Its the weekend. JM05 5 amp takes on HD2010 2.8 amp. Conclusion.

Flashlight Modding and DIY Parts
10

I suggest you wait and use a different/better driver. I’ve tried that one and discussed it here: Beast drivers @ Kaidomain ,
here: New XM-L driver on DX, anyone getting one? | Candle Power Flashlight Forum ,
and here: “http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?319237-Triple-MC-E-0D-Maglite-based-bike-light-MADE![](&p=3917275&viewfull=1#post3917275":http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?319237-Triple-MC-E-0D-Maglite-based-bike-light-MADE)&p=3917275&viewfull=1#post3917275

Bottom line, long story short, is that it throttles back from high way too early, even with potting for better thermal dissipation.

11
BetweenRides wrote:
JohnnyMac wrote:
Putting that kind of effort into such a sweet copper pill I would wait for the correct driver to arrive. Keep it all legit without a driver hack-job. Find something else to mill or mod this weekend, or just kick back, sip adult beverages, and relax for a change.

This applies to so many situations – great advice!

You and I need to do this together one day.

Thanks for the advice. Long story short (out comes the violin), early last year I had a prolapsed disc in my back. Off work for about 3 months on some rather strong pain killers. Being absolutely sick of being a pretty much disabled for an extended period of time I thought to myself to h_ll with it and took the super dooper mind expanding pills and proceded to work very proudly on my outside table that I have been building, no joke for 20 years. You could hear the screams 3 suburbs away. Bench saw, spinning blade and a thumb pointing backwards . Now your telling me I have to kick back and relax . The adult beverages happen anyway.

Old-Lumens

Grind Hell, do it by hand with files. LOL

I could just give you a list of stuff you can do this week-end,

Stuff I need to be done on a lathe.

I would love to do stuff on the lathe for you but would that take away from the inspiration that you give us guys? We could not have that now could we.

Techjunkie

I suggest you wait and use a different/better driver. I’ve tried that one and discussed it here: https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/6905 ,
here: http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?312393-New-XM-L-drive… ,
and here: http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?319237-Triple-MC-E-0D-Maglite-based-bike-light-MADE!&p=3917275&viewfull=1#post3917275

Bottom line, long story short, is that it throttles back from high way too early, even with potting for better thermal dissipation

Bugger. After reading for the last 2 hours all your links you have talked me into not using this driver unless someone can talk me into it. Ramps down from heat.

I'm almost to scared to ask if this one is any better,

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Constant-Current-LED-Circuit-Driver-3-Modes-5-2-12V-5A-SST-50-SST-90-FL-/320867879642?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4ab5374ada

This is the other one on order. Some of you may seen this already, this is what its going in.

https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/9637

Thanks for giving me a relaxing, inebriated lay on the couch and catch up on recorded but not watched gp racing. Its 10 to 7 in the morning here. Is it to early to start?

12

If i may, i would like to quote one of the finest literary poets of our time

“If you don’t work you don’t eat, you don’t grind you don’t shine ” 281 330 8004

13

Here it is. The JM05 has a slightly bigger pill, edit, in diameter than the HD2010, so with a couple of measurements a bit of grinding, soldering and a few choice words this popped out of the shed at the end of the day.

Stock pill with 3 mode 2 .8 amp driver. New pill 5 amp driver. Stock pill with 3 mode 2 .8 amp driver. New pill 5 amp driver.

JM05 5 amp U2 1A

HD2010 2.8 amp U2 2S

It just goes to show what a big reflector like the HD2010 has does for throw. The JM05 has a far bigger hot spot that is not apparent in the photos. The 1A tint also looks washed out compared to the 2S tint. Both leds are XML U2.

I havent run the flashlight on high for very long as I'm not game. Maybe later when Ive had a couple more?

Thanks JohnnyMac for these words of wisdom, just kick back, sip adult beverages, and relax for a change and Techjunkie for your advice.

14

Very impressive what a beautiful piece of metal, great job.

I installed that driver in Kumabears 3 XML and I didn’t have a problem with it throttling back to soon. He posted in that thread about how pleased he was with it also.

15

Dude! Your machine work is outstanding! Lots and lots of respect! 8)

16

handsome piece of copper.

17

:beer: :beer: :beer: 8)

18

Wow!! great work. Copper FTW!!!

19

YEP!

20

lol :money_mouth_face:

21

Thanks to you all for your words of inspiration.

E (and others). A couple of thoughts and questions. The soft thermal white blocks, where do they go and do they actually work. On the original driver swap I put it on the top driver board which slightly compressed it and is held that way with the bottom driver board soldered to the pill. On this one due to room constraints, I machined a step in the pill to just clear the windings to keep as much mass in the copper as possible, so could not put it there so I cut it into slices and wedged it between the driver boards. The driver also has a hum to it on the two lower current outputs. I know nothing about potting but would this silence it any. On reading there seems to be to different reasons for potting. One for electronic reliability against knocks etc and the other to get rid of heat. Does anyone know of any cheap homebrew recipes or can you use something like Araldite 2 part epoxy?

My soldering still needs a lot of practice as I thought that this pill being a lot thinner where I soldered the driver board to, that I would not have the problem I had last time in that the copper just wicks the heat straight out of the iron. Wrong. I cant believe how this material just sucks the life out of such a large soldering iron. The large iron below is the one I'm using for this use. It puts out enough heat that you could use it to brand a Mallee bull. I will have to use the oven next time when MRS dnf is not home.

Having slept on it I'm not happy with the night shots as I used different tint leds between the HD2010 and JM05 so today, all going well I will have XML U2 2S tints in them both to get a better idea of how they compare. Cheers.

22

The weekend is nearly over and from nowhere at the start this has turned into a showdown, thanks to you guys between the modified HD2010 and JM05. Secondly I apologise for the poor shots. My excuse is that they were taken on maximum 12x zoom.

The combatants. JM05 left HD2010 right.

The difference in lens size is massive. Usable lens diameters are approximately, JM05 38mm left and HD2010 52mm.

The shots at the fence show the difference in hot spot. The spill on the JM05 though is a lot larger which is not eveident in these pictures.

HD2010 JM05

Ok, beam shots. All leds are XML U2 2S

HD2010 2.8 amps

HD2010 .86 amps

JM05 5 amps

JM05 4 amps

JM05 2.8 amps

I failed miserably trying to do mouse overs. If someone smarter than me can do them please do.

To sum up, what did I learn. In this case large reflectors win hands down for throw. Smaller reflectors have a better flood. But you all knew that already.

Running the JM05 at 4 amps was not a lot different than 5 amps but there was a large difference between 2.8 amps and 4 amps.

Both lights are excellent but bang for bucks the HD2010 in this case is stunning.

Next weekend if the 5 amp driver for the HD2010 turns up guess what I'm doing .

Cheers guys.

23

That was my conclusion a long time ago actually 3.5 amps seemed to be the point of diminishing returns from my experiments. From 2.8- 3.5 there is a big increase in output but from 3.5 to 5 amps the only thing that really changes is the amount of heat it generates the amount of more light is barely noticeable.

24

Last night after a couple of quiet ales I decided to do some temp testing on the hot rod time bomb JM05 which I would not do before for fear of an explosion or fire.

Room temperature was a very comfortable 23 degrees C, glass door on the wood fire, 185 degrees C and a glass of Scotch and Coke 2.5 degrees C. There was no breeze to assist cooling at all.

On previous testing the flashlight at a similar room temp run on high, 2.8amps, after 45 minutes measured 46 degrees .

After 20 minutes the measured temps were, glass door on the wood fire, 189 degrees , glass which was now full of hot air 13 degrees and the time bomb running at 4 amps, 55 degrees and still very slowly climbing. There was no noticeable difference in light output from start to finish though this was not measured in any scientific fashion. No run time was done on high as E pointed out and I found in testing there was only a minute difference with the light output at 5 amps and 4 amps, the light got hot very quickly on 5 amps.

