Mod: My SupFire M6 "BMF" edition (new beamshots in OP).

Flashlight Modding and DIY Parts
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Edit Jan 20th, 2022: Fixed broken image links for nostalgic reasons.

I’ve been asking a lot of questions lately… here is why.

I had my M6 from RMM but I managed to muck up the driver some how, and now I don’t even know where it is… And to be honest I didn’t really like the E-switch cycle through modes very much, which is why I started mucking about with the driver in the first place. While it was sitting there I put together my first MT-G2 pocket rocket and really took a liking to the MT-G2. It didn’t take long before I started getting ideas for my driverless M6…

I took a look at the OSH Park boards and found the 32x7135 SRK board and was going to zener mod it, but I couldn’t use it like it was because I needed to convert the M6 into 2S 2P cell configuration. I thought about designing a contact plate for it but after going though Mattaus Eagle tutorials I made up my mind to design my own unique driver with 2S 2P cell configuration, and basically turn my M6 into a light that was exactly how I wanted it to be. The driver took a long time to design, and I scrapped the design after lots of work a few times. Thanks to all those in the Eagle thread who helped me out, and especially Mattaus for the tutorials and PM support.

The driver arrived a few days ago so I went and bought a hot air soldering station. Here is the driver, some of you might notice a few distinct characteristics with it…


I cramed in 16 x 380mAh chips per LED (theoretically 6A per emitter, each on separate chain) added the zener, voltage monitor resistors, off time cap, E-switch connection and a few holes.

Why an off time cap? As mentioned, I’m not a fan of E-switches. This is what I did about it:

I drilled out the E-switch hole a bit…

and threw in a 10A reverse clicky Judco switch.

LED holes in the reflector had to be widened too:

Installed the three MT-G2s and wire them up:

Soldered on battery minus springs and glued on battery plus springs (as plus feed goes straight to the Judco switch via a hole) and did the rest of the wiring. On the other side of the switch I soldered a plus lead to the board (under the three holes). No parasitic drain on this light!

After a bit of mucking about the light took it’s first few breaths as a fully assembled light:

I put the MCU on the bottom side so I don’t have to disassemble the entire light just to flash it. For now I’ve flashed it with my basic off time firmware (based on Star but not much of original Star code is left) just to test the light out. I have E-switch connections on the board but won’t be using them, I like it the way it is, but I’ll need to tune voltage monitoring values.

Of coarse I had to go outside and test it… It’s pretty darn bright! :bigsmile: Do I need to say it heats up extremely fast? I might have to do something about that. I’d like to run it a little longer before it burns up, I want to use it for mine exploration photography.

Well, thanks for all that have been answering my endless stream of questions. I joined here at the end of January this year, thinking all I want to do with my lights is swap out the drivers and LEDs… Now look what you people have made me do :beer: :beer: :beer:

- UPDATE WITH FIRMWARE INFO AND BEAMSHOTS -

I finished up the firmware for this light. Running it on a mechanical switch with an off time cap is the perfect UI for me. Some firmware details:

Three modes, PWM levels 20, 80, 255.
Turbo timeout 60 seconds.
Short press induces next mode.
Medium press induces previous mode.
Long press induces voltage display with blinks. The voltage values are read and written to memory every 5 seconds when the light is on and under load. When long press indicator is triggered the latest stored voltage value is read from memory and flashed out according to levels. I’ve been looking at HKJ’s Samsung charts to get an idea where I want the levels.
Voltage monitoring values are adjusted for low voltage step down at 6.6V and critical voltage shut off at 6.1V.
I programmed a limiter to prevent highest mode when low voltage is flagged but had no more space. I have one more PCB from OSH Park so I’m considering mounting a ATtiny25 or 85 on it as I have a few of both lying around. 25 will be enough for the above, but I want to dig into the 85 for more flexibility in a headlight project I’m working on.

Here are new some beamshots. I mixed up the others and they where not aligned very well. I’ve also skipped the low and medium mode as they can be flashed to any value, so these are all on highest output. All beamshots are taken with aperture 5.6 and 5000K white balance. Outdoor exposure time is 3 seconds, indoor exposure /400. As aperture and exposure times can make any light bright I took some comparison shots. I tried to do mouse overs with them but my browser crapped out in the advanced editor mode.

Left: M6. Right: Convoy M1 MT-G2 ~6A.

Left M6. Right: Convoy S2 triple XP-G2 ~6A.

Left: M6. Right: Convoy M1 MT-G2 ~6A.

Left M6. Right: Convoy S2 triple XP-G2 ~6A.

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Pretty frickin cool build there bro. Congrats on that bad boy.

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Very nice, i love the looks of that driver

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You’ve sure come a long way in a very short period of time. The X6 remains by far my favorite budget “coke can” sized light, and Im never disappointed whenever I use mine. Congratulations on such a complex cool mod and to all of those who helped support you.

Just for giggles, do you have a stock X6 to compare a few beamshots?

I dont suppose a build thread would be possible, would it? :bigsmile: If so, I might have to do another group buy on these lights.

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Wow.
The second picture !

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Well done , sir .

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i like the concept of all the parts being at the bottom of the driver so u do not have to remove anything just add/replace what u need

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Very nice effort Mike. Its good when a build comes to life.

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BMF as in this guy?

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That’s an awesome build! - I think I’ll have another beer just for you… :beer:

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Thanks for the comments everyone :slight_smile:

I don’t have a stock M6, but because OSH Park minimum order is three pieces I have two more of these drivers lying around. I might put them to use as I know someone who could use a light like this. Could do beamshots and a build thread then.

This light is a bit trickier to assemble as the battery springs need to be aligned to the battery tube when fully screwed on. I’d hate to have to do that every time I flashed it. Quick access to the MCU was the first idea that came to mind.

Exactamundo!

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Wait…Exactamundo! is this guy

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Oops… you’re right. This is what I meant:

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Awesome job, especially on the driver! Very elegant. :slight_smile:

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Jättebra!

:)

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Very cool build! I've been planning on a 3x MT-G2 in an M6 for a while and even bored out a reflector last summer for it, but never got around to finishing it. I was going to run 8x18350 with the stock driver board, but I think that your solution is even better since 4x18650 gives you a lot more capacity.

That is an impressive driver for a "first timer".

I'm impressed!

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Any chance of a “Hot potato” test?
i.e Turn it on full and see how long it takes before you can’t hold on to it anymore :stuck_out_tongue:

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Mange takk :slight_smile:

Thanks! In hind sight I’m glad I mucked up the original driver, I don’t know if this would have happened if I didn’t. It’s been a fun learning curve! If I designed a new one today I probably wouldn’t go down the same 48 x 7135 PWM regulated path, but at the time it was the idea I had and I really had to see this one through.

“Hot potato” test, definitely a good description! Yeah, I’ll have to do it to test the lights reliability. I’ll be demonstrating this light for a friend in the weekend, I’ll give it a go then.

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ORSM! For a first time driver this is incredible. Well done indeed.

Who is with me?

"BEAM SHOTS - BEAM SHOTS - BEAM SHOTS" LOL

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Hot potato test: I might have been able to hold for a few seconds longer than 1 min 40 sec, but it felt like pushing it.

I could try to do some beamshots. Can start with indoors against a white wall, and maybe next weekend do some in the environment I built this light for.