I modded a Rook today and turned it into a 3-up Nichia with TIR optics.
Let's start with some music to set the mood.
Ok, so I started with a plain Rook
I thought about just putting in a DrJones driver and leave it at that, but that's no fun, so I decided to go with a home made 3-up and TIR optics.
I used Nichia 219 LEDs from IS, 15 degree TIR optics from FT and a DrJones driver. I made everything else from parts I had lying around.
I had to remove the outer rim on all the optics, to get them into the head. You can see the one top left is stock and the others have been sanded down.
I had some aluminum rod stock, so I went with a size that would hold the three stars and opened up the inside of the head to fit the heat sink. I used an end mill bit in the drill press.
I had to cut the heat sink and then I milled it to clean off the cut marks and sanded and sanded and sanded.
I used 10mm XP-G stars and re flowed the Nichias onto them.
Of course, I am going with series for the 3AA NiMH batteries, so I am making an upper contact plate for series. I just finished fitting it into the stock brass locating ring.
I had to make the rounds from scratch. I ran out of 3.8 rounds, so I made these out of sheet stock. The contact plate is all ready.
The bottom contact plate also has to be modified for series. Here it is, ready to go back in. The traces are cut to isolate and the jumper is soldered on, plus the center contact is for ground, since I will be doing the tail cap mod, so that there is a manual lock out feature, by loosening the tail cap.
The upper part of the head is done, now I can work on the driver.
The DrJones driver has been wired to the LEDs and to the switch. I use AA on the solder joints to help keep the wires from flexing at the joints when moving the driver into the head.
The last three wires are in place. There are 4 extra chips added to the driver. Hopefully I should get about 1.5 amps to each led. The LEDs are wired in parallel.
The edge where the tail cap touches the body has been sanded to remove the ano.
The lip on the tail cap and the center have the ano removed too, so now the tail cap completes the circuit and a half turn out, locks out the light.
Here's a couple quick beam shots.
It's neither a thrower or a flooder. It's somewhere in between. It has a large spot, but not a ton of spill. TIR optics should let the light spread to whatever degree of angle they are made to. The 15 degree TIR optics are (to me), the best of the bunch. I use them a lot.
That's all Folks, I thought I would finally post a complete mod in one sitting, instead of dragging it out.