What did you mod today?

Good to know, thanks for the tip!

Mike, I got the SST40’s from Kaidomain. The beam profile is much the same as an XM-L2 would be.

This one wound up doing 2277 lumens with a Sony VTC5A, using every trick I know. Pulling 9.49A at the tail.

Thanks. It’s an interesting LED. How is the size compared to XM-L2? I have TIR optics that fit XM-L2 perfectly, would these fit without modding the optics?

Same, difficult to see a difference

I have a Nitecore Night Officer that had a tested 900 lumens with the XM-L2, swapped in an SST-40 and got 1400 with no other changes.

Nice real patina on that light!

Share a pic of it glowing in a puddle of muck! :smiley:

Ordered a few for trial. Thanks for the inspiration and info!

I’ll take a photo of it next time it gets down and dirty :slight_smile:

Though I'd post this here:

Amutorch/Galuxia JM70 XPL HI - from BG, paid: $39: banggood.com/AMUTORCH-JM70-XPL-HI-1200Lumens

Driver diam is 28 mm. No glue accept a dab under the driver - probably to get the switch aligned to the button, but driver still came out easy. Has a thin brass retaining ring on the driver. Very moddable.

The driver does not act like a buck or boost. Output decreases as the cell drops. My first test was with an LK cell at about 4.05V or so, and got 870 lumens, 188 kcd (2.55A tail). On a full LK cell @4.21V, got 950 lumens, 205 kcd (2.84A tail)

Then made a few mods:

  • 20 AWG bypass wires on both springs
  • 20 AWG LED wires (stock were ~26 AWG)
  • bypassed sense resistor with a jumper
  • sanded down centering piece a little
  • swapped stock XPL HI with a XPL HI V3 2B from MtnE, sanded MCPCB smooth, MX-4 thermal grease

Stock:

  • stock MCPCB is a good one: 32 mm DTP MaxToch, screwed down by 2 screws - excellent
  • Reflector I.D. is 61.5 mm - outstanding
  • Weight: 305g - fairly light for it's size
  • nice solid shelf
  • the blue bezel is not SS unfortunately, it's aluminum
  • the switch looks like a heavy duty one. There's 2 slots next to the rubber switch boot to unscrew the tail - the removable tail/switch housing is plastic though

This got:

  • 1240 lumens at 30 secs, 266 kcd (3.74A)

This is slightly better now than the specs posted. Really needs a FET driver though. Because the switch is driver mounted, I'd probably go with a piggyback driver mount.

Was working on the Clone M3 again. Final revision. It charges!

Specs: Ultimate EDC Light.
MtnE 15mm Fet+1 with D4 v.2 style rampingIOS,
XM-L2 T6 4C on 14mm SinkPad,
ME4056 charger circuit lowered to 550mA
relocated Red LED from ME4056 to the SW board
Green LED always lit except when charging
Hacked a magnetic charge port adapter and mounted where the micro USB used to be.

By far the most complicated mods I have done to a light. Definitely worth ALL the aggravation.

Wasn’t easy stuffing all that into a small light. Used the tiny ME4056 charge board.

Used a completely waterproof magnetic connector, no more Micro USB.

Green LED is lit all the time but green goes out and red turns on while charging. When Charge completes, no LEDs are lit.

Cool!! :+1:

Thanks Don!

Really cool. Do you have more details? I’ve googled the charger circuit, but what magnetic port charger adapter and so on? I’m interested in replicating this in one of my lights.

I used this cable
Detachable Magnetic Charging Cable Lightning Type-C Micro USB 3-in-1 Charger Cable with Indicator LED Light
Tore into the USB C connector and soldered wires to the back.

Very Nice :+1:

Thanks Stevi

Thanks!

Cool! I see Amazon has several magnetic adapted cables. I’ll have to have a look at them all later 2nite

Great mod vwpieces :star: :star: :star: :star: :star:

There aren’t many that use the round end. I suppose the flack given by dumb buyers saying my PC it doesn’t see my phone… It is Charge only.
I searched hard, ask CRX :smiley: PMs were flying for a couple days.
That one was the best deal for getting 3 connectors to hack up. Depending on the light I guess you could just insert the adapter and seal around it to get same result. I wanted a close fit so I tore into it, removing the connector from the back and soldering wires direct.

Welcome mike C.

Thanks PP!