Since releasing the MELD-X driver, I’ve been on a modding spree putting it into every light I can get my hands on. This time I wanted to build one to use the new dual-switch feature, and the Nitecore EC11 is an ideal host. This light had been sitting disassembled in my bin for several months waiting for a worthy driver. Unfortunately the EC11 is the single most difficult to open light I have ever encountered, so it took some significant damage getting the head apart, but everything is still functional.
Here’s an overview video of the finished light:
I started with a MELD-X 22mm driver, and trimmed it down to the ~20mm size of the stock EC11 driver. I then mounted the stock switch board to it with a big solder blob to the ground ring:
The two switch signals were connected with 30AWG wire to the appropriate points on the driver:
I prepared a hybrid metal-core LED board with an XP-L, RGB XQ-Es, and a LHUV at 400nm. The star board needed a slight amount of trimming around the edges, and then one side notched out to make room for the switch board:
After insulating the back of the switch board with kapton, I installed wires for all the LEDs:
And installed the driver in the head. The cutout where the switch board goes is the only entry into the LED cavity, so all the wires pass up behind the switch board. I also added some strips of kapton tape around the LEDs for extra insulation from the reflector.
I then connected all the wires down to the LED board, and pushed them down to make room for the reflector:
The reflector needed to be drilled out to 7mm and then opened up slightly more with an exacto blade, then it fits around the LEDs. Unfortunately I couldn’t figure out a good way to utilize the existing hole in the reflector (for the red light in the stock setup), so it’s just empty:
The MELD-X board is slightly thinner than the stock driver, so I put solder blobs around the ground ring to get better contact with the battery tube:
The finishing touch was to install one of these magnets in the tailcap. I found these 12x2mm magnets on eBay and got them specifically to fit this light. It is simply superglued into the tailcap under the spring:
And now it’s capable of being mounted vertically or horizontally from steel objects;
This light is quickly becoming my new EDC favorite, as the dual switches make the MELD UI so much nicer to use. The 18350 battery and large reflector also help get the brightness up - at 1.75A this is now putting out a measured 633 lumens.
Thanks for reading!
