BlackShadow Queen mod with R, G, B, W and UV

Hi Guys,

Here’s a mod I did of the Blackshadow Queen, one of my favorites. This one uses the same microcontroller as my MELD drivers (PIC16F1829) and runs the same firmware, with a few tweaks for linear drivers instead of the buck/boost and SEPIC used on MELD.

The mod uses 6xAMC7135 for the white channel and 1xAMC7135 for each color. The LEDs are XP-L for white, XQ-E for color, and Luxeon UV. The LEDs are on a funny arrangement that ended up working out pretty well: I sliced the top layer off of one of my LED boards, cut out a space for the XP-L, and then Arctic Silvered it to an aluminum XP star.

The stock daughter board was kept as-is, but I stripped everything off of the main board. Everything was wired free-floating, and I included a programming connector which punches through a hole in the main PCB so I can reprogram without disassembling.

The throw on white in this host is awesome, but the smooth reflector doesn’t do great mixing the colors. Here’s a video that demos my most recent MELD firmware (v2.9) in this light:

I have a more complete description of the build on my blog here: Everett's projects: Blackshadow flashlight mod

Wow, really nice work as always!

Im in awe!

Thanks! I love your signature line, hilarious!

That is an awesome job you did there. I am amazed. Very clever programming, and great solution to put all those leds into that small space.
I want those two lights for me!

Not sure what the Black Shadow Queen feels about you changing her crown like that, but I like it. A lot.

Compromises, compromises. The compromise for good throw on the central emitter seems like a good one as I'm guessing you would using the colors less.

I have to say this. When I see your amazing wiring, I have flash backs to being under my dash or rewiring a car for a different ECU. In both cases, the wiring is very impressive. Just with Pontiac and Chevrolet, we are talking about teams of designers. With your modded lights, we are talking just you.

This! ^

Amazing work!

OMG custom knives, too. This one looks like a ZT fixed blade. So it’s not just amazing custom lights.

With talent like that, you should at least have your own domain. It’s really easy to plug a domain into your google blogger blog.

Either way,

I received an Everett-custom Olight S10 yesterday in polished titanium, and I must say it’s an amazing little light. I’m trying to make time for a full review, but I’m not sure how long that will take. There’s a lot to review.

In any case, it’s one of the smallest lights I have but it does more than every other light combined. It’s basically the crown jewel of my collection, and I suspect it’ll stay that way for a long time.

In related news, Battery Junction currently has the S10-Ti on the best sale I’ve ever seen, about 53% off retail price or 24% off the current “street” price. I think the sale only lasts about 2-3 days though.

Utterly incredible!!!

Truly a master and artist!

I think I've said it elsewhere, but I think this is really amazing. One of my goals is to replicate the SRK version of this, but I need to work on improving some of my modding skills before attempting a project this ambitious.

Hooray! Glad to hear it. I sort of have some company now. Can’t wait for your full review. Video? I’m STILL giddy over mine, just a plain ole, non titanium S10. Happy you finally got it ToyKeeper. I know your excitement. I bought a couple of Illumn’s Olight 16340 cells during the sale, protected ones that measure only 33.7mm in length, that’s really small. Hoping they fit in my S10. I’ll let u know.

patrick

I just watched the video twice, this was a lot of work for sure to figure out all these modes and the user interface. The idea of a small board with seperate LEDs is also genius.
WELL DONE!

How is the reflector centering of your custom board done?
Where did you order the xqe?

The colours and modes are fun but the red led feature amazes me, never thought about that but it seems to be a nice feature. Do you make a new revision of the led board with a hole instead of a xpl pad?

Amazingly clever IU. Wonderful creations you make. Really out of this world. I´ve never ever come across anything as versatile and user friendly!

I would like one meld driver but he asked me 40$.
:frowning:

IMO it´s not that expensive
I’m sure he spent some hours making it. take in account his labour time.

I really like his work but 40 are too high for me. I am sure there are people willing to pay this amount, I will stay to the budget section of this forum.

Yep, sounds like a far price. There are a LOT of parts on that driver, they're very small and probably MUCH harder to work on than the BLFDD drivers, plus shipping, time, and he takes on the risk of building a driver that might not work the first time.

Let’s not forget that the $40 is 100% optional! At least I think it is… tterev3 has shared the PCBs on OSHPark and the parts list / shopping cart. Now that I think about it though, I don’t think it’s an open-source firmware and I’m not sure where the binaries / hex files are. tterev3 definitely offered to program PICs for folks, but I’m not sure if there’s a cost associated with that?

Regardless of that, the problem (of course!) is that to build a single one from scratch it will cost you about $21 in parts/shipping from Mouser (to the USA), plus $3.80 in OSHPark stuff, plus the work to assemble it & flash the firmware.

For a single hobbyist board of this type I think we can all agree that $40 is a reasonable price - just a higher price than some of us want to pay! :wink:

Plus if you tried to save money by programming the chip yourself, you'd need a PIC programmer, and I think those cost a lot more than the $4 USB AVR programmers we use for the ATTINY13.