, lenses, emitters, meters, etcā€¦) weā€™re never going to match across the board. Use em with a bit of educated precision but donā€™t get so hung up on the numbers that you canā€™t enjoy a good lightā€¦

Hey Tom? Richard is on board too, so David will send them to You, then you can forward them to Richard, after that David and I will send them to a Mfr for the last leg of their journey. They will be on their way to David tomorrow morning. (Me, David and Rick all live in Texas so there shouldnā€™t be delays getting to David from Rick)

The plan has been to leave the cells in them so all testing is done on as similar a base as possible. I charged a brand new 30Q for the S2+ and the small light has an Imedion AAA low self-discharge NiMH in it.

Ok, all sounds good! I'll probably test them with 2 meters so I have a backup, 1 set of calib settings per meter. I'll check the thread on the light specs, but what I'll probably do is after I do the calibration, I'll build a similar spec light or 2, measure them, then I'll basically have my own set from then on.

There is a sheet from Maukka in the padded plastic box with the lights that not only tells start, 30 seconds, and 60 seconds numbers but the CRI numbers and all that. I was 6 lumens over on the BLF 348 and 30 lumens over on the S2. Small on the small lights, not so much on a monster light. The difference accounts for a 2400 lumens loss on my 17 emitter .458 Hamā€™r, for example.

That said, I was virtually spot on with Rodneyā€™s 25,000+ lumen factory light. So, makes me wonder, if Iā€™m off by close to 10% then so are the manufacturerā€™s with their much larger sphereā€™sā€¦.

(That was the Acebeam X80 he had, ANSI rated at virtually the same numbers I got, certainly no 10% overage from my lightbox)

Djozzā€™s First Build.

ā€¦of 2019
I swapped the leds in my modded F3X. It had a tint mix of XM-L2 leds that put out 2700 lumen and worked very well but I have other lights in that lumen class now that have better tint than this 73 CRI light. So now it houses 3x 400nm 5050 Epileds leds that together draw 8.6 A. This is serious output that together with yellow glasses shows a lot of dirt in my kitchen (did you know that boiled peas are bright red?).

Actually I like the size and form of the F3X a bit too much for making it into such a niche-light, if new high CRI 5050 leds may hit the market some day (SST-40? :innocent: ) it is time for another led-swap.

Interesting :+1:

Whoa green peas fluoresce red!?

Today I finished up this old ultrafire revamp.

Sliced SST-20, FET+1 driver running anduril and a super cool AUX led setup.

33,200kcd & 1030 lumens, I was sad it didnā€™t quite hit my goal of 40kcd.

Where did you buy the GTmini driver?

Itā€™s not, itā€™s one of my own designs. It may be a direct fit though, whatā€™s the diameter of the gt mini driver?

Nice CK! I did mod a bunch of these lights, and have still maybe 1/2 dozen more to mod. I searched and searched, found active sources for a while - GearBest then even Amazon. Best price was maybe $9, but typically $11-$12. I added an AUX/switch LED but using a light pipe next to the switch.

Is this your OSHPark link for this driver? https://oshpark.com/shared_projects/8SacSyZ1

The light is a ZY-T11 clone. This is what I did on an earlier one:

This is the driver with the AUX LED:

This is what it looks like assembled:

The exact light pipe I used:

I prefer having the light by the switch.

Let me know if that's the right link - would love to use these drivers, makes the mod much easier. Does it use the stock switch or do you replace it?

Btw, with these switches I always add epoxy support on the backside because I've seen a few of these switch types broken, or even just bent back. The bent back ones sometimes don't fail, just makes it harder to click.

Ohh, also, why are you using R1/R2? I think Anduril has support for them but it takes to parasitic drain. We eliminated using them a while back, but maybe you find them more reliable?

I suggested subtitles for the driver. I am looking for a driver for the substitution in Lumintop sdmini. As for size, I have to measure.

GT mini driver has about 22.2mm (Ā±0.1)

Verry nice Djozz! And I also have some lights ready for some new hcri 5050s letā€™s hope it happens some day.

Green leaves on a plant also fluoresce red under the UV, FWIWā€¦ or at least my Red Savina Habanero plant does so.

