up to a 10440 optional configuration. Is there anything that would be feasible and still perform decent with that or even an alkaline?
Afaik, there are no boost drivers that small that can also handle 10440s.
in your spare time? Should be a piece of cake! 
I'd be hard pressed to even solder a wire onto something that small let alone do that. :(
I really need to get better at soldering...
I think boost drivers need an inductor which takes up a lot of space. Usually more than is available in a AAA light. The driver in this one might be a joule thief type but I’m outside of my area if knowledge so that is just a WAG. This light might also be a good place for a qtc tab and no driver. New member Wquiles supposedly has a sales thread on the joule thief type and they can also be had from the sandwich shoppe.
type led, right? It requires a boost of its own I take it? I don’t know enough about these different kinda drivers to ask the right questions. :bigsmile:
Ordered a couple efest imr’s and 2 xp-g2’s and 2-14mm xp boards from IS. While there I saw a 1AAA 500 mA driver Dia. and nabbed it too. There’s plenty of room in the head to use one of them with an alky. They are not constant current. As the battery voltage drops, the current drops as well. Could use a nimh but have to be careful not to kill the battery. Won’t use it on this one but it could go into a “gift” light.
I remembered I got these from DX a while back…………well they fit this light perfectly. The OP aluminum reflector base sits essentially flush with the rear of the head when this lense is installed with it. It’s a pretty dang deep reflector too. 
Very nice quality for the 4-pak bucks.
http://dx.com/p/18mm-12mm-aluminum-textured-op-reflector-for-cree-led-emitters-4-pack-14598
http://dx.com/p/glass-lens-for-flashlights-18mm-10-pack-5630
I’ll take all you can make at that price!
Have you fired it up with these yet? Don’t want to wait a month for something that doesn’t work.
Ya I did just last night. I didn’t change out the super-bright but I soldered up a deal quick and dirty, installed the reflector, glass lens, chucked of course the asperic retainer, and torched her up on an eneloop. I now get this GREAT gradual soft very wide floody dispersion beam out of that OP stellar aluminum reflector that IMO is absolutely perfect as a quasi-mule and reading light. Very useful I think.
I’ll try and post pics later on here on what I did. I’m sure your pro-version will make mine look like poopy but like I say, it was literally a 20 minute job once I figured out the conductive solution to the top-unanodized battery tube obstacle and you’ll note with the loss of the aspheric retainer moving things back to the postive anode, something has to be done to compensate and complete a circuit. Listen to me, I sound like I really know what the h*ll I’m talking about here.
I think this thing should get pro-modded up the ying-yang. The beauty of it as you prolly know is the ample room available for sundry pill alterations and emitter shenanigans. H)
My builds have been described as “steam punk”, not beautiful, but they do work. I don’t sell them because they lack the finish that artists like Justin can provide. I’m a flashaholic in that I see a light and want to dissect it(the poor bugger). My version of creativity is a bit more grubby so when you say “pro” I have to laugh. This light is nice in that it has very high quality machined threads, is already a cross between a Maglite AAA and a Solitaire in that it is single AAA but has more mass and a larger head than a solitaire. It lacks only a decent emitter and either a boost regulator+AAA or a 10440+7135’s or qtc to make it rock.
The first thing that came to mind was that iconic bullseye scene at the beginning of every Bond film. Perfect circle with blood running down.
This was a quick and dirty 20 minutes worth of modding keeping the stock 5mm led just to show comparison to the stock aspheric set-up. Rufusbuck and hopefully O-L, will be doing a more advanced mod than this here shortly so stay tuned for better stuff. But this should give ya a general idea…….
Here’s the stock configs/stock light, with the after-market reflector etc., That black housing in the upper right screws in nice and crisply in the head which then compresses against the aspheric lens below it. It’s a bit taller than the OP reflector so that means contact-mods needed to be done in order for things to work. The aspheric as mentioned can be reversed which will then give ya sorta of a flood like the OP reflector mod that follows. I think that’s cool. Especially since this light is so easy to take apart all the way around that doing so literally takes less than 15 seconds. Prolly adding an 18mm o-ring to the aspheric and even the glass flat-lens wouldn’t hurt either. There’s a groove already inside the head for it so it should work. Kinda funny that it doesn’t come with one though. Nonetheless the housing does a nice job securing everything down anyway.
