What did you mod today?

I did a redesign of TA SRK driver for the Q8
I will send the driver to djozz as soon as possible to test out with his prototype

So which looks better just vias or connected vias?

v1.1

vs. v1.4

vs. v1.5

Yesterday evening and this morning I finally did a X6 triple. Not all went well in the process and I did not make pictures of all steps, sorry about that :-( .

More than a year ago Ledsmoke (he's not around anymore unfortunately, life got too busy he said) made me a spacer/heatsink to convert the X6 to a triple using the 32 mm Noctigon board and Ledil Cute triple optic. First part of the mod was making the two cut-outs in the spacer.

Now the (18AWG it will be) wires can get from the ledboard to the driver.

I had to sand off a tiny bit off the ledboard to fit it in the head cavity. I used the disc sander and managed to just clear all circuitry on top of the board so nothing can short against the inside of the head (that is anodised anyway :-) )

Then the spacer was fully covered in a thin layer of arctic silver. The fit in the head is so tight that there is also a good heat path sideways from spacer to head.

The leds are XP-L2 V4 3A 80CRI from Kaidomain, I reflowed them on the Noctigon. The driver is a Banggood bistro driver, that I fixed for the dropfromturbotomoon-problem, and I bypassed the spring with 18AWG silicon wire.

The legs of the Cute optic were shortened a bit because the narrowed ends were longer than the thickness of the ledboard.

The tail was build up using a PD68 low-resistant tailboard, a small Omten and a spring with 18AWG bypass.

Then trouble started:when closing the head (I used a double o-ring on top of each other between lens and bezel because the spacer was a millimeter too thin) , everything twisted and the spacer (I found out later) sheared off the insulation of the plus-ledwire. In other words, when the switch was engaged, a dead-short occurred, the switch was toast, and the brown LG cell died as well (internal fuse blew, voltage nill, never had that happen before, now I know it works!)

The solution, after trying several things, was tapping M3 threads in one of the side holes of the ledboard, and straight under that hole drilling a 3mm hole through the spacer and further down into the flashlight head. A M3 screw was screwed (with plastic washer) into the board which then sticks into the 3mm hole, in this way preventing any rotation of board and spacer. I hope that makes sense because I made no pictures of it.

And of course I soldered a new switch in :tired: . Alltogether, that was a 2.5 hour fix!

Now I could safely close up the light, and everything worked.

That mod was a lot less straightforward than I expected, a tailormade spacer does not prevent all trouble in this conversion.

Now was it worth the trouble? Yes!

The beam is smooth and without obvious tint gradients.

The output on highest setting is very rewarding: on a freshy charged VTC6 without tail using a copper loop and clamp meter I measure 18 A, and with tail in place I get 4750 lumen at start-up and 4340 lumen at 30 seconds. The heat path is really good because for this quite impressive output in a small light the drop is only mellow: it takes a very usable 90 seconds before the output drops under 4000 lumen, the head temperature at that point is 70 degrees Celsius, time to switch to a lower level!

Thats why central hole is more popular solution. Drilling mcpcb is not very easy but anyway much more safety way.

By the way, where did you get this green o-ring?

It is a very stiff nitrile o-ring, I bought some two years ago on ebay for a project I never did. The 2 o-rings stacked only worked because the second one is so stiff.

Novatac Twins

Before
High - 54lm
Low - 8lm

After Nichia 219C D280 5000k 80CRI
High - 220lm
Low - 38lm

.

Before
High - 74lm
Low - 10lm

After Nichia NVSL219BT-V1 4000K 90+ CRI
High - 250lm
Low - 38lm

What a nice light (repeat *2 :stuck_out_tongue: ).

Any idea how much a novatac costs?

I believe these were bought for around $30 each from the U.S, they’re not mine.

Thanks for the info :slight_smile:

I got my first XHP-70.2 today, in the mail from Richard. So of course I immediately replaced the XHP-70 in my L6 (a high bin from Cutter) and put a new Lg. Omten switch in the tail cap with a 20ga bypass. (This, not exactly easy wearing a cervical collar)

I’m now seeing 16.48Amps through a pair of LiitoKala 5000mAh light blue cells for 9108 lumens at the highest setting of my ramp. A fair 2000 lumen gain, for an emitter swap essentially. (Of course, the light was modified to begin with and the large Maxtoch copper mcpcb the 70.2 came on fit perfectly.)

I’m still using the OP reflector as well, will remedy that when possible. :wink:

Nice Jos! Now you see why I love the X6 so much! I’ve got triples, quads, MT-G2, XHP-70, SBT-70 and variations within those. I’ve still got the first X6 triple made, a sample from the Kronological X6 group buy. (the one in the video tossed out of the car at 60mph)

Rey made the small production run of Titanium X6 with a threaded copper pill, I made a new taller pill for mine and used 3 XHP-50.2 and a Khatod optic for ridiculous output, it’s really fun to see so much from such a smallish light! (10,315 lumens)

Yes, I’m rather addicted to the X6. Made some 40 of them or so, have I think 16 here now.

CRX
There is no gasket? Or I did not see it?

Gasket? There are o-rings on the body and one around the reflector.

He mean plactic spacer between led and reflector.

Right, no there isn’t one. The MCPCB sits in a groove in the pill with the reflector on top with kapton tape disc covering.

slowly CRX reveals his secrets! :partying_face:

:smiley: Hey, it was all explained here

Ah, I missed the link, thanks, very nice conversion of a good looking light! :slight_smile:

What light is this?

A new ‘budget’ Nitecore, the MT22A, I like the concept: 2xAA placed parallel in the light (electrically in series), modest output (260lm), mostly made of plastic with alu head, robust, no bells and wistles, supersimple UI. A flashlight to really use IMO.