I was totally surprised that the light was getting rid of the heat as well as it did to the point I dont think I would be worried running this thing on medium in an outside environment.

Maybe it's not a time bomb and will hang in there being a cool hot rod.

25

First off: that is some cool skills youre showing with a lathe and copper rod. Keep it up it is looking real good.
Second: Dont worry so much about that time bomb thing. Before I got cautious (had kids) I did some Li-Ion + LED lights that had people writing me PM’S and a few threads of mine were closed down without warning in another forum. I still ran the lights. In fact I got a little angry at all the people who told me that I was dangerous to the public.
So I took my most offending light which was a 3* XR-E with tight optics in a 3*C mag size host (not original Mag - they cost a fortune here) with 2 protected flames 18650 batteries. Draw was 3,1 A at the tail.
Ran that sucker on my garden table until it noticeably dimmes. Switched batteries three times (did not have more batteries at the time) and the last time i changed batteries I had to use glowes to handle the light. The batteries were very warm.

I did that again after i recharged all the batteries. And they were fine. The torch was fine. The batteries are still in use but they have weakened some. That is alright though as they are 3 years old. And my most used batteries.

All I wanna say is that you’ll be fine. Single battery flashlight. Use protected cells. Gun it till it pops and smell funny! Have fun.

26

@LedSmoke

Do you have links to any of your builds? :D

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No wonder we have a problem with global warming, and I thought it was the cows fault . Ledsmoke, It sounds like you have tried to make a lot of it in the past. Led smoke that is. +1 with scaru on any links to your scientific experiments. Good stuff and thanks.

28

Sorry boys - One forum that I posted in is no more due to negligence i guess. People went elsewhere due to some fallout between core members and the following year the whole thing went off line.
The other forum is still up and doing fine. But I got kind of angry with some mods there and removed some of my threads by closing picture accounts and then the mods deleted the rest or maybe it was lost during a hacker/spammer attack that flatlined the site.

The thing that drove me mad was that I was doing stuff that other people had already done I just drove the LED’s harder. That had people on the barricades back then for some reason. But I had received a XR-E light that I liked and that i modded to take a 18650 battery. Later the driver poooped out on me and I tried to do direct drive. It worked fine. Drew 2,1 A from a fully charged 18650 battery. That showed me that these Cree leds were tough, durable and consistently well made. When I wrote that some people got their panty hoses in a knot. Long threads about diminishing returns, Li-ion (un-)safety, Led life span and death, proper heat sinking and all that. Tried to answer some of it. But the tone got nasty and the consensus was that this nut was right out.
I still loved that light. My God son has it now and he loves it. Gave it to him with a couple of IMR batteries and a charger. You guys probably wouldnt believe how much use that cheap host has seen. The kid is a wiz when it comes to fixing things although he is only 12 years old. So he uses it all the time when he is helping his old man out in the attic or the basement. Or when he is at boyscouts meetings. His smiles could make you I gave him a 400$ light.

I think that people - also a lot of flashaholics - tend to forget that most people use their flashlights is short bursts most of the time. That prolonges life almost indefinately.

Besides that I was getting bored since i always thought that once I was past my 3 first flashlights it only a pissing contest from then on.

I’ll go see if I can dig up some photos from an old HD later today if my son will take a nap soon.

But if you want overdriven hot rod lights then see what JohnnyMac is doing to those sweet little mag lites. Not a lot of heat dissipation is possible in that design. But they work and people are totally hot for them and for a good reason. They rock! And I for one is happy that I found this site where people are a lot less stringent and preachy about these things.

29

Thanks for the fine reference. Very much appreciated!! :slight_smile:

As an aside, I finally bought some IMR 14500 cells for my EDC Micro so I don’t stress out my regular 14500 flames AND I finally built an Integrated Sphere. Finally able to see what the OTF lumens are on my MicroMags with a fresh IMR cell:

High: 738 at cold start dropping to 678 after 30 seconds
Medium: 287
Low: 30

W00T!! J)