What did you mod today?

Added 2x7135s to 3 Convoy C8 and flashed Biscotti in to them.

That triple XP-E in a zoomie is crazy. I want to know what the beam looks like zoomed in.

Cross post from the Lantern sub-forum, since that sub doesn’t get too much traffic. Plus I like this one.

REXSO R1 LED Camping Light (Lantern) – Warm White 2835 SMD LED mod

I got THIS light from GearBest a while back on sale for $6 or $7 I think.

In stock form, my observations were not that great:

  • Bad battery life – the included battery tested as 1600mAh. I previously installed a Panny NCR18650B 3400mAh battery, that installation is not shown here. (Just desolder the crap stock battery and solder in the new batt.)
  • Very cool white light – very bad for outdoors camping IMO
  • UI: White light, blinking red light, off. That’s it, I wish it had at least hi/lo for white light.
  • Recharging circuit uses obsolete mini-USB instead of common micro USB (so you would probably need to carry a dedicated cable for this light)

But, BLF is for taking cheap stuff and making them fit our personal desires, right? So I began to tackle item #1 – cool White light. For outdoors camping, Warm White is a requirement, IMO.
(I plan to install a different driver and charging circuit later, to address items #2 and #3)

I forgot to take a picture before I began to disassemble.

Here is the LED board (MCPCB) with the top popped off. The stock LEDs are 3528 cool white. I will replace them with Warm White 2835 emitters (2835 are newer/better than 3528).

I was able to mount the 2835 WW and the stock 3528 CW emitters on some XP-footprint MCPCBs (remember XP-footprint is 3535).

Wired them up.

Test them at low current.

Note the obvious difference in both output and tint in the pic above, and in this pic.

Back to the light. The driver is underneath the LED board. The first thing I did was remove the red and black wires running to the red LED (can also be seen above), I have no need or want for a blinking red LED.

Get the mini hotplate warmed up.

Begin reflowing LEDs.

Complete! (before cleaning up the board) Took about 10 min.

Reassemble.

Test.

Finished beamshot of Rexso lantern. 15’x20’ bedroom, pitch black (we double sets of blackout curtains, wife used to work nights sleep days).

Ceiling bounce. More even soft lighting (as you’d expect).

Using the magnet base of the lantern I stuck it to the ceiling fan firing down. Also as expected, the lux in the center of the room is higher, and falls off to the sides.

This is a good light level for emergency lighting in a power outage but probably too much for inside a small tent camping, that is why I intend to install a driver with mode options.

The “test pic” above is with the camera exposure turned down (and with the diffuser cover off of the light). The new 2835 LEDs were significantly more powerful than the stock 3528 ones – with the new LEDs light was pulling 2.25A (sorry, I forgot to measure before) and was MUCH brighter. VERY bright. TOO bright in fact, for a camping light that has no lower mode (currently) and will be used in the dark. I added a current limiting resistor (I had to put a couple in parallel, I think I wound up around 5.5ohms?) to get down to around 0.26A. 0.26A seemed to be a good amount of light to light up my bedroom.

As mentioned, in the future I will add a multi-mode driver to give L/M/H modes which will make it much more useful. I will just use a leftover 7135 driver, probably 4*7135?

I will also remove the mini-USB charging circuit board and install a TP4505 micro-USB board so that it can share the same cable as other modern electronic devices.

I built this L6 XHP70.2 and the VG10 triple Nichia 2 weeks ago but this great photos from the owner came in today.






FWIW, mini-USB isn’t obsolete. It’s still the preferred connector for devices that need something which is both compact and sturdy, instead of just compact. Micro-USB is largely being replaced by USB-C lately though.

The actual word “obsolete” was chosen slightly tongue-in-cheek, but a quick survey of my house reveals exactly 1,672,305 devices using micro- USB, and approximately zero using mini-USB. And one proprietary Apple connector.

Assuming we’re still talking 2017, not 2002.

:stuck_out_tongue:

I have a light with dedomed XP-G2 emitters in what I think may a 3D tint (or possibly 2B, not sure), and I find its beam uncomfortably yellow in every situation I tried except for using it under a sodium vapor street lamp. It looked okay compared to the super-warm street lamp, but that isn’t saying much. It looks like the tint is in the vicinity of 5S or 5T, close in temperature to a Nichia high-CRI 4000K but not close at all in color rendering.

I’m tempted to un-mod it, sacrificing the throw for a whiter tint with XP-L HI. 3D would be about right, or I could maybe even go as warm as 4A. Neither seems to be in stock at the moment though; the closest are 3A and 5A2. :frowning:

Maybe I could fix it with sliced-dome 3D emitters, to improve throw without changing the tint. I’ve never tried that, but I hear it might work. It should be relatively easy with a washer and a sharp knife, assuming the washer is the right thickness.

