FW3A mod thread. Post yours!

Why? Its not the optic.

Last night I tried a couple more LED setups in my FW3A

  • Triple LH351D 90 CRI 4000K - I was not impressed. As expected, due to the floody emitter the hotspot was much bigger, but with much less intensity than XPL HI. Ultimately I decided LH351D was simply too floody and quickly swapped it back out of the light.
  • Triple XPL HI - composed of two 4000K 5D and one 5000K 3D. Much better. I also added Lee 279 minus green filter for even better tint.

Thanks for the report. I was thinking about trying the LH351D… but the reported flood is not what I want.

Mixing the XP-L HI’s sounds good. Gonna give that a try. :+1:

Teacher, if you got the Samsung triple available you could try them and then slice them for less flood?

@ Umpi2000 … Good point…. thanks for the suggestion. :+1:

Still no light yet but I made these.

I had a little go at making some rigid glow gaskets using magnets ;)

LIT glow powder mixed with UV glue.

Aqua blue, aqua blue & green, green.

I'm also trying out a couple with silicone.

those looks really nice, CRX

Thanks mate, yeah not too bad for my first attempt :+1:

Yeah… those look great!! :beer:

Too bad only 0.001% of humanity has CRX like ninja modding skills.

I hope it’s 0.001%.
I’m afraid it may be as low as 0.000000013%

Good work !
I knew you would make something like this. :smiley:

Updated the first post with pics of the latest work and beamshots… hope ya’ll enjoy!

Thanks for the update, looking good too. :+1:

Got a question: It that a fly tying vice holding the driver in this picture??

I got impatient, so I modded a FW3A XP-L HI to use 219B instead. It’s a sw45k triple now, and it’ll probably be my daily carry light for a long time… because FW3A is my favorite light and it’s awfully hard to beat 219B for tint and general beam quality.

Overall output is very close to what Bob posted… but mine is about 3% lower because all my measurements are about 3% lower than his. I think we jut have slightly different calibration on our integrating devices.

  • Moon: 0.1 lm
  • 1x7135: 93.5 lm
  • 8x7135: 622 lm
  • FET: 1384 lm (with a 4.0V cell)

This is measured with a tube calibrated to match some reference lights from maukka, so I think it’s probably pretty close to accurate. It’s nice that the variation between people’s measurements is so small now, instead of being as much as 50% off like things were a few years ago.

Anyway, for the time being, I basically optimized my EDC light to taste as much as possible. Time to go work on something else, I guess.

I was at that point 6 years ago :person_facepalming:

Yes it is! I’ve been using it for years for reflows, dedoming, etc. When I was a young teenager I would use it to tie fly hooks but haven’t for many years.

Man, I could use a weekend of fly tying, or something.

True. Here's how if anyone's interested ;)

First I made a template from an old 20mm triple MCPCB to match up with a Carclo 105xx optic. 65mm steel box lid.
This is the most difficult & time consuming part but only needs done once.

A piece of sticky tape placed on the steel surface sticky side up.
6mm x 2mm and 3mm x 2mm magnets, three of each for the optic & leg holes.

Place the 6mm magnets onto the sticky tape using the template.

Then add the 3mm magnets and remove the template, apply non stick grease carefully around the magnets & tape.

Template back in place and thin 20mm ID x 2mm outer ring fitted around the template with four large magnets to keep it from movement.

Carefully remove the template again and now we have a mould.
Mix up some GITD powder and UV setting glue.

Apply the mixture to the centre of the mould and allow it to slowly bleed out to the extremities on a flat surface until even.

Next is setting the glue mixture using a UV light source and then slide the tape and moud from the steel.

Carefully peel the tape from the back of the mould and press out the magnets with something like a thin screwdriver.

Remove the outer ring and sand down the surfaces of the gasket.

A little tidying up the well holes with a scalpel blade and it is just about done.

I've found these to be superior to the tape method, although initially more effort.

Very impressive CRX… :beer: