What did you mod today?

I brought my smashed led E14 back to life by throwing in a Mtn17dd driver combined with a triple xpl hi 5000k led setup. Fun first mod.

:+1: Nice pocket rocket! Way better than my first mod :slight_smile:

Astrolux Ti3A Luxeon V2 5070 - FET 10 - 10440 - Fw Clicky Tail Sw - 930lm.

So this SupwildFire is a 7 XM-L T6 light with a pretty nice reflector, made in the form of a C8 but a big brotherā€¦ it takes a 26650 cell. Has a lighted side switch that shows power level when running and has a micro USB charging port.

Oddly put together though. The emitters are on a pretty thick aluminum MCPCB that sits on a shelf, hollow pillā€¦ the driver is secured with 3 screws from INSIDE the light, down below the MCPCB. So, I swapped the MOSFET to the 70N02 which is more efficient, changed the leads to 18ga, cut an aluminum emitter shelf that is press fit into the top portion of the driver bay (cut the press fit area into the driver bay) replaced the XM-L T6ā€™s with XM-L2ā€™s in a mix of color tintsā€¦ 3 warm white 3 cool white and a de-domed cool white in the center. Also bypassed the springs.

So now, after having seen 1368 lumens on a Basen cell straight from itā€™s twin still in stock form, this one makes 4823 on the same Basen and if I put a 30T in the fat tube it does 6603 lumens. It makes enough heat now to heat up the head in about 2 minutes. :slight_smile:

L and M modes are quite high, with (on the Basen) Low coming at 1597 lumens and Medium at 2497. (Yes, itā€™s the typical driver UI the Chinese favor, H-M-L-S-SOS-Beacon.)

Pretty cool light, good price, nice reflector, just needs some tweaking to make it more productive. Of course, thereā€™s nothing I can do to make it produce the 100,000 lumens they claim it makesā€¦

Pics so it happenedā€¦

Straight out of the boxā€¦ there are two of these so I attacked one and allowed the other one to watch. :slight_smile:

Size comparisonā€¦ I was talking to my buddy on the phone (he ordered these and had them sent here) as all this transpired so forgive me the sloppy nature of these pics, they were ā€œon the flyā€ as it wereā€¦

So above you see the HD2010 and Convoy C8, hereā€™s beside a Convoy L2ā€¦

Plastic threaded housing around the switch lights green when the light is on and the battery is at a fairly full levelā€¦

Same area lights red when charging via the micro USB portā€¦

Will you look at this Monster spring in the tail? Steel, uncoated, wonā€™t even accept solder. Had to wrap the bypass around the spring and solder to itselfā€¦

A look into the 7 cups of the reflector at the XM-L T6 emitters. The thick Aluminum MCPCB is at least made right such that the emitters are well centered, the centering rings are unusual, never seen their like, but they work wellā€¦

Showing the MCPCB with itā€™s emitters, some of the centering rings, and the white Fujik type glue holding the MCPCB onto the shelfā€¦

The driver is secured with 3 screws from the inside, hereā€™s the battery side viewā€¦

Fortunately they left an open slot where the charger boot plug comes into the driver bay, used this opening to punch the MCPCB up from underneath with a screwdriverā€¦

The driver, with itā€™s new 70N02 appliedā€¦ their FET has a 15mOhm Rds on time, the new one is 4mOhm Rds On. This is the one that started the FET craze with Comfychair leading the way what seems like forever agoā€¦

Purple Haze, purple hazeā€¦ an UV induced look into the new XM-L2ā€™s arranged in a staggered WW/CW configuration with a CW de-domed center emitterā€¦

A look into the reflector showing the new XM-L2ā€™s without the UV lightā€¦

So, the plan is to build the other one better with a threaded thermal shelf and SST-40 emitters, probably on 20mm SinkPADā€™s and tediously hand installed to match the reflector. Most likely with a piggybacked FET+1 driver running the show to get rid of this semi-horrid UI (this one at least lets you turn it off with a press and hold to avoid the cycle of blinkies, but you do have to wander through them at some point)

I think this was about $23 on fleabay. My buddy saw them (18 emitters to 3, and everything in between) and of course he wanted me to try to hit the claimsā€¦ on a single cell? Yeah, right!

Try harder :smiley:

Sounds like a classic BLF mod Dale. Even without pictures :slight_smile:

lol, I took some pics of the light but forgot to when putting in the aluminum heat sink/shelf. I, uh, was kinda bleeding at about that point. Machined the heat sink to fit flush to the shelf that was there and it left a sharp edge right at the top of the sinkā€¦ drilling the hole for wires the bit grabbed it and spun it and it sliced about an inch and a quarter gash in my left index finger. Such is life. Iā€™ll upload a few pics to fill in the storyā€¦ :stuck_out_tongue:

Edit: Pics added ^

Bonza mod Dale.
Thanks for the pics. :+1:

Thanks Steve, havenā€™t worked on the lathe much lately. Most of the random pieces of bar stock I have were too small to make the sink, so I had to use a big bar of 3ā€ 6061. First I had to cut off a chunk with a bandsaw then true up the bandsaw cut and only Then start reducing the diameter to match the light. All for a 9mm thick disc. So I didnā€™t thread the head for this, merely machined 9mm into it so there would be a stop. Wouldnā€™t you know that I then took that last couple of thou too much off so even though its a snug fit, machining the disc in the lights head to get a flat surface matching the shelfā€¦ it spun. The littlest of things can become so difficult!

Got it done, was forced once again to get a little creative, worked out in the end. :smiley:

I here ya. :beer:

Of course, I stood in front of the lathe in my Teva sandals with the thermometer on the wall a few feet away showing 37 degrees Fahrenheitā€¦ glutton for punishment! That big 3ā€ bar was COLD! It had been 25 degrees at sunrise just a couple of hours before I went out to the shop.

I HATE cold weather!

5 degrees here this morn, 10 degrees right now, brutal winds today, they say up to 50 MPH, almost lost our new gazebo. Coldest in a while, maybe couple years.

Yeah, well, you can just keep that nastiness over there with you! It was in the 60ā€™s today and thatā€™s fine with meā€¦ lol

My health suffers more in cold, I get a chill and itā€™s torture for this ol boy, literally, like being hooked up to invisible defib paddles. So yeah, warm weather canā€™t get here soon enough!

(They call it Conversion Disorder, like a fight or flight reflex to stressā€¦ emotional or physical the result is the same, horrific muscle spasms. 20 years of it now. I do heat SO much better.)

Made my SD10 BLF edition into a true BLF light.

Built a 22mm TA driver, stacked it onto the stripped factory board, flashed it with Anduril and wired it all up. Yes the driver has some extra solder, I hand soldered it with a large chisel tip just to see if I could (I usually use hot air).

Looks like you been busy

This is what I did back in 2016, but it's been on my long list for more mod upgrading to a better driver, better LED. As you can see, I wired up the switch LED as well, running an early version of Narsil.

I've been using an old TrustFire 32650 6000 mAh in mine with the protection circuit removed - works great, low resistance after removing the PC.

Lol dang, I was gonna make a direct fit driver but I figured no one else would ever possible use one. I was just gonna size the SP33 driver up and adjust the switch board location, probably would of been less physical work than this wayā€¦

Did you put then spring back and ground yours the way it came or delete the ground wire / screw / little spring? I deleted all that crap on mine, Idk why it was there in the first place, this light doesnā€™t have ground path issues or anything (itā€™s actually surprisingly good considering the drop-in pill design).

Funny story, I forgot the factory board wasnā€™t DTP so when I first fired it up the factory XM-L2 (which I kept cause I really liked the tint in ended up after gas dedoming) it went blue instantly, talk about an interesting smell (didnā€™t realize an LED going blue made a smell lol). Took it back apart and put it back together with an XP-L HI for now, Iā€™m thinking itā€™s gonna get a NW HCRI SST-20 before itā€™s done. Also having some intermediate aux LED issue, like you I picked a random pad to put a resistor on and air wired it, probably got a bad joint or something so it will need to coma back apart sometime before I can really call it done.

Hereā€™s how I did my connections

Edit: oh man, post # 3535!

Ohhh, pretty sure I kept the spring, screw, etc. -- pretty sure, been a while, March 2016 I did the mod. Kind of messy light to mod for sure but the 32650, if you got one, is what makes it unique, but also makes a nice compact 26650 light.

i modded the battery springs to one of these a couple nights ago

light

re-vampted the springs, simply place a battery the wrong way round to get nearly 1.2 lumā€™s in the glow from the springs, also added a hum to the stepless ramp mode. missed the vidio sorry guys.

ermmmmā€¦ dohhhhh!

Happens to the best of us :wink: Not that I am :person_facepalming:
Same happened to me 2 weeks ago. Tried to check the tailswitch light of one of my lights with an 18650.
Had the switch been open, the light would go on. But the switch was closed and I melted the spring(s).