I ordered some B158B hosts directly from Brynite to evaluate if I want to use this host with my drivers as my “production” zoomie for fellow cave/mine explorers/photographers. So, let the evaluation begin…
The first thing I had to deal with is the pill can’t take a 20mm Noctigon. I new this from other threads so it was no surprise. However, I did not want file down the 20mm to size. The idea is that this is going to be a production light so I don’t wanna do that for each build, so I needed a reliable method to center a 16mm. I found a driver retaining ring from some old light that fit in the pill perfectly after just a little filing. Then I slapped on some Artic Alumina adhesive and stuck in a Nichia 219c on a 16mm Noctigon:
Then push the retaining ring over the LED to keep if centered while adhesive dries. I had to make sure I didn’t slap on too much adhesive as I want to re-use the retaining ring for all B158B builds. It worked perfectly:
My 17.7mm drivers where just a little too small so I had to solder it in. I used a G-12 in this one (12 x 380mA 7135s). I’ll be making the diameter a little larger for B158B based lights, but soldering would have to do for now:
The plastic ring for LED fits back on, makes it look cleaner than the bare Noctigon with soldered wires.
The next thing I had to deal with was the forward clicky switch. I don’t like them, I want reverse. I know BLF user Cula replaced the contact board and raised the new switch with epoxy putty, but I find a different way which works good enough and uses the original board. I took out the plastic cradle that holds the switch and hacked it up a bit. It ain’t pretty I don’t care, it’s not a visible part. Here next to an original:
I put a Omten switch upside down in the cradle, turned the cradle upside down, filed down the original switch hole a little for perfect height match and soldered the switch into place. The original forward clicky switch on the left, mine with the reverse clicky on the right:
So the light was ready for testing. Some here at BLF may know I use wide floods for climbing and photography. Most use zoomies for pencil beams, but I don’t (although it’s fun), I need and adjustable flood that can go wide… and the B158B does not. It doesn’t cut it, too narrow for my use. However, there is a lot of room between the pill and lens so there definitely room enough for a wide flood, but the flood wideness stops early because of the tube design. If Brynite made made the threaded part about 8mm longer and removed the same 8mm from the wider non threaded part, and removed 8mm from the outer tube, then the light would be able to utilize wider flood without sacrificing focused beam:
The good thing is it can be fixed rather easily. I screwed out the pill about 8mm. I’ll have to find a way to fix the pill to the tube with it hanging out this much, like some thin tubing that’s thin enough to fit inside the host’s inner tube without hitting the outer tube so the pill can go all the way in for that focused beam.
Of coarse with the pill screwed out this far the cell won’t make contact with the tail switch spring. So I had to make the tail switch spring reach longer. I took apart the tail cap again and moved that white “spring cover retainer” from under to the top of the tail switch retainer ring, and stuck it with epoxy:
But the spring inside the tail cap isn’t long enough and I couldn’t be bothered to replace the spring so I just made the spring cap solid instead of hollow by filling it up with copper wire (I filled it with solder after):
Tail cap assembled again, and now I have a tail cap spring that pushes the cell onto the driver and keeps contact all the way until the pill is fully screwed out:
So, I now have the perfect zoomie. It’s waterproof (according to rating, will be properly tested later) and now has a very wide flood that almost rivals my widest zoomie without sacrificing the focused beam at all.
With these mods this is now my favorite zoomie host by a lot. I can now sell lights to my caving/mine buddies with a quality host instead of the cheapo one I’ve used before.
I’ve been dealing with Martin from Brynite. So far he has been very fast and helpful. I don’t know if Brynite will want to make changes to the host design, but it doesn’t hurt to ask Martin if they are willing to. Most importantly I’d like the the threaded part of the inner tube to be 8mm longer and the fatter non threaded part 8mm shorter (so overall length is same but there is more threading). The outer tube would have to be shortened by 8mm too. With these changes I wouldn’t have to lengthen the tail cap spring. Second I’d like LED place in the pill widened so a 20mm Noctigon fits perfectly, or make a 20mm capable pill as an option (they do sell pills separately).
I’ll ask Martin about these changes and see what he says… Maybe there will be a minimum order for making changes like this, it doesn’t cost to ask though.