Well after a year of collecting parts, building a few lights and generally having a great time on BLF I finally got down and dirty and knocked out some real lights.
Put together about 40 of them since the year started and I officially finished all of the lights I currently own as of yesterday. (well except for some C8’s, but I am waiting for a triple setup to prototype for kiriba-ru before I build those).
I had them all out charging the cells yesterday and gave them a head count, turns out I have officially joined the Century club with over 100 flashlights (some didn’t make it into the picture as I kept remembering more I had stashed around the house and cars).
So with them all out I decided to take a family picture or 5:
I think I have officially exhausted my options for budget lights at this point and my collection offers everything from 17,000 lumen flood monsters to 1000m throwers. I have a trade pending for a cometa which is one light I am missing, a mid sized zoomie.
See what ya’ll can point out, if you have any questions about the builds feel free to ask.
LOL, I know it is bragging but what can I say, after a year of reseach, buying and preperation to see it all come together I am a bit excited.
The issue has proven to be to actually be able to use them all!
I am quite sure that I will be reducing the quantity before long, you just can’t use this many at once. Although it makes for one fun picture to have them all in one place at least once.
That’s a very interesting collection , especially the fact that most of the lights (should) have your drivers in there (and the fact you built them all of course)
Yeah, they are all modded with the exceptions of the few cheap little 9xled lights and the nitenumen ne01. Most of which have TA drivers as well (which is why I built them in the first place lol).
Just for grins I modded one of my Thrunite TN42’s with a XHP70 P2-1C FETDD Vishay sir800 18awg leads (+) off driver spring,Custom made driver adapter, SD75 mcpcb 12.27amps at the LED, GITD fins……GITD switch locator in middle lanyard hole…. :cowboy_hat_face:
Started on a copper heat sink for an SRK. The cylinder was .5 mm copper sheet and the heat plate 1.8mm copper. I’m pleased with how it’s going, the 15mmL x 41mm D is both nicely round and flat even though hand wrought and brazed. With a MtnE FET+1 driver it will need it. The other item is a 1.4A driver modded for bistro. 1 chip is segregated and jumpered to pin 5 and each of the other 3 doubled up. Also a cap bridging pins 2&4 for OTC. Basically a bistro compatible single sided board that’s regulated. The host is a sweet little grey S2+ modded to a 16650 triple 219C but at xx500 length. Wood tube of course. I’ve shown it before but finally close to finishing it. I didn’t want to give up retaining ring convenience and none of the 3-4 chip drivers are set up for plus one firmware.
Dome on, reflector .020” off the board with plasti-shim, no centering ring 238kcd.
Will be making a correct centering ring out of Delrin and shaving it later, just ran out of time! Saved all the stock parts, didn’t want to alter the stock ring.
Glow On Film…
I have the Glow paint and the Glow film. The film glows all night, just not as intense as it’s first charged, but in complete darkness, I can still see it in the morning, I think it said up to 12 hrs? I use a razor to cut strips and a Precision shim punch for dot’s and centering rings. It works great in triple/quad optic builds too. Just lay the strips or even the dots on the mcpcb, or the leads, as long as it dosen’t interfere with the legs locating, or the optic being held up off the board, it looks great thru the optic’s! The Glow film is pretty powerful, when I use it for centering rings it will cast a beam when fully charged!!
Dunno if anyone has one of these, but the Lumintop SD26 is a real nice light. Easily fits 26700's, and worse size protected EVVA cell I have, just over 70.0 mm. Think'n it's a great candidate to run a SANYO 20700A or B cell in.
I started on the mod - will be using a TA triple driver, actually the TA 30mm TA designed for the Convoy L6, but will use a Schottky diode instead of an LDO - easy to do. The 26 mm MaxToch XP size MCPCB fits perfectly, so plan on using a XPL2 V6 2B from KD in it. Running Narsil of course, supporting the green LED's behind the semi-transparent switch cover.
There's no reviews or info on the SD26 posted anywhere, but It's a real nice 1,060 lumens (what I measured, rated at 1,000 lumens) or so compact size 26650 light.
Bezel was glued but easily broke the bind with grippy gloves. Driver was also glued down, probably using thermal epoxy, but broke it loose using a solder pick thru the LED wire holes - no damage.
Yes, I do got pics - been taking them as I go, but have a ways to go. I'll post here soon, when I get further along. Should be able to fit the TA 30mm triple even with all the 7135's mounted, because there's a small driver mounted stiff spring. I'll loose the USB charging of course, but that's usual. The stock driver is a two tier design. What I like bout the light is it's compact size - the side switch hole actually overlaps with the reflector space, but there's no ill effects. The switch is mounted in the side of the light, SRK style, with 2 LED's. MCPCB is standard height, so no need to play around w/height. They use a small single screw in the MCPCB shelf simply to keep the MCPCB from spinning - it actually doesn't hold anything down -- interesting, but this is why many lights come with only one screw populated.
It's actually a simple e-switch mod - I've worked on many far more complicated.
Ohh - it also had, what I think, is a temp sensor mounted on the stock MCPCB, which is alum unfortunately. 2 small wires, 1 is ground, ran to a small SMD component on the MCPCB - they say it has temp monitoring so that's what it probably is.