What did you mod today?

Turned my S2+ copper into a triple :heart_eyes:

Looks like a heavy duty headlamp… thanks!

Modded a Astrolux S41:

- 7x XM-L2 on OSH Park ~

- AWG18 Driver-Cable

- changed Switch-Board against copper board with brass two pills

  • bridged driver spring with AWG18

Got 6300 Lumen with VTC6 and without bezel and glass. With bezel and glass only 5100 Lumen.
It is not verry precise as twisty flashlight.

Now the head is in nitro-thinner for dedoming.

Didn checked amps.

Last night I took a Lexel D4 aux board and manually replaced all 15 LEDs with different colored ones.

Those 0603 LEDs are absolutely tiny! :smiling_imp: Even with the fan on the hot air gun of my reflow station set to minimum it was still enough thrust to blow those miniscule LEDs right off the board from 6 inches away when they weren’t soldered on. After some trial and error, I finally got technique going where I held the LED in position with tweezers in my right hand while blowing hot air on it with the hot air gun in my left hand.

Took me a couple hours to replace all 15 LEDs. :sunglasses:

Wow Firelight, nice sticktoitiveness! :slight_smile:

I played around with a couple of lights today, one for a buddy of mine and one for me. The friends light is a TK61, I put a White Flat on a 32mm MaxToch MCPCB in it. I had done a power boost to it some time back for him with a de-domed XM-L2 and he told me it was doing 575Kcd when he sent it to me. Today it’s making 830Kcd at 5M indoors… too cold and yucky out for me to be doing a longer distance test. :smiley: It makes 980 lumens using 2 30Q’s in the 4 cell carrier. I think he’s going to be pleased. :wink:

The other, my light, is a Convoy C8, a prototype in desert sand with a black coated metal button in the tail cap. Simon decided to make the production C8’s with rubber boots so this one is a bit different. Now it’s even more different, it has a boost driver and XHP-35 D4 3A HI making 2139 lumens on a 30Q. :smiley: I had to re-cut the driver shelf to accept a 20mm driver, instead of making a threaded retaining ring I made a slightly oversized brass press fit spacer to allow the battery tube to mate to it and press the driver in. Works nice, should serve to heat sink the driver via the tube. Love it when a plan comes together! I don’t have a lot of regulated lights so this one will be unique in that regard as far as my working collection goes. This one’s going to be getting a lot of use now for sure!

Maybe try 7x XHP50.2 3volt emitters next…. :open_mouth: Might need a bigger battery…like a 30T :smiley:

Very interesting PCB, I wounder how well that works?

Each LED is only being driven to about spec with a non-dtp mcpcb right now but I wounder how well it would work on a single LED setup.

LOL, I remember that ledboard, still have 3 but never used them, I believe it was a scaru project, at least 4 years ago. Pictures of the build would be welcome of course. :slight_smile:

Haven’t seen David around for a WHILE!

Oh no, too expensive for a funny hot rod.
I have some SST40’s laying around and 7 good old XM-L

I used the 2oz chopper foil on OSH Park and the thinner board to improve heat dissipation.
And it is soldered directly to copper, of cause.

Yes I post them possibly tomorrow.

Now the head is in nitro-thinner.
The domes of the LED locked not well. They have had contact to my rasp as I wanted to make the aluminium pcb smaller to fit it to my copper heatsink in the skyray king.
And now they got hot from the bunsen burner.

The LEDs are from this flashlight: Skyray King SRK mit 3 x Nichia 144A sm453 R9050 | Taschenlampen Forum before I have changed the LEDs to Nichia 144.

Finished a ZY-T11 clone quad mod:

  • 4 LH351D 4000K 90+ CRI's on a MtnE quad, 10621 optic, UCL glass lens, 18 AWG wires extended for re-programming
  • CK driver designed for the ZY-T11 clones, RED aux LED w/10K resistor via a light pipe in the pill, Blue BeCu driver spring w/bypass
  • S2(+) alum spacer sanded down to fit, 1978 copper penny under the shelf, brass screws to secire down, MX4 between layers, MX4 for most of the MCPCB mount but Arctic Alumina thermal epoxy spot used to secure it in place and prevent sliding/movement

Tape used to center the spacer - centering had to be bout perfect:

What we do for lumens...

Pre-assembly parts:

CK's OSHPark driver, switch is surface mounted - extra solder in front and 2 part epoxy (clear) behind the switch for extra support:

Abe in the mounted position - 2nd picture shows the end of the light pipe in the upper right:

All done:

On a 25S at 4.19V, ~17.5 amps, 3929 at start, 3300 at 30 secs, 9.5 kcd (lumens in manufacturer lumens), great tint/beam

Poor Lincoln… like he needs another hole in his head…

Looks nice, though, 3900lemons out the pipe… not bad. :smiley:

Thanx! $11 light, throw $40 in parts at it, hours of sanding/drilling/tap'n/soldering/wiring and you got something almost as nice as a FW3A or D4. These clones are a bit over sized for today, and the anodizing and threading isn't so great, but the clones are actually better quality than the original - clones have true alum reflectors while the original had plastic. For this one, the reflector had a hazy finish, pretty bad, so this mod worked out well for it. I do like the feel of the switch though on these - great for ramping

Quoted for truth. What a hobby we have…

Yeah, I never got around to making an F13 into a triple. That’s a nice beefy host, but works quite well with the stock… “host”? Replace the driver and emitter and it kicks arse. Or could. I don’t push mine terribly hard.

Dunno if you can get F13s as hosts-only, so you just buy a complete light and gut it. :laughing:

Great mod. :slight_smile:
I wonder how would it work with XHP50.2…

As you see in the pictures, the LEDs are not jet ready dedomed.

Some Pictures


Turned my franken-Astrolux E02 into a triple. (My first triple! How many years am I behind?) The e-switch was bouncy and the old Anduril had a few kinks that needed fixing so it was time for an overhaul.

The driver is basically the same as before, though this time I made use of the FET footprint of the L4P MCPCB. 3 channels, 1+2 [7135] + 7136 for “Turbo” (a moderate 3 amps).
3x 5000k LH351C (edit: C, not D!) 80CRI in a Carclo 10507. The MCPCB plus the optics’ legs had to be cut down to 18mm for everything to fit. A 10g copper slug sits in the head.

This time I got the “good” 7135s (the Nanjing ones) and the lowest flicker-free level in Anduril is 1. (I also added 10k pull-downs on all 3 channels, that may have helped too.)
Current on “moon” is 1.1mA, quiescent current is 0.25µA (down from 2.4mA / 15µA). (Thanks Toykeeper for all the good work! :beer: )

Yes the 7136 is a bit iffy. It doesn’t like PWM at all due to its soft-start (I only use it for turbo anyways), specs from different mfr’s are all over the place etc etc. I wouldn’t recommend it, it gives you headaches.

There’s one red AUX LED for map reading etc. under the optics but something went horribly wrong and I sure as hell won’t desolder every wire again just to get into the driver compartment… maybe next time.

Flashing… tweaking…flashing…

Can’t complain about the beam. The only visible artifact is the petals in the periphery but otherwise it’s very clean. This is @1m from the wall.

If I wanted this to be ultra-compact I’d go back to the 18350 tube but I feel the reduction in capacity isn’t worth it. Plus it just doesn’t feel right in the hand, the 18650 does (and it’s only 105mm long anyways.)

^ Damn…… Nice Job! :+1:

Very nice, never bought an E01 because of the UI, but I sure like the size and looks!