O-L's Beam shot thread, Or BS thread! - Or, some mods to come, with before and after beam shots. UPDATED 03/17/15

Flashlight Modding and DIY Parts
1

This will probably be a kind of strange thread. I did some beam shots of a couple lights, at the closed Carrier plant and I really liked how they came out, so I am going to do some more.

A BLF/CPF member sent me some lights to play with and to mod to the new XHP series of leds, so I thought I would go ahead and do some before and after shots.

Amongst the lights are an Elektro Lumens ST90, (already modded by someone, with an XM-L2), a BTU Shocker, a JAX Z1, as well as others. I will do beam shots of them as they are and describe each light and it's leds. Then when I mod them, I will do beam shots again, for comparison. I do not know right now, if I can even mod them from 3.7V leds to 6V leds. It may not work out at all, but hopefully I will be able to do a couple of them somehow.

At least, that is the plan. You know how that usually goes, but I can hope it works out.

OK, I don't know everything about these lights and my descriptions only state what I "Think" they have for leds. I did not take them all apart, so I can't guarantee which led for sure. It's my best guess, just by looking from the front. E-L is short for Elektro Lumens.

1.- Brass EDC, (Maybe Sinner?), 1x18650, XP-G2? Deep OP reflector

2.- E-L Black EDC, 1x18650, XM-L, Deep faceted reflector

3.- E-L Silver EDC, 1x18650 P7, Shallow SMO reflector

4.- Orange EDC, 1x26650, XP-E?? or XB-D?? Dedomed., Deep SMO reflector

5.- JAX, 1x26650, XM-L2, Aspheric lens

6.- E-L ST90, 4x18650, XM-L2 Dedomed, (not the SST-90 led), Deep Faceted reflector

7.- BTU Shocker, 3x18650, 3x XM-L2 Dedomed, 3-up deep SMO reflector

Beam Shots - 271 yards

Beam Shots - 78 yards

Beam Shots - 30 yards

OK, you can draw your own conclusions from there. When I take these lights apart, I will verify the leds, though most of them should be correct.

In the next few weeks, these lights will be modified. Some will get XHP70 leds in them, some will get XHP50 leds in them and some may just get a higher amp driver in them. I am not sure, till I get to each one. As they are done, I will post new beam shots showing results.

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2

To start off, I will use a couple of photos from another thread, showing a multiple XHP 70 light and an MT-G2 light.

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The ST90 has been modded with a XHP 70 led. Here's a few photos of the mod and results.

The battery holder was modified to hold 8x18350 in 2S/4P and the springs have the braid mod.

The driver is one of my Mag drivers, with a new mod. The driver now has a regulator instead of the zener, which all but eliminates any parasitic drain. Courtesy of RMM. I haven't got a clue, he just showed me where the components need to be put on. It's using 7135 chips, for a little over 9 amps.

I kept the dual switch format, but changed one to momentary and the other one is used as a lockout.

It now has a glass lens, (95mm UV filter) and the reflector sits just a hair above the heat sink itself, so it's actually below the led substrate. Gives the best spot that way.

Beam Shots

You can see just how intense the spot is, even though there is spill, the majority of the light is coming straight out the front. It's awesome!

Looking for the dreaded "X"

I found a white wall and decided to show you that there is no more dark X in the beam. Here is a shot with a 1 sec. shutter.

Then I stopped it down some, to see the center of the beam better.

And once more, to show that there is no black X left, with this large diamond pattern reflector.

All in all, it's a thrower as far as I'm concerned. At least the kind of thrower I like, with a large spot that shows something when you get out there a few hundred yards. It was raining hard outside, so I can't do any outside shots, but from the playing I did, it easily hits 1000+ yards and illuminates well, mostly because of the massive amount of lumens OTF and because it's a cool white 6200K tint.

That's all for now, I still have 6 more lights to go.

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03/07/15 JAX Z1 Mod

I went ahead and did a simple mod to the Z1, just to see what it looked like.

The light

The stock driver, modded with 18ga leads and an 18ga bridge over the resistors.

An SBT-70 6500K, I think it's 6500K. It's on an MT-G2 Noctigon.

Finished. With a single MNKE 26650, the driver pushes 6 amps to the led. It will be better when the BLF 22DD comes in, from RMM.

