New XM-L Light,, 26650/18650/4xAAA Good Price and 57mm head ......... NOTE: The star is solid aluminium !!! :bigsmile:

Nice mod cainn!

Does the head get warm faster now? When I did mine it seemed like it warmed up a little faster but never got real warm. 15 minutes of running and and it was just getting warm. The head has alot of mass and fins I think that it spreads the heat out good now! :bigsmile: Going to order some 26650’s and see how that works out!

Hey, it was yourself and a few others that inspired me :slight_smile:

It certainly gets warm more quickly now, but like yours it doesn’t go beyond warm. In fact the thermal path is so good that the star itself doesn’t even really get very hot, and that’s after I redid the wiring between driver and the star to get more current to it. Tail cap readings show 3.3A now, but even though I’ve done some work on the switch, it’s still adding quite a bit of resistance. I’m currently trying to figure out a way to get an entirely new sort of switch in there.

Any owners try running this light on 2 cr123 lithium’s? Same voltage as the 4 AAA holder.

The difference is the Alkalines will sad to around 4.5 volts but the CR123As will not, someone more knowledgeable than I could probably identify the driver and tell you whether it would work.

Was wondering if anyone had done any driver swaps or anything to this light?

I dont have a caliper to find the correct size so if someone could help out i would be thankful.

apt323, you looking to driver swap yours? I could check mine with a caliper, but I thought it had been done already.

-Garry

Went back and read through most of the posts and couldnt find any driver size info. When you got time can you measure it. Thanks Garry

I'll try to remember.

-Garry

I get 20.0mm with my calipers. Maybe a 17mm driver could work with the P60 pill/retainer method used on the HD2010. Might also get a 19mm driver to work.

-Garry

Thanks Garry! I only get around 2 amps on any of my batteries and wanna pump it up. Have 26650’s on the way to see if that help I guess need to take the tail cap apart and do resistance checking to see if that helps. I did read that when i re-read the thread. Never done anything like that before.

Thanks again for your help.

There’s a ton of resistance in the switch, but the other thing you should do is replace the wiring between the driver and the star with some lower gauge stuff. My readings at the tail shot up over 3A (from around 2.2) after that mod alone. It seems common also for there to be some resistance at the contact point between the driver and the pill (especially if the driver is loose, and also if the screw in aluminium ring it sits in isn’t screwed in tight).

I’d be careful about removing too much resistance without also filling in the hollow pill though. It almost seems as if it’s constructed this way on purpose to prevent over heating (in other words, bad design as a feature).

Thanks for the info. I replaced the wires when I filled the open hole. When you say lower guage do you mean thicker wire? Just rechecked my tailcap readings and my solar force blue and white protected pulls 2.7a on my hd2010 the pulled it out and put in this light and it pulls 1.8a granted that the the battery voltage was only 3.8v but it was the same for both lights. I also tightened the ring down earlier this week.

What kind of things can be done to the tailswitch? Also the light seems to flicker sometimes when turning it on. Think that it might have something to with the driver spring maybe.

Thanks for the info.

Yes. Of course you did. I’d forgotten that it was you who detailed your efforts earlier in this thread. Please forgive my absent mindedness.

Yup.

I ran some copper tape from the part of the switch that springs out to contact the body up to the top of the switch, so the aluminium ring that screws down onto it makes contact with it as well. It seemed to improve things, but I think what I ultimately need to do is get an entirely new switch in there somehow. I’ve been meaning to take another look at it, but just haven’t gotten around to it yet.

My middle name is absent mindedness so i definately understand. The wire was thicker also that i used after the build up. Have t ever really looked for a driver that size so may there is one out that fits my needs. After all that work on filling the pill up I would just like to see this thing screaming somewhere in the 3.5a+ range! See if it can try and compete with my HD2010 and hopefully wont lose the 4aaa feature to get there. Maybe it will help with the 26650’s that are one the way.

Thanks again and update here if u find a switch or just any general information that is good.

I just discovered that Solarforce inner switch sets fit into the tail on this light (with the exception of the boot). I used a different boot that I had laying around that is the same size as the original, but has a nipple inside it (the original doesn’t). I also used a round plastic spacer (reduced to the correct diameter) which happened to have just the right sized hole in the middle of it. The following pictures tell the story:






This has significantly improved total output. I can only measure it relatively using my Android phone running the beeCam lightmeter app during a ceiling bounce, but it’s a true story. Besides, it was visually noticeable anyway.

Thanks cainn! I'll have to order a couple of these! Can you measure resistance of the original switch and this one for comparison?

-Garry

Thanks for the info cainn. :bigsmile:

To be perfectly honest, at this stage I don’t have much confidence in my ability to accurately measure resistance in something like a tail switch. What I did do was take some lux readings with the original switch and the Solarforce replacement. 152 with the former and 188 with the latter, averaged over 2 attempts. I started with the original switch, took a reading, swapped in the Solarforce switch, took a reading, swapped in the original again, took a reading and finally swapped in the Solarforce switch again, and took a reading. The difference was about the same each time, so the averages above are an accurate indicator of the difference (rather than just the average of 2 wildly different results). This was during a ceiling bounce, with the light tail standing in the exact same spot each time, about 2m from the ceiling.

Any idea what diameter those solarforce switches are? I'm wondering if I could just get a 5 pack of these Ultrafire's from Manafont (21.27mm in Manafont photo). Then there's these Uniquefire's (20.56mm in Manafont photo). I have some of these basic switches, but they are kinda junky and are probably higher resistance than the other two options. I would have sworn I'd seen some "Ultrafire High Current tail cap switches" at Manafont too, but I can't find them now.

Is there a reason for using the Solarforce switch? Is it because of the retaining ring piece, or is that not needed? I also don't have any other tail cap boots.

-Garry

Well I finally received custom pill and after some painstaking sanding and few “touches” with hammer this is final (almost :bigsmile: ) result.

Custom alu pill with opening for standard 17mm driver

I slightly miscalculated things so plunger on spring provides reliable contact with battery

Reliable negative contact is made with wire sandwiched between battery tube and pill part. Not pretty and elegant but it works reliably.

Holes for wires were bored at an angle

I still have to make some real world outside testing but so far things are looking promising :beer: