Introduction
After playing with testing my new Thrunite Ti for a while I thought (like some others too) it would be nice to have a medium mode between the low (3 lm in my sample) and the 60 lm high. Looking at the driver base I got an idea for a mod which worked out quite well (it has some flaws which probably are no-gos for some of us, more about that later) and which I'd like to share here.
Materials & Methods
Looking at the driver you can see a piece of metal attached at one side to the driver base and hoovering above the contact point in the centre which is the connection for the high mode.
First I took away the foam ring. Be careful not to tear it (I almost did) and have a piece of double-sided adhesive tape ready to reattach it later.
Then I bent the metal piece that is the low contact first up and then down again with a sewing needle under it in order to widen the distance between the low and the high contact (careful not to tear away the metal ring of the low contact from the driver base)
Don sent me a few QTC pills a while ago which was what I remembered when I was looking at the driver base initially. I thinned out one side so that the QTC pill wouldn't be compressed when placed under the "low" contact...
... and put it between the "low" and the "high" contact.
Foamring reattached, I just hope it holds the QTC pill securely on place.
Results
I can't post any videos, but took some pictures with fixed camera settings so you get an idea.
First contact = original low mode
I have to turn the head about 1/8 turn for the QTC to let through enough current to activate the "reduced" high mode
A little further
And yet a little further = original high mode
Discussion
Now to the downsides of this mod:
As you can understand the head sticks out of the body a bit more after the mod (ca 1 mm) making the o-ring coming rather close to the edge of the body when turning the light off. If I turn the head a half turn out after it went off I can see the o-ring.
The Ti with QTC just turned off
So either you risk that the light accidently turns on or that it looses the head when edcing on you keyring with a standard AAA cell. Guess next time I'll go to buy some AAA batteries I will take my calliper with me :D
The other problem is that the brightness regulation is very inconsistant and instable. By that I mean that you have to fiddle a while to get the brightness you want and that the light is prone to change brightness when the head is moved. You have about 1/8 turn between low and high to adjust your brightness, and when you let the head go after you found your setting it's likely that the brightness goes up or down. It gets better with a little bit of practice, i.e. when I adjust the brightness with tiny movements touching the head with just enough pressure that it doesn't slip I can adjust the brightness quite well, but you can't compare it in any way with a magnetic brightness control (or only with a defective one).
Conclusion
If I can find an OKish AAA battery that is about 1 mm shorter than usual I will consider this mod a success. The brightness control has its flaws but I see it only as an addition to the original 2 modes who still work just as before, only with a little "extra" interposed.
Thanks for reading!