I'm at home, but when I go to work next week, I will do the inside beam shots, for comparison to the stock light, I may wait till the DD driver comes in. Well, I guess I had better do that, since it's going to up the amperage, so maybe a week or so to do the shots inside the plant.

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BTU Shocker and Solarstorm SP03 are done.

The first three shots are with the BTU Shocker. I used XHP50 leds at 3 amps each. I wanted to make it brighter, but not have to drill out the reflector.

The next three are of the SP03. I used three XHP70 leds and a FET driver, so it's DD on high, with 8x18650 2S/4P.

They both have dark spots in the center now. It's just that the lights are so damned bright, you don't readily see them. Here is the dark spot in the BTu Shocker.

Here is the dark spot in the SP03.

That's all for now. I still have 4 lights left to work on, well maybe 5.

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03-26-15

The Jax now has a FET driver courtesy of RMM. Here's the photos.

It may not look brighter, but it is. I have illuminated trees at well over 1500 yards and it looks good, so I consider it better than the original light. I really like the round spot versus the square one.

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One of the lights I got was a cut down Maglite. A 1D. I bought the four different Ledil Mirella reflectors and did a little test with an XHP 70 led.

Here are the four reflectors, from Left to Right. The first one is very light OP with vertical ribs, the second one is SMO with vertical ribs, the third one is OP with vertical ribs and horizontal grooves and the fourth one is OP with four separate horizontal steps.

The photos below are in order to the one photo above.

The second reflector, the one that is SMO, has the best beam.

Beam shots are done below.

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03/17/15 Beam shots at the carrier plant, for the modified Maglite and the Elektrolumens black EDC. Both lights have XHP50 leds in them, both at 3 amps and both have faceted reflectors. The EDC is about 27mm OD and the Mag about 50mm OD.

EL EDC

1D Mag

EL EDC

1D Mag

EL EDC

1D Mag

That's all for now. Remember the before photos are all in the previous posts.

5

Nice,your Homemade “SUN SHOT” is very blinding on that Blue/White wall!

I look forward to the other beam shots! :wink:

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Looking forward to the photos.

What kind of facility is/was that? It’s a shame seeing such a large space sitting empty.

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Nice hosts for an XHP mod.An idea snapped into my head when I saw the Elektrolumens, it has that diamond cut type of reflector in it and may get rid of the dark center in the led.Subbed!!

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The "before" beam shots are up, in the OP, for 7 different lights.

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It was a Carrier Air Conditioner Manufacturing plant. They moved to Mexico.

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love the flooder shots! :slight_smile:

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ok…what building do you visit normally that is 271 meters long! GOOD GRAVY…I have seen those industrial storage buildings but daggum that is one LOOOOOOOOONG building!

Disregard, saw it was an old Carrier AC manufacturing building…understood why it so daggum large

Can’t wait to see what you do OL…gonna be awesome!

That BTU shocker is one HECK of a thrower stock…daggum

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Most curious to see results to the btu shocker then the Orange light. Who makes that light? I kinda like it. The beam profile is unique too, no flood or spill at all. Is it a zoomie?

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It’s a CPF member, but I do not know who. At least I believe it is. Might be totally wrong. It’s an interesting light, since it is only about a 30mm diameter reflector, but very deep and it is a really small die led. Got to be XP-E or something in that range. I was very surprised at the beam. I will have to show some photos, when I tear it down.

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The orange one is a cooly, made by fivemega. It is a P60 host.

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The big ST-90 by E-L has no driver. It’s direct drive and has an inline big resistor for the low. Wayne uses small wires and such to create resistance and hold current down, so you should easily be able to improve this one with some 18ga leads. :slight_smile:

Looking forward to seeing how most all of these take shape.

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Great thread already, and going to get even better!

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subscribed

awesome pictures!

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that orange light surprised me, wonder what its maximum range is.

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Updates! In Post #2. The ST90 light is modified and beam shots are up.

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ORSM. Yeah I'm shouting. Is that the EL ST90? Any idea where the reflector came from? I wonder if one of these is similar? I dont know what the difference is between them but there both 80mm in diameter.

http://www.cutter.com.au/proddetail.php?prod=cut1110

http://www.cutter.com.au/proddetail.php?prod=cut1111