Lots of mods ahead

I've got a bunch of stuff on the way for mods. We'll see how it all goes. Any advice before I start any of this is welcome.

AKOray K-106, replace XR-E Q5 with a XP-G R5

Ultrafire WF-502B XP-G R5 1-mode - Plan on replacing driver with Shining Beam 4x7135 1400mA 3-mode driver. May use this modified drop-in in my 504B depending on which is better at heat sinking.

Build a P60 drop-in with a smooth reflector, XP-G neutral R4 and NANJG AK-47 set to 3 modes

Ordered a forward clicky tail for Romisen RC-G2 from Shining Beam that I plan to take apart and convert my direct drive Uniquefire S10 to forward clicky (didn't work, clicky switch was about impossible to extract without it popping open and spewing tiny pieces and springs everywhere).

Still will end up with one XP-G R4 neutral emitter and no place to put it. It will be on a 10mm board, so any ideas of a good host to put it in? I thought maybe a 1-mode S10 or some kind of Romisen. I'm not sure how the XP-G beam will look in a reflector made for XR-E series (ordered an Aurora SH-035 with XP-E Q5 that I may use this in).

That sounds like it could be fearsomely bright on a 14500. And pretty bright on an NiMH. Can't wait to see the results.

These will probably be the simplest mods to do. Again sounds like they could be impressively bright.

I'd try one of the P60 dropins first to see how an XR-E reflector works with an XP-G

Can't wait to hear (and see) how you get on with it.

Please post some pics of the installment when you get the chance....or better yet a vid for us to feast our eyes on.

Cool! Are there other R5 dropins compatible with the Akoray K-106 body?

The K-106 mod is fairly major surgery. The head has to be dismantled, the LED unsoldered, a new LED centred and soldered in. The LED may need shimming and fiddling with as the XP-G is a smaller die than the XR-E. And then hope that the driver copes with the different LED. (Should do) but how well the reflector copes remains to be seen. All of this work to be done in an area about 16mm (3/4") in diameter. Fiddly stuff. I'll attach a photo of the bit that does the work in the K-106 once I take the pics.

I'll probably save this one for last as I really don't want to mess up my 106. Plus I have to see how the tint turns out on the "neutral". It is supposedly a 5B1 tint which looks pinkish from the chart, but somehow I'm thinking it could be green. The good thing is the emitter in there now isn't glued down, it seems like the lead wires are the only thing holding the LED down. But that means there may not be a lot of slack and no room to go messing up the ends of those wires.

A person on CPF said he was very happy with his R5 upgrade. He swapped out the reflector (not sure why) with an 18x12 one from DX, but the only one I could find like that also seemed to be for and XR-E with a big hole.

For centering I was thinking I would just use the STARS compound from DX which doesn't harden, that way I could slide it around if I didn't get it quite right. I'm really hoping I don't need to shim it.

Even sane postage. Unfortunately no stock for 3-6 weeks now. 5 euros postage won't hurt either.

So am tempted to dig out the old Luxeon 3 stuff and put R5s in it. Even at 350mA the difference will be dramatic. I have an old Ultrafire WF-606A which has to be the most robust 2AA light out there which might well benefit from a Luxeon 3 to XP-G R5 upgrade. No idea if the reflector will work right but sounds like worth a try to me. Pity I've never seen an XP-G on a 20mm star like just about all the old Luxeon lights used.

But what I really fancy is a well heatsinked driver that can handle several R5s. Even if it has to go in a 6D Mag. I have a couple of those. But then the next batch of these

http://flashlightnews.net/forum/index.php?topic=2563

is about to be built and I hope to get one. 800 metres of throw!!!

Forget the runtime - this beast is pushing over 30W through the LED - about the same as an ROP high bulb. But a lot more efficient. Thanks to the help of folks on Jayki.com I've got the Piritlight thrower functioning

http://www.jayki.com/9408

But it is a 200m or so light - which makes it an impressive thrower but an SST-90 light driven hard will completely obliterate it. It is a bit silly building an MC-E LED into a reflector built for an XR-E LED - never going to throw as well but given it is pulling 3.2A from an 18650 it is putting out a lot of light. Maybe 600-900 lumens - the SST device I'm hoping for is over 2,000 lumens. Even with a wimpy reflector the sheer output will make it throw.

An SST-360 (4 SST-90 dies) at 48-55A would be even more impressive (7-10,000 lumens) but think how many cells that would need. About 20 18650s in parallel ought to cut it. Might be a bit fat to hold though.

First mod off to a bad start. The forward clickies for the Romisens are crimped in place so they aren’t easy to extract. I’m not sure they can even be extracted or used in another flashlight. KD had some forward clickies that would probably have worked, but you had to buy five of them at a time and these were $1.35, so it isn’t a big loss. The threads on the switch module are the same size as the S10 body threads so they screw in to the tail piece okay at first, but the threads for the S10 switch are a little smaller in diameter and when you get to those, it stops.

It is a pain when stuff doesn't go as intended. DX don't seem to do any forward clickies, hence, I assume the transplant.

I got my XP-G R5 from KaiDomain today. Since I have a cool white XP-G coming in my Ultrafire WF-502B already (it came today too, but I wasn't there to sign for it so I may have to be late for work tomorrow so I can pick it up), I don't really need another cool white P60 drop-in, so I need to put this in a regular light. But my neutral white XP-G's may not be here for another couple of weeks so I had to just see how I would do the AKOray transplant if I needed to, not that I was going to do it since I wanted to save it for last . . .

So now the AKOray has a XP-G in it. I know everyone says this, but you do gain on the spill but lose the hotspot intensity. I didn't get mine perfectly centered and there is a slightly dark blob just to one side of the hotspot. It is a little anticlimactic. Yes, I got it to work, but it's not a big effect. I'll have to take some pictures and see if I can tell the difference on before and after.

Turns out there was the slightest amount of compound under the original LED board, but it must have dried out or something because the board was loose, no trouble at all removing it once I unsoldered the leads. I didn't have to get inside the pill at all and I just had to pull on the wire a little and touch the soldering iron to the pad to melt the joint and pull the wire free. Other than centering which is difficult even with some sticky thermal compound (sticks to me better than anything else) it was pretty straightforward. There don't seem to be any heat problems. Really the LED isn't being driven all that hard. When I get the 1.4A driver for a drop-in, an XP-G should be a lot brighter and produce a lot more heat.