POP LITE T62 Upgrade Mod - Pics Added

LED Flashlights – General Info 18650 Flashlights
1

Firstly “hello everybody” from down under

I have been reading through this forum for a while now so I thought I better give something back :slight_smile:

I have done this little writeup as there appears to be zero info on Led Lenser and POP Lite’s here.

I own a few different lights, and my latest one is a little Pop Lite, I was interested in the Led Lenser design as I have not seen any decent zoomers yet, and they are by far the nicest looking torch I have found, so I thought I would grab a cheap copy and have some fun with it.

The T62 runs a single 18650 battery, not AAA/AA like many others, this thing is tiny, much smaller than a C8, when I fired it up I was really disappointed with its performance, it was totally pathetic in terms of light output and clean light image in both flood and spot, had lots of artefacts and rings, off centre spot, very poor light indeed, soooo, I decided to dismantle this thing and “make it better”

Was quite easy to take apart, not as easy as a typical light like the C8’s as they use a glue on the threads of the “pill” but glue has never stopped me before :), once I stripped this thing down I discovered this one is regulated with a driver board unlike the AA/AAA brethren which apparently are unregulated, this board looks simple enough if you want to upgrade it, I chose to leave it in “for now” :), so I focused my attention on the LED module, this was a rather crapy little XR-E Q5, these modules are position on top of a aluminium shaft this acts as a heat-sink for the module, the white plastic you see when looking through the lens is designed to hold the module in place and to apply pressure, this aids in its heat transfer, I will add that they used close to zero amounts of heat transfer compound.

I had a spare XM-L T6 module sitting around so I though what the hell, may as well slap this sucker in and see what happens, I had to cut aluminium backing plate down to the same size as the XR-E package, I removed the factory cotton sized cable and replaced it with something more substantial, applied arctic silver thermal compound to the threads of the pill and under the module, soldering the wires onto the new module is the tricky part as the original XR-E has terminals on the bottom and the cables run straight down the side of the aluminium pedestal, the XM-L are on the top, but I managed to solder these cleanly on top to the actually led chips terminals and run the cables outwards were the sticker/logo would normally be, this was to prevent them from shorting to the XM-L’s backing plate.

Well after fully assembling and fire this sucker up, I was amazed at how much better and brighter this thing is, it now blinds you if even try and look at it, flood and focus are much better, hot spot is now central, spread looks more like a good aspherical lense now, much cleaner and consistent light, I fired this up and left it sitting next to one of my direct drive C8’s with an XM-L U2 in it, the C8 was definitely brighter but after 1 hour the Pop lite out did the C8, the pop lit was steady for 2hrs with no drop in brightness but my little C8 had drop way under the T62, all in all this mod was definitely worth it, the pop lite only got slightly warm were my C8 gets pretty hot, I did fire the T62 up with module off the heat sink and it de-soilder itself after a few seconds so it does push enough current to get an XM-l quite hot, this shows its internal cooling is good enough for a constant 2hr run with no problems.

After doing this mod this torch is my favourite, mainly due to its size, its flood is nearly as good as a normal aspherical zoomer but its spot stomps them completely, I love my C8’s as they throw really well for such a small light but they are far from pocket size, this little T62 is a great general purpose pocket or glovebox light, and after this mod it really competes with a C8 in light output, but the great thing is it still has fantastic battery life, oh and its a cool looking little torch as well.

I have a few photos of the mod and I will take some beam shots against my C8 XM-L T6 and my XM-L U2 along with a aspherical zoomer I modded with a 2900mah driver board and an XM-L2 U2 module, Ill try and get these up today sometime today.

I have a legit Led Lenser P7.2 on the way now so this will be the next thing I’ll pull a “Tim The Toolman Taylor” on :slight_smile:

C8 vs T62

T62 disassembled




Cut down XM-L T6 Module

XM-L T6 Installed

T62 Beam Shots at 1.5 Meters


C8 XM-L U2 at 1.5 Meters

Ultrafire Zoomer with XM-L2 U2 @2900mah with 2 x 22650’s


4D Maglite vs Pop Lite T62

C8 (left) vs Pop Lite (right) when first switched on

C8 (left) vs Pop Lite (right) after 2hrs constant running

Led Lenser P7.2 (left with fresh NiMh batteries) vs Pop Lite after 2hr constant running (right)

2

Thanks for sharing your mod and welcome to the BLF , kung-foo-kamel .

35 reads and no welcomes ? C'mon people

3

Cheers m8, :slight_smile:

My P7.2 just arrived and I’m including it in my photos, its also pathetic, my modded T62 out shines in brightness.

