What did you mod today?

Daaaang. Nice work. Glad you got it up and running again.

I upgraded my 2x D4sV1 lights with D4sv2 drivers and rgb aux boards. While I had them apart, I swapped some sst20 660nm emitters into one of them. My house is about 100 yards away in this picture.

Very cool. :slight_smile:

Superb. May we see some driver pics?

Nothing fancy. I recently received the Sofrin C01R and found that the low mode was not low enough.
And I got a bit restless of waiting for the presentation of the Sofirn C01 host.
Then I read THIS review of the Nicron N1 and tried my luck on Ebay.
To my big surprise it did not take long to get to my doorstep.
I have a some 5mm leds from disassembling all kinds of electronics, I think this came out of a PC.
So I don’t know make or model of the led, just that it was a clear one, and that it emitted red light.
The mod was easy (following the link). I used a pencil with attached eraser to push led+board out.

The results.

From left to right: Manker Boney, Nicron N1 with red 5mm instrument led, Sunwayman R01A

This red light is very nice for getting in and out of bed without disturbing your next of kin too much.
Effective reach is about 1.5m (6tf), which is enough to maneuver around safely in a familiar room.

following up, we are on to the real thing now. I’m not sure what I expected but it’s definitely unique. It kind of has 3 distinct looking “sides” if you will, some being more or less cool but it’ll do! I think that happened because of a bit uneven heating as well as the sideways dip in Ferric Chloride. If I did it again I would possibly try the body tube by itself. The pattern transitioned some but it’s not really obvious that I kept it together.

Imgur album: Imgur: The magic of the Internet

That looks incredible Contactcr!

Very well done!!! :+1:

A few simple mods to my old Sipik 58 zoomies. Added pocket clips and metal tailcap button covers:

Lumintop Copper Tool w 660nm red, on Copper Maratac aaa body.
LMH sequence is now 5, 10, 12 lumens. Unexpected since it was 3, 20, 80 lumen stock. I expected the first mode to go lower, not higher…

Jon, it looks like you’ve been hanging out in the red light district lately

yes,
I have been studying the nouances of 620nm and 660nm

on that copper aaa
the modes changed, a lot more than expected

was 3-18-80 lm
now, 5-10-12 lm
no idea why

.

far red lights make great therapeutic massage tools
no matter if color blind

Since it is swapping season: the right one is a blue C01S with a blue SST-20 led from KD.

Awesome. I think TK was recently lamenting that she didn’t have a test setup for the 1-series, is she getting one too?
I’m excited for the possibilities this opens up. I’m also intimidated that if I ever work with them, they’ll need real reflows and not the half-baked “soldering iron on one side, tilt it up, and then do the other side” method I can use on the 85.

I’d also love driver pics :wink: That looks fantastic

I installed Lume1-FW3X driver + aux board in FW3C:

Here is post with build summary

Album link

I have not visited this thread for a while, great mods are still done!

Today, or actually yesterday and a week ago, I modded a knife (does that count?).

I was eyeing a nice classic looking TwoSun slipjoint knife but from modern materials (M390 steel blade, titanium liners), but I was not quite attracted to the rounded bone scales, they make the knife too thick and I’m not a fan of bone in the first place. But the rest looked very nice so I bought it in the hope that I could make new scales for it.

Here is how it was:



I really like the size, the sturdy thick build of the blade and liners, and the stiff action opening/closing the knife: this knife will, despite no lock, not easily close on you.

I hope that H.YD, who I presume is the designer, does not mind what I did to his/her knife.

Luckily the knife came apart very straightforward and no glue was used to fix the scales. In fact that may have become a problem over time with breaking off the scales, the scales are only held in place by a thin rim onto which the two screws are clamped, so sideways force on the blade works via the screw directly on that tiny bone rim.

Thanks to the titanium liners, the knife is fairly low-weight, so I thought that adding bronze scales would not make it overly heavy. I like bronze for the nice colour and patina over time, the colour is better than brass and it is much harder than copper. I bought a strip of 1.5mm thick bronze and used the old scales as a template.



I like the knife now much better than with the bone scales but I do miss some texture on the scales (and patina).




As you can see, one of the scales was shaped better than the other, I’m not perfect.

To add texture to the scales, I tried my hand on etching with FeCl3, never did that before so I made a few small test-pieces before starting with the scales. As I found somewhere, I used a Sharpie to create resist for the etching liquid. I thought that a creative edge on the scales would be nice. I also blackened the inside of the holes.




After polishing with Brasso:

Ok, the technique worked perfectly well, I’m happy with that. But the result is just awful, the scales look like imitation leather now. I just turned a 75 dollar M390 blade with titanium liners into a 3 dollar knife from a greek souvenir shop :person_facepalming:

But the plain texture caused by the etching on the flat bits looks interesting though. So I removed the scales again and sanded the surface completely flat again. The scales are getting thinner now, I went from 1.5mm to 1.3mm. I blackened the inside of the holes again and etched the now plain surface again. The result was now much better, this is how is going to stay. The now thinner scales (about 1.15mm after the second etching step) still look good and make the knife 10 grams lighter than before etching (87 grams now).



It was fun to mod a knife for a change, I never made custom scales before and I like how it turned out. I will post another picture after some patina has developed.

I generally don’t get into knives but I enjoyed reading about your mod djozz. Thanks for sharing :beer:

For me it probably is a one-time thing, next mod will be a flashlight again :slight_smile:

Nice work Djozz. Thankfully you didnt like the ‘’creative edge’’, nice save in the end.

It’s a beautiful looking knife and would even be legal to carry in the UK - We’re limited to 3 inches ( 762mm) and non-locking

Non locking, that is absurd… guess they don’t care about safety.