What did you mod today?

Thatā€™s a thing of beauty. Nice job, CRX! :+1: In this mod, did you beef up the pill? Wondering how thermal management is working with this seriously small form factor.

EDIT: Ah, found your original post ā€” with all the answers. :slight_smile: LINK. Yeah, I was wondering why you went with a quadā€¦ that cutoff on the optics kind of bugs me. Iā€™d have gone triple too, like you originally recommended. Anyway, great work there! I love your talent. When Iā€™ve got the extra cash, Iā€™m going to see about a projectā€¦ :wink:

Cool. Yeah I didnā€™t want to do it, said it will affect the beam, way too much heat for such a small steel host etc and I even built the head as a triple first, it was really nice, perfect, but thatā€™s what he really wanted.

Well youā€™ve got till the end of Feb to come up with a nice mod or build to enter the Old Lumens contest too :wink:

Yeah, my brain hasnā€™t been working on full todayā€¦ didnā€™t get a good nightā€™s rest. :weary:
Also digging your Xanes XT01.

Generally, is a triple about the best balance on efficiency & head clutter for output? I have an old Astrolux S43 and a Lumintop FW3Aā€¦ and have to say that output is very comparable. Iā€™ve got a more focused hot spot optic in the FW3A, which makes the spot brighter than the S43, with less spill. But overall, I donā€™t see an advantage with the quad.

Admittedly, my links arenā€™t very obvious though, hidden in the image & brief description :slight_smile:
I do like steel or titanium lights much more than ano aluminium.

Me either really, quads are interesting for the novelty in smaller hosts but triple setups are better in my opinion. Not much noticable increase in output, you notice the heat more :smiley:
Could be a little more efficient.
The 106xx optics are good for filling slightly larger heads at 24mm compared to the 20mm triple optics so can be useful for that & more flood.

Oh, theyā€™re obvious. I was just not thinking to click & check. :wink:

Iā€™ve got enough ano-aluminum bodied lights at this point that Iā€™m going to be drifting over to steel & titanium. I had been thinking about a SS FW3Aā€¦ but I donā€™t want to start duplicating lights. That LM10 just mentioned by Neal (LINK), looks terrific, but is overpriced IMHO. Iā€™m hoping Neal is just testing the waters for Lumintop right now and that a more agreeable price will come out of it. Either for release or after the fact when sales languish. The bronze treated Ti looks amazing. But I wonā€™t be interested unless thereā€™s an 18350 tube accessory available for it.

Often wise to hang back :wink:

Very light dayā€¦ I changed the led in my E05 to an XP-L V4 5A2 and built up a beautiful copper P60 shell with XP-L Hi V2 5A3ā€™s and a TA FET+6+1 that I soldered up. I really like the tint and output of the Cree XP-Lā€™s in the 5A2 and 5A3 range. I would love to try out the 5A1 or 5A4, but have never seen them forsale.

Well, actually changed the led in the E05 twice, never drop an XP-G3 in that light! Had the strangest artifacts I have ever seen! Tiny little bit of the center was very bright and the rest was very splotchy. I really thought it would be a good candidate for the XP-G3 5 bin.

Hate it when that happens, swap in a new LED with high hopes and it sucks! :smiley:

Over the weekend I built an old SmallSun ZY-T08 host I picked up from a member here over the summer. No build pics so Iā€™ll just have to tell yā€™all about it:
Sst-20 DA L3 (5000k)
TA 3ch 22mm driver piggyback on stripped factory driver for contact board
Bistro fw
Blue springs @ tail contact

Itā€™s currently doing 100kcd and 920lm but the sst-20 is just a place holder while I wait on the 28mm 5050 mcpcb for the 5700K SST-40 I have for it.

I built it to run an old matched pair of 30qā€™s that still have near full capacity but are getting a little old to use in the 2s light they came from so I figured Iā€™d keep them together but in a 2p config for near 6000mAh while being a bit safer with their age and all.

Sucks is an understatement. I have never seen such a bad reflector/led combo! I really did not expect that! I expected the relatively larger die surface and the small smooth reflector to really work well! But the XP-L works very well. It came to me with a Luxeon V2 5000k and I could not stand the 5000k and it just felt odd in the reflector.

Just dropped a CSLPM1.TG & 7A driver into my L21A , First impression, I need more of these emitters!

Iā€™ve ranted at length about how G3s are vile little chips, not even suitable as mules. Hideous yellow off to the sides, bluer out the middle.

Only something like a pebbled TIR lens (or assloads of diffusion film) can clean up the beam.

I agree. The 2mm^2 emitter approaches XPL HI output with much higher luminance, as long as you are ok with the cool color temp. What driver did you use? Iā€™ve been eyeing the constant current FET drivers from convoy. Seems like this type of driver could replace all the FET+ drivers if we can get the right FWs on them.

The only lights that I have found them to work well in are the AAA Tool.

Im using the Manta Ray Driver I think its basically the same as the convoy but has a different resistor.

I was not overly impressed by the XPL Hi leds, and the 1mm white flat is a bit of a one trick pony, but these 2mm^2 seem like a really nice compromise

Unno, I got the Wuben E01 that uses one, and itā€™s a bit ringy and halo-y, lots of color-bleed all over. Not terrible, but I wouldnā€™t ooh and aah at the beam. The SOS is a killer, though. :confounded:

Wondering if any optix for triples/quads could be diced up to fit the hole and not need spacers or anything. Might fix a multitude of sinsā€¦

Is it any better than the 1mm?

I still have one lying around, as well as a 7,2A driver

Throw is a bit less than the 1mm2, even at 7A (but it is still throwier than a dedomed XP-G2 S4 2B), you get more light and a bigger spot. Tint is similar.

Very nice mod!

Yup, if you have any interest, thereā€™s Oshpark links and BOM info here. I think I also have parts on hand to build one or two if youā€™re interested.

Interesting, the hotspot of the 1mm combined with a large reflector is a very tiny hotspot.
Result: it throws like a beast, but actually its more fun to show your lightsaber laserbeam pencilbeam then using it.
Its quite useless actually, but fun.