What did you mod today?

Ah, but the host is what it is and that isnā€™t going to change. Retired cops are well set in their ways, itā€™s gotta sit on his wall charger like it has for 25 years or it just ainā€™t right, ya know?

Itā€™s brighter and whiter with much more coverage area than before, so, now that heā€™s retired and only looking for things that go bump in the night, it should suit him ok. A fresh charge on a new battery pack should show 7.5V, thatā€™ll have to be enough. (NiMH 1.2V cells typically charge to 1.5V or so. 5 of these would net 7.5V when fresh. Since it has a wall mounted charger and the light resides in that charger, Iā€™m gonna have to assume the charge level will essentially always be full.

Not likely to convince him to use a pair of Li-ions and take them out to recharge them. I might just show him what it can do with those, the difference might be impressive enough to him to do the convincing. :wink:

What about making a pack of 6 4/5 sub Cs? The length would be about 10mm shorter than 5 sub Cs. But this would require modification to the charger as well.

Youā€™re right, if its always fully charged that helps.

I have a little experience with power tool packs and rebuilding.
I have upgraded one of my Milwaukee 18V 2400 NiCd to 4300 NiMh. I still kept one pack in NiMh form for the rattle gun, 1/2in drive Impact. Something about the NiCd that dump more juice for the impact gun. Same deal on my buddyā€™s Snap-off gun as he tried NiMh rebuild and was disappointed. No idea how this will compare to draw to XPH70 on each type of cell though.

Also be very careful rebuilding the streamlight batt pack. I did one of those to a while ago. Itā€™s odd to say the least took 2 tries after a shorted cell first try.

Done a few mods recently. Mostly re-modding or finally modding some lights Iā€™ve had a long time.

First up was my EagleTac D25LC2. I bought this a few years back, it was my ā€˜firstā€™ modern proper LED torch. When EagleTac first launched the D Series.

It had a very cool white XP-G in it. It was a really nice light, but the tint was not for me, it also had quite a noticeable tint shift on lower outputs.

I had a spare XP-G2 R5 3C on a Noctigon, that pulled from an F13 (never really liked it in that light). And set to fitting it to the EagleTac.

First up, I did not want to mess with the driver (or break the light). On getting the bezel off and removing the lens and reflector, I found the head was quite deep and narrow to get down to the LED, so a bit of a fiddly soldering job.

Also the stock star must have been around 14mm sitting in a 15mm recess. So the 16mm Noctigon was too big. After much filing by hand the Noctigon eventually fitted. And all back together again. Now I have a nice more modern D25 EagleTac with NW tint, slightly higher output than before and the tint shifting on the lower modes seems to have mostly vanished.

Having completed the D25LC2. I moved to modding a zoomy Iā€™ve had for ages. Itā€™s an Ultrafire ZB-006 and is my most compact 18650 zooming light. I originally bought it, because it was meant to have an XP-G in it (years backā€¦.). However it turned up with an XP-E in it.

It was ok, bigger flood than an SK68 and slightly better throw. But it never really hit the spot for me. Tint was way too cool and while the throw was quite good for itā€™s size, it was a pencil beam. The driver was also horrid, H-L-Strobe with next mode memory and PWM.

This host is really thin and lighweight. So I knew itā€™d never be a complete hotrod, just doesnā€™t have the thermal mass. So I ordered up a 3.04A Qlite and an XP-L HI V2 3B on a Noctigon from Intā€™l Out door.

Sadly this turned into more of a pita than I thought it would be. The pill turned out to be hollow (I thought it had a shelf :person_facepalming: )

And the fatter wires from the Qlite driver mean the led would not sit flat. So Iā€™ve had to file out some channels for the wires. Then get it all installed.

End result, nice flood output and tint. But it really didnā€™t throw very well. The taller Noctigon must have moved the Led just out of focus at full zoom.

Ran it like this for a few days and just found myself annoyed with it. Eventually pulled the XP-L HI out of it and chucked in a de-domed XM-L2 that I had been running in a Convoy S2. Nothing fancy, it was a CW LED (I think from a Convoy S2+ so probably a 1A or something). Tint insā€™t too bad de-domed, not brilliant, but acceptable. And for some reason the throw is much better than the XP-L HI and it focuses better now too (aluminium star).

Still not sure how much I like the light overall, but at least itā€™s a usable light now.

Was bored this evening and so I did my first SRK mod (I know there have been millions of SRK mods before) - and got surprised.
The light has 7 fake XM-L Leds and no solid shelf. I got this light discounted for 20 $ a couple of months ago. Bought it only to see the ā€œlegendaryā€ SRK in reality.
Got about 1500 Lumens before modding. I have not done much, just bypassed the series resistor which is realized as a long trace on the PCB, added 2 additional wires to the LED, did some soldering in the tail PCB to decrease resistance and put some thermal compound on the small ring where the MCPCB lays on.
Then I measured output again and - surprise - got about 3200 lumens, with protected cells! I didnā€™t expect this, more than twice as much as before.
The tint is blueish cold, and of course the light getā€™s to hot to hold after 30 seconds, the fake LEDs are not efficient at all. But they are still working - the second surprise.

Now I am even thinking of replacing the fake LEDs against some XM-L2 or so, and perhaps putting a copper disk under the LED board.

Another S2+ Triple All soldered stack
Nichia 219C
Fet+1 A6
11A
Was Blue :smiley:






First one of the ex-cops light was the Streamlight 20X, a biggish light like a Mag, I probably called it wrong saying Stinger, Iā€™ve found out now the Stinger is smaller. I also have the one that IS a stinger, and replaced the Luxeon K9 or whatever with an XP-G2 S2 0D. Beam wasnā€™t all that great to begin with, still not with the new emitter, so I did a quick bit of lathe work to seat the unified bezel/reflector a bit deeperā€¦ now itā€™s a nice hot spot with some throw, he should be pleased with it and it didnā€™t take much on my part to upgrade it.

Finally got the two old Streamlights upgraded, wasnā€™t as bad as I had thought it might be. lol

Made a lighted tailcap in to my grey S2+ 18350

More info Here

Wow CRX, those are great mods again. Nice touch with the GITD sheet around the XP-L led :slight_smile:

@Chicken Drumstick: I have also a ZB006 around doing nothing because of the cheap build quality. It has a good lens though, one day I will try to make it into something as well.

Stainless steel Quantum mule with tritium momentary switch, XM-L2 4C on sinkpad, magnetic tail and quantum tunneling composite (QTC) pill.
Moonlight to 1.5A variable.

1 Thank

I put some Nichia 219Bs in each of these lights: Jetbeam Jet-1 MK, Thrunite Ti5T, Thrunite Ti.

Here are beamshots, this time in a different order (Thrunite Ti, Thrunite Ti5T, Jetbeam Jet-1 MK). Interesting that the Thrunites have a slightly different color even though their emitters were adjacent units from the same reel.

Here is a before-and-after with the Ti5T (look at the horrible green tint in the before picture! I like it much better now). Itā€™s in the middle of each picture (Left to right: Astrolux A01, Lumintop Tool Ti, Thrunite Ti5T, Olight I3S EOS, Foursevens Preon P1):


And here is a comparison of modded and stock Jet-1 MK:


And a comparison of 1xAA beamshots (Left to right: Jetbeam Jet-1 MK (Nichia 219B 4000K); DQG Tiny AA (XP-G2 4250K); Manker E11 (XP-L ā€˜NWā€™); Jetbeam Jet-1 MK (XP-G2); Sunwayman V11R (XM-L))

Iā€™ve been working on my X2R. The driver is probably done (weā€™ll see), but I canā€™t decide on an emitter. It started with a 90cri XPG3, right now it has a top-bin 3A tint XPG3. Iā€™m not totally happy with either of them, but leaning towards either going back to the 90cri emitter, or trying an XPL HI

I love what you did there !
Truly imaginative and perfectly executed !
So you use the trit as a pole to press the switch in the tail ? Does it go through a transparent tube ?

CRX has been on fire lately churning mods out of his flashlight factory. :slight_smile:

What do you think guys, which should I do in my X2R?

1. XP-G3 4500k 90cri

  • Low Vf for high numbers even on a low battery
  • In the back of my mind I know itā€™s 90CRI, even if the tint isnā€™t great

2. XP-L HI (tint TBD)

  • Higher lumens from less power
  • better tint, but not 90cri

Do you have any purpose (yes, thatā€™s a real question here :laughing: )for this light ? Outdoor or Indoor ? To me, thatā€™s the first questions for tint choice :slight_smile:

It will become my all-purpose light when I just need to grab something on the way out the door. Primarily outdoor use.

Regardless, if I did an XP-L HI it would be in the 4000k-4500k range, just depends what I can find. Right now I have a 5A that is a little warmer than I wanted for this light, but I just might use it anyways.

Realistically, am I going to notice any brightness difference between the lower bin XP-G3 at 5-6amps vs the XP-L HI at 4-5amps

MT-G2

:smiley:

I still use my modded Ultrafire Wf-501b as a i-donā€™t-care-if-i-drop-it and ā€œdirty handsā€ flashlight .
Uses dedomed xpl v5 3c , and the tint is really close to 5A-5C . You canā€™t imagine how much i enjoy the tint outdoors :slight_smile:

I think my ā€œperfectā€ tint would be a 4A or 4D, but theyā€™re just impossible to find.

I have one 5A tint HI at home already, but I was planning on using it in my L2.

I think right now Iā€™ll put the XPG3 90cri back in it and see if a frosted narrow optic cleans up the tint at all. If not, HI it is.

The tint options for HIā€™s just kind of suck right now. KD has a 4B tint, but Iā€™m worried that might be too green/yellow?