Here is the flashlight side by side with a Mnke 26650 I was using and the two Efest IMR 26500 that are going to power the xhp50 leds.
First needed to make shorter the tailswitch assembly so epoxied the switch to the retaining ring. Also soldered one of the terminals to it and the other bypassing the spring with wire.
Then, with a small drillbit, I could make some extra space for the cells.
Dont have pics of the process but used the same method to open up the flashlight head and get rid of the led integrated shelf. Here is the head finished from the bottom side.
A friend gave me two chunks of copper and had the oportunity to use a lathe with one of them and reduce the diameter to fit the F13 head. The center bit was cutted, filed and sanded.
A Mtn FET diver was soldered to a piece of copper plumbing. Instead of soldering it to the heatsink I prefeared to attach the driver with heat resistant silicone.
Only had two noctigon boards so scratch the center pad from two non DTP copper bases an filled with solder .
Head finished with leds wired in paralel and leds base trimmed, not nice looking but it works.
This is the only optic I could find that fit the flashlight ( http://www.kaidomain.com/Product/Details.S022838 ). I think it was designed for xr-e leds but it works great for xhp50.
My DMM can only read up to 10Amps, so measured only on one led. Start up was getting 5.12A, after 20 seconds went down to 3.94A and at the 30seconds mark went up again till 4…08A (I think this behaviour is caused by the heating of the cells).
So according to this graph Djozz made https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7583/16071380949_db49996937_o.jpg each led is doing about 2800 lumens, multiplied by four leds = 11200 lumens. Not bad :bigsmile:
Finally a beamshot at third level from six (too much light in turbo mode for my camera). No dark cross. Just an even big flood light.