@Tom_E yep thatā€™s the one. I love your light pipe solution, much more elegant then me shoehorning top hats in there lol. I just used 5mm ledā€™s mainly to fill the holes from the charger port / charger port rubber cover, had those holes not been there I likely would have forgone an aux LED all together but your version is awesome (and probably way more efficient with the SMD LED)!

I really like the light since switch orientation is so easy to figure out blind cause of the body shape, no fumbling it around in hand trying to find it by feel and no actual need for the aux ledā€™s (but theyā€™re still cool as hell), it just falls into your hand orientated right cause of the scalloped part of the head.

About the voltage divider, when I designed these a few months ago I hadnā€™t yet really looked into the FW to understand it could measure voltage directly so I just made the driver an exact clone of the gt_mini (hints why the resistors donā€™t follow the typical TA / DEL naming convention, i.e. the vdivode is actually R4/R5 on these, not R1/R2). Measured standby current when running both the 5mm white ledā€™s on high is only 3uA so while im not to concerned about it IRL Iā€™ll definitely look into that for future builds. Is it a FW change or do I just physically remove the voltage divider and FW automatically knows to read voltage from pin 8 internally when it doesnā€™t see anything on pin 7? It probably helps the resistors are 910k/300k so itā€™s much lower draw than the typical 19k/4.7k pair would cause.

Oh one final note: the MCU pad is that of a tiny13 so you need to do the leg bending trick but you can still fash it with an SOIC8 clip afterwards, I didnā€™t have an 85 part and was lazy when I did the layout, if youā€™re not a fan of that trick LMK and Iā€™ll swap it for an 85 pad (I have one now) and re-upload it to oshpark before you order (thereā€™s plenty of room on this board for the 85 pad).

The switch is one I sourced but I bet the stock one fits, looks just like it. If you try it and the stock switch doesnā€™t fit LMK, I ordered 40 of ā€™em so I can stick a couple in a envelope for ya if need be.

Btw thanks for knowing what to call it (zy-t11 clone), now I just gotta source one more for me to build myself!

Thanx CK! Actually I got a couple different types of these switches, so let me try mine first, or re-use the stock one - I need to figure it out, but first I need to order a bunch of these boards!

I agree - this is a nice little light for cheap. For me though, the Lumintop SD Mini is "the" light in this form factor - moddable, smaller, light weight, great reflector, excellent finish, quality threads, quality lens, switch w/LEDs, deep pocket clip, decent price, etc. Of course they dropped it now (sure, get rid of a good thing??), but might still be available though probably pricey.

The modded SD Mini is still in my top 3 of preferred EDC's.

This is an old GB listing (not available): https://us.gearbest.com/led-flashlights/pp_71296.html?wid=1433363

This light was sold under various names and lettering, all ZY-T11 clones though, made better than the original w/alum reflector: https://us.gearbest.com/led-flashlights/pp_71296.html?wid=1433363

On Amazon and I think BG they were sold under the MECO brand. Amazon price was $9.75 in June 2015.

Oh I dig it. Thats awesome.

That UV mod is pretty nice too. I broke down and ordered one of the cheapie 50+ UV LED versions to track some rodents that found their way into out houseā€¦. Couldnt wait for an S2+ shipped from China.

Last MZ for a whileā€¦

25 degree TIR
kiriba-ru copper single
H17Fx driver

I think this TIR is probably the most narrow that could be used with the MZ without a donut. Iā€™m sure anything wider or more diffused would be even better but Iā€™d rather use a LH351D/219C/XP-L for anything wider so I opted not to.

My first time using kiriba-ruā€™s copper single and itā€™s great as always. Machining is nice, threads fit perfect. Thin ring is buttery smooth

Also first time using H17Fx. I will probably use this again when iā€™m too impatient to wait for Lexel :slight_smile:

A quick 30 minute job:

The old Astrolux E01 got a Luxeon V2 ā€œupgradeā€. It had a 90CRI LH351D before, which had good output but was a bit too floody for my taste even with a shaved emitter. Current is set at 3.05A on turbo, 1.05A regular max IIRC.

I tried something new: I shaved the Luxeon very close to the phosphor, ground the slice marks with 1000grit paper and sealed everything with a blob of LOCA, which formed a very shallow dome (maybe 0.8 mm high). Nice and shiny. (Forgot to take a picture from the side.)

This does not significantly increase the apparent die size (and may or may not help with lumen loss) :student:

Looks better in actual life than in this picture.