4

I love this place.

EDIT: does your Pop-lite T62 have a port for plugging in a charger?
(I’m wondering how many variations on this are out there — I find prices from low $20s to $40s)

5

Hi and welcome kfk. Nice mods.

6

Yeah the T62 has the charger port. Shame as it makes the light longer overall. But I like mine. I’ve not modded mine yet, but the flood beam on mine is artefact free and despite being an XR-E it still out throws many of my higher output lights. That said I have been toying with an XP-G2 or XM-L2 swap in it.

7

What are the dimensions of the cut-down module?
Wondering if any of the available small square or round boards out there will work.

8

Yes the one I have has a charging port, haven’t used it as I have a couple Nitecore chargers that I use, on a side note, the T62 will only use protected batteries, the plunger in the tail cap needs to be extended with a spring if you want to use unprotected, I did test mine with the 2200mah protected battery it came with and I fed it an Ultrafire 5000mah unprotected, both to me yielded the same result, so I have kept the original battery in place.

Also people bash these Led Lensers everywhere, but I really like the P7.2, it has a really clean flood and a fairly well focused spot, it throws better than the T62, but not as bright all round, LL have done a great job with their lens, all they need is a different battery carriage, all the switching and resisting is done in the battery carriage, the torch could be extended to use 8 x AAA quite easily, and could have a regulated circuit fitted as well, I’m really surprised no one has done this, I went out last night and had play and I can say LL has done a great job at delivering a quality product, the T62 is just plain cheap in comparison, I always thought Maglite’s felt like quality but their nothing compared to an LL light, I’m about to grab a Coast next, they don’t sell that awesome HP550 anywhere in AU but I can get the HP17, I was looking for a large torch/wopping stick like my 4D Mag to mount in my 4x4, was looking at big LL but the Coast is 1/3 cheaper for what looks to be the same thing, I’ll never buy another Mag as they are just plain garbage, I remember over 20 years ago when I paid nearly $100 AU for a double AA Mag J) I feel just plain ripped off!

RE: What are the dimensions of the cut-down module?
Wondering if any of the available small square or round boards out there will work.

I didn’t measure the module but its only 1.5mm larger than the XM-L chip itself, I doubt anything of the shelf will fit, its dead easy to to cut down a standard star, I would use whatever LED you have spare as long as its more efficient than the Q5 fitted, XM-L T6 is old tech now, if I had a spare XM-L2 I would have used that, I just used some pincers to trim the backing plate down then some emery paper to finish it off.

I think the onboard driver is rated at 900mah, so just check up at Cree - Flashlight Wiki and make sure you will yield higher output at this current.

I will add that the heat transfer on T62 is better than one thinks, the heat is drawn down the body rather easily, slightly warm at the head but after 2hrs the body is slightly warmer than the head, I gather the heat is travelling to the thinest part, unlike my overdriven C8’s that get hot at the head and stay hot at the head until the batteries discharge

9

Go the XM-L2, I don’t think you will have any issues with heat, you may as well put the most efficient tech in their, the XM-L2 is more than a 100lm higher at the the same current.

I’m thinking of changing the driver next, maybe something that pushes around 1000 to 1200mah should be enough to get a little more light with minimal increase in heat.

On a side note, the silly white plastic shroud is not really needed, you can use thermal epoxy to glue the emitter board down to the pedestal (the POP Lite H6 headlamp is done like this), I will do this when I swap the XM-L for an XM-L2 and upraise the driver board and fit silicon wiring

Thermal epoxy: Arctic Silver Thermal Adhesive

10

Welcome to the BLF KfK (So glad you went with that spelling or the short handle would make me hungry for fried chicken) I hope you also have fun here.

Wonderful mod. Thank you for the pictures and the writeup. A rare breed indeed these modded Led lenser & clones.

11

How did you get the bezel off? How did you get the pill out?

12

I am quite confident that Fresnel had all the elements in focus at once. Nome of my three simplified lighthouse flashlights has its two elements in focus at once. I don’t know if that is by design compromise or whether they miscalculate something like the refractive index.
I may start a new thread, but I don’t have enough to say yet.

13

I put the battery tube in a vise and used pump pliers on the exposed top of the pill, with paper towels around both. There was sort of rubbery glue in there. I scratched it getting the bezel ring off, but not so it shows getting the pill out.
It is funny looking inside, partly because of the charging port.