The aspheric a-lit and the OP reflector. It’s a decently deep OP reflector too for the size.
The ‘cartoonish’ perfect wall spot through the stock aspheric……both held about 3’ from the wall. Essentially ZERO spill.
Then flood mode with the OP reflector and flat-glass lens….
Then only about 12” from wall with stock aspheric. Condensed & quite brighter.
Top-shot with stock aspheric……
Top-shot with OP reflector. A lot floodier with a soft spread……both shots held about 12” above the table.
Here’s the after-market OP reflector in the head. As you can see it really fits perfectly like it was made for it. ……note the nice threads, and these weren’t even cleaned yet. That’s how shiny they come out of the package. 
In order to make a negative connection work I had to solder-up that spring and the copper tiny washer. I reversed the spring so that the narrow end is soldered to the driver-positive because the wide-end of the spring was too wide and would get too close to the negative driver contact ring much less even be solderable - hence another reason for that little copper washer getting put on the fat end as the dinky AAA positive batt end wouldn’t be able to make solid contact. Btw, that copper washer’s hole in my view may actually help with the positive anode of the batt to ‘secure’ itself better in contact and perhaps assist from keeping any cocking and slide-off from going on should it be dropped, etc. But that’s just conjecture on my part. Although whether it works or not I kinda like it just from an engineering viewpoint.
Then I took a piece of 26awg (insulated a’ course) soldered it to the negative driver contact and then sandwiched the tinned wire in between the unanodized tube end, and then screwed it back together. Ya can’t even tell from the outside that this was done. It screwed together back easily and without forcing it too. These are small parts so ya gotta be fairly precise with the soldering gun.
Side by side. The mod is on the right.
I wonder what the stock circuit does in terms of voltage and current. I went home last night and in the mailbox were the Efest IMR 10440’s and a 500 mA x 13 mm boost driver and 14 mm xp-g2 R5 3D from IS. Nice that Craig is only 60 miles away. I’m sure that stock circuit only puts out in the 10’s of mAs I’ll have to pick up another light for a side by side between the aspheric and the Cree when the reflector arrives. I like that this light is smaller than a AAA Minimag but has more mass than a Solitaire.
Capacitor’s almost as big as entire board.
That’s an inductor, not a capacitor.
The capacitor is the small tan bit under the free end of the inductor. Was there something else you were going to add Texas?
And why is it so big? Please educate. I’m all eyes but no ears. :nerd_face:
I was thinking capacitor because I know these ……and it looked similar to them. Now this inductor doesn’t have any markings whatsover on it.
I’ve seen my share of those swelled up too in other electronics that have gone T.U.
Yes, the tiny tan thing, ya that’s right I bridge those to lose next-mode memory or eliminate it all together and bridge to switch on right to high. Doesn’t grok as a capacitor in the typical application sense per Amazon version because it’s so frickin’ miniscule. 8)
But that brings up something else, if this little torch doesn’t have modes then why does it need this particular capacitor? I assume it must act like solely as direct led boost then right? And if so, could you conceivably add more of these to get more oomph to any led? H) Or am I being a stubid ignorant moron?
But wait, there’s more…….
Now here’s where it gets a touch confusing then. If that tiny tan thing is a capacitor which to me (do correct if bogus) stores and releases electrical energy in spurts so to speak which I’m garage-mechanic familiar with as to boosting lets say an air compressor motor so it can start things moving, and not constant, then again why is it there if this has no modes/memory? Is this then a constant-current capacitor? Or am I FOS for even asking?
Ok, this helps answer some questions….
http://www.lightandmatter.com/html_books/lm/ch25/ch25.html
And look, right at 25.1 theres a pic of what appears to be our friendly common tiny tan capacitor buddy. Or pretty close to it.
Geez. I learn and then forget something everyday.
There’s a thread in progress discussing the Joule Thief circuit of which I think this is an example. It has a coil, a capacitor, a resistor, and a transistor that combined can boost the voltage on a small amount of current enough to light a low power led. I just posted a pic of this driver in that thread to see if it was recognizable as such. There is a tendency for this type of circuit to cause the battery to leak from the extreme drain it is capable of causing. In other words “It might $h!t the bed” in the light.