Cool! I have one of those Work Sharp knife sharpeners too. Love it.
Looks great!
contactcr, excellent job AND writeup
Just did a very simple mod on one of my Emisar D4 lights.
- Remove the retaining ring. Best way that I found is to use the nail file from a standard small Victorinox mini pocket knife. The tipe of the file tapers to a flat end. And unlike a conventional screwdriver there are no sharp edges so the rubber button shouldn’t be damaged. With the file portion of the file almost parallel to the button boot, insert it at a shallow angle over the top of the button. Dig the tip of the file into the rubber below the edge of the retaining ring, then lever upwards. The ring should pop right off.
- Remove the rubber switch boot. On the underside of the boot is a tiny post intended to hit the switch.
- Snip off this post using a small scissors. The scissors in the Victorinox mini are ideal for this purpose. The goal is to cut off the post so the interior of the button cover is flat. Take off only the post. Do not go deeper.
- Reassemble. Place the switch boot in place and then insert the retaining ring. To get the retaining ring to lock back into place, I found that placing the switch upside down on a small anvil and then applying steady pressure by hand worked well (do not hammer). I tried to only have the edge of the retainining ring I wanted to press down on the anvil. Once that was in I rotated the light and repeated. I tried to avoid placing the center of the switch boot directly onto the anvil.
Result: The button now requires noticeably more pressure to depress. My guess about two to three times as much. It also clicks on at a deeper depth than with an unmodified boot. I can now place the light button-down on a desk and press and the pressure from the desk will no longer activate the switch.
The entire mod was quite easy and fast. It took less than 5 minutes. While this doesn’t eliminate chances of accidentally pocket activation it certainly makes it less likely.
My Yihua YH-858D hot air rework station arrived a couple of days ago so I’ve just done my first emitter reflows.
First I desoldered a few dead emitters and reflowed an LH351D 4000K 90 CRI from AEDe’s second group buy onto one of the old MCPCBs (destined for a Thorfire TK4A), then I decided to replace the CW XP-E in a SingFire SF-348 with a LH351B 3000K 90 CRI also from AEDe.
Above: Comparing the 3000K LH351B to a Nichia 219C “BLF” 348 with a particularly poor tint.The picture was taken on my phone so all settings were auto.
Now that I’ve finally started reflowing emitters my next goal is to make some illuminated tail switch boards before eventually assembling some drivers.
I KNEW I was doing something WRONG! I always hold the copper MCPCB by hand and use a 3” belt grinder with a 50 grit belt…. sucks when I forget the water…
Or when you shoot it into outer space.
Today I rebuilt an sk98 for Larry.
Filed and pressed a Cu disk into the pill, built a moonlight special (1+7 7135) driver for it running BLF A6 and swapped the XP-E2 Torch out for a more useful XP-L HI.
Optic loss is quite high (as with any cheap zoomie) but it’s doing 694 OTF zoomed out / 354Lm zoomed in at 2.94A.
I then wanted to fix a personal light which died last week, diagnosed it as a dead switch and digging in my crap pile collection of good stuff I found a baggie of them and put the light back together only to discover the button cover didn’t make contact with the button! The culprit? Switch height difference.
So then I got my surgeon hat on and rebuilt the switch it’s self, took the tall button from the bad switch and put it in the good short switch and it works!
Does anyone have a link to get some more of the tall kind (the left one)? I didn’t realize there were more than one and all of them I have are the short ones.
Epoxy a small disc on top or silicone an extra piece of rubber on the boot.
…or the fastest option: a drop of Norland64 (or other UV curing glue) on top of the switch, illuminate with your favourite 365nm torch for 10 seconds and presto!
Nice work everybody!
I am a bit jealous of you guys! I have never really been mechanically inclined, although there are Three engineers in my immediate family!
My specialty is being an expert battery re wrapper! 
in addition to being a fanatic about numbers,battery cycles, run times, purchase dates. born on dates,ect.which I all document.
My closest thing to a mod was changing the boot and tightening the retaining ring on the tail switch!
You have to start somewhere…My hiking buddy is an expert at soldering,27 years experience. His dad taught him when he was 15 years old. Maybe he could teach me.
ohhh yaaa,I did take my computer apart once, removed the fans and lubed them w/ NO-OX-ID. It did turn out good, it just took me twice as long as it should have because I struggled remembering how all the parts went back in because I did not memorize/pay attention enough while I was dismantling!!
Today i did not mod a light. But something that will help me mod lights in the future. I have no access to a lathe or a mill. So i bought a drillpress stand (and modified it) to be able to do small milling jobs on soft metall parts (like flashlights). But the old and tired dremel was not cutting it. So i bought a Hilda grinder from BG. But i did not notice that this grinder would not fit the 43mm Holder inside the stand. And making a adapter is not so easy when the head on the grinder is conical. After talking with kiriba-ru (i have to say thanks for his thoughts) i decided to use what i have and try to make something conical straight.
First i clamped a 6,5mm drill inside the Hilda grinder (max he can handle) and the other side inside the vise. From the top i use my dremel and turn the Hilda grinder slowly by hand. With a sliding table i controll the left right movement.
First i decided to let a 3mm ring at the upper end of the head. I did this because i was thinking that i could open up pockets in the material if i take to much material away.
Working slowly turn after turn (it took some time with the old and tired dremel)
In the end i decided to take the upper ring down i first had left there. This was not the best idea because i was right with the pockets. On every of the 3 corners i opend a pocket in the material. I used some “bigger” aluminium shavings and mixed them with JB weld and filled the pockets up. A day later i grinded everything down and used some sandpaper to get a better surface finnish. Now i have a straight 35mm area on the front. Next step is to get a 35mm to 43mm adapter. When ready i will have a lot more torque campared to my dremel. And i can use tools up to 6,5mm inside the Hilda grinder (dremel max 3,175mm).
That is really cool Docc! The result looks professional, you would not expect the make-shift method from that.
And of course to let the old tool make its successor is a very satisfying concept 
Nice! How many lumens?
I have a black flat in my jm70. 605 kcd 780 lumens.
You can find them on ebay or aliexpress, there are sets with 400-600 pcs (20-30 types x 20 pcs), they are only 6-8$ or something like that.
Link
Check out this ones.
I didn’t made a Lumen Box yet, and don’t really have stock lights to calibrate it…
I’ll have to check the tail current but it’s not easy with that construction.
I would guess at least 1200 lumens, we’ll see
Oh, a double post…
Sorry I forgot the last mod.
Done yesterday :
Black Convoy S2
OP reflector
Samsung LH351B 2200K
Biscotti driver with only 1*7135 and mode 8 so only 50% on High (175mA so about 60 lumens !)
Blue illuminated tailcap but tamed with 2*5kOhm resistor
*Protected *3400mAh Olight 18650 inside
You got it, it’s for my 2yo son 
Great job Docc 
I’m lucky enough to have a lathe…. motivated enough to use it too 
The last few days I’ve been putting in some time here and there. Head is bored out, pill is made, bezel is made, body is bored and threaded at one end. Taking my time getting the fit and finish nice. These are the only pics I have so far.
With the help of my brother who has more soldering experience than me, I finally did the driver swaps in my Convoys. We struggled a lot with a too-weak soldering iron, but in the end I can proudly say none of the lights in my house have the dreaded blinky 3/5 firmware now
What driver are you running it on? I’ve got a host (amutorch AX3) inbound that I think will be a good test platform for the lantern branch of anduril.