This got me curious, so I did a quick check on my devices, counting one per device type:

  • 40+ USB-A: wide variety
  • 15 Micro-B: phones (8), power banks, mp3 players, raspberry pi, a flashlight, and a game controller
  • 8 Mini-B: keyboard, synthesizer, hard drive, remote, mp3 player, rpi clone, game controllers
  • 7 USB-B: scanners and synthesizers
  • 1 USB-C: keyboard
  • 5 Other USB: old stuff and an external hard drive

Cool mod sac02! That’s a lot of LEDs to reflow, but should be a nice lantern when you’re all done.

Finished beamshot of Rexso lantern. 15’x20’ bedroom, pitch black (we double sets of blackout curtains, wife used to work nights sleep days).

Ceiling bounce. More even soft lighting (as you’d expect).

Using the magnet base of the lantern I stuck it to the ceiling fan firing down. Also as expected, the lux in the center of the room is higher, and falls off to the sides.

This is a good light level for emergency lighting in a power outage but probably too much for inside a small tent camping, that is why I intend to install a driver with mode options.

That’s a really nice mod, and a really nice bedroom. :slight_smile:

(seriously, I could fit my bedroom, studio, office, and two closets into a 15’x20’ space and still have 72 square feet left over for a bathroom… there’s not much room to spare out here on my space rock)

I agree though, the portable light bulb really needs a dimmer.

Yesterday I built a triple in a x6 host using one of kiriba’s copper spacers, clemence’s sw40 9080 219bs and a convoy biscotti driver.
Compared to most stuff I’ve worked on lately, this one was meant to be less of a hot rod and more of a practical light for hiking/trail running use, I’m glad to say it seems to be an almost perfect fit for the role.

I used it for some trail running in the dark tonight and it worked very well, imho the cute-3 has the most useful beam profile for this application, providing a beam that lights up the trail smoothly while not wasting too much light outside of it and mantaining a good bit of reach. Once the eyes adapt to the warmth, these nichias produce the most beatiful, natural looking light I’ve seen so far and with 3 of them the efficiency is quite reasonable.

The host feels good in the hand and thanks to the abundant knurling gives good grip. It also dissipates heat well and didn’t overheat running at 2.8A continuosly. The only downside I’ve found so far is that the light is a bit on the heavy side, perhaps because of the weight of the copper spacer, an aluminium one would be a better fit for the role.

Today I finally wrapped up a mod that I’m quite proud of. Focused the optics and repolished the bezel. It’s all ready for sale now. :slight_smile:

A quad S41s with two xpg3 5500k high cri and two nichia 219c 4500k high cri.
Highly polished.
One of a kind H17Fplus high current version driver.
23 Amps from a single 18650! Around 4000 lumens if high cri!
I need to test it with an 18350 yet. I was a bit timid before but now we have a nice 18350 from Aspire.

If anyone is interested, please send me a PM. Let’s try to make a deal. :slight_smile:

_Edit: A_long the way I have bragged about the power of this light, considering it the highest of it’s class at 23amp draw from one cell. So, I am quite embarrassed to reveal my latest findings.
When I first took measurements, I did not have the battery tube in the circuit. Turns out, this stainless steel tube has quite a bit off resistance. From the best that I can measure, I am getting more than a .2volt drop across the battery tube. Measuring the circuit with the light assembled gives an amp draw of “just” 18amps. This is still right up there with the best, but I believe some of the D2 builds have surpassed this number. It also draws over 11amps from an Aspire 18350. _

The leds are also 5700k and 4000k and not as I had listed here. Sorry friends!_

What did you do to the driver?

The driver was a gift from dr jones. It is the successor of H17F called the H17F+ built specifically for high power flashlights like triples and quads. I believe It’s the only one he released. It has a very low resistance fet(maybe the best we’ve seen?). I think this is what you were asking? Else, in this light I fully potted the driver with a home brew potting material.

I just find Lexel’s Skilhunt H03 shorty mod 2 hours ago in a headlamp topic. And I really liked the idea and I have an Astrolux S41 what I use with the long tube so I got a spare short.
I made this complete cuteness of the H03 and the S41 short tube. It is 65,05mm short and 65g with Aspire 18350 battery. Searched for it and found that I need to move the O-rings toward threads on the short tube and need to make the diameter at the O-ring grooves smaller to fit.


From left to right: Manker U11, Astrolux S41 18650, Flat top unprotected 18650 battery, Skilhunt H03 Shorty, Skilhunt DS10 16340, Convoy S2, Skilhunt H03 original 18650 tube

Did a similar mod to the H03 using an S42 short tube, but i need to do something about the exposed orings.

I used Lexel’s solution for this and it works nice. I gone down to 20,05mm at the grooves next to the threads and that is enough to fit the O-rings.

I also tested o-rings from Convoy UV lights that fit perfectly without reducing the diameter