It is not clear to me that the quality is worse than that of LED Lenser, but one might consider plastic parts a cheap feature, even in such things as connectors, spacers and battery tubes. There are two wires and four springs, even before looking inside the pill.
I “read” the instructions enough to see that the charger works with the tail switch closed and the light is supposed to turn red. The charger did work, but I probably won’t really use it.
The worst light of this type that I have is an old 3 x AAA, limited zoom Lenser/Coast one that I got broken on Ebay.

14

Here is the tail cap. I did the usual spring braid with thin braid. The cover over the spring appears to be stainless steel, so it would probably help to delete it. They get a positive ground with a wire. The wire seems to be soldered to the aluminum, so I didn’t mess with it.

Click for full size.

The wires around the charger port twist off, so it only works half the times I put it together. It is rather a mess and probably still detracts from the current, but it is the only light I have with this feature.
Here are some of the wire and spring mods:

I have not yet taken the driver out of the pill.
Before the mod., I measured 0.50 A with a cell charged to 3.96 V. After these, I get 0.55 A at the same voltage.
Added: 0.72 A at 4.23 V.

15

Here is a picture of the driver.

Looking closely, it looks like just pulse width modulation and series resistors to limit the current, like in real budget flashlights. R2 and R3 are between Q1 (and the empty Q2 slot) and the negative output. Those resistors are large, and there are two of them to share the power. The only odd thing is that they are not identical, but that is probably just because of the resistor value they chose. I should try shorting across them.
Another mod. would be to add Q2. That might reduce the resistance in the driver. It would also improve reliability at higher currents. Anyone know what Q1 is, so I could order an other one?

It is 19 mm. plus tabs, so a 20 mm. driver or adapter could be trimmed to fit.

Now I get 1.25 A, a real flashlight. With the LED directly on aluminum, twice that would be better, but at least I have something useful now. I think I should go ahead and swap emitters.

From the data sheets, the electrical characteristics of an XP-G2 are closer to those of an XM-L than to those of an XR-E, with much lower forward voltage for any current. And of course the output is also higher, especially for higher currents. I don’t want to make more than necessary adjustment in length and I had one closer to the right size, so I am trying a regular non-direct aluminum star. That won’t dissipate heat as well as the XR-E sitting directly on the pillar, but it should work up to two or three amps. I am soaking it in acetone, to dedome it, to retain the small (though not symmetrical) spot.

16

I scraped away the insulating layer from the area next to the FET where it says “Q1” and tinned it. I reflowed an XP-G2 onto a trimmed to fit regular 1 mm. thick aluminum star and soaked it in acetone for two or three days till the dome came off. I soldered a 24 gauge wire to the positive pad and one to Q1, and connected and assembled it.

It starts to turn blue after a few seconds, because I don’t have any thermal compound in it yet. It regulates, but only weakly. There is slight difference between modes, and the strobe mode blinks only weakly. I figure the FET might be overloaded, because of the lower forward voltage. I have six old surplus direct drive budget drivers with what look like FETs. I think I will try one that is the right size to be Q2 on the T62 driver. That might relieve the overload and make it work correctly.

Adding the transistor from my SkyRay M12’s original driver as Q2 did fix the control problem. It now has modes and flashes. It draws 2.2, 0.85 and 0.27 A in high medium and low modes. That seems about right for an XP-G2 with a non-direct thermal star. The arctic silver does prevent the turning blue. The lower forward voltage did give the desired current increase, without having to replace the driver entirely. The XP-G2 is an R5 5a. It needs an o-ring under the bezel ring to focus with the 1 mm. thick star.
Output seem, however, a bit disappointing. Maybe it is the non-direct star, or maybe the LED is damaged.

The POP lite T62 with modified driver and XP-G2 R5 5a is on the right; my LED Lenser P5.2 with Nanjg 105a driver and 14500 cell is on the left.
Zoomed in:

Zoomed out to comparable size:

The smaller light is brighter. At the present state of charge, the T62 is drawing 2 A, and the LED Lenser P5.2 is drawing 1.8 A. The emitter is a bit off center, and the optics is marked by acetone that I used to help get the bezel off. Since the P5.2 is an expensive flashlight with a cool white tint, part of the difference may be the XP-G2 LED bin, but R5 is not a shoddy bin. The picture look like one of the bond wires may have been broken, but it draws normal current and the projected image of the LED looks uniform. The spot size has been retained, the tint is very good, but the lumens out are not quite what I hoped for. The spot is still not uniform.

POP lite zoomies are very much like Lensers. Perhaps POP lite is the company that produces the Lenser flashlights. But this does not quite seem to be a re-badged Lenser.