Texas_Ace MT09R Modding thread, 20k+ lumens, 80CRI, can start fires? Yes please.

So let me get this straight…
$120 I get the light and upgraded driver that would hit 22k lumen but I’ll have to mod it myself?
Or do I pay the light and whatever choice you listed in the bottom?

If you prefer to answer in pm I can send you a pm too

The purchase from Terry is separate from me. You simply tell him you want him to ship it to me if that is what you want. I think he also has some stock drivers he can install if you want that as well and I have a whole bunch of them here if you want one lol.

Far as my price for modding, The driver is $20, the labor for a driver only install is $15 which includes the base $5 fee for work on any light to handle all the time, packing, shipping, order details, messages ect. Then shipping to you naturally. This is $10-12 for most of the US.

You can also install the driver yourself if you want and just have me ship the driver to you, in which case it is $22.90 for the driver shipped to you.

So light is $120
modding it from you is $20
labor $15
Shipping about $10 (for US)
I’m looking at about $165~170 for 22k lumens correct?
Thanks for your fast reply!

Okay, that makes more sense.

I probably run my L6 on about the 130 step as well. Just a little below max.

Not to tell anyone how to spend their hard earned money…but being skeptical and thrifty person…I had a hard time putting another $100 into this light. After learning about Texas Ace, his abilities, his knowledge, his hardware and seeing the results of my $100 mod (on top of the $125 I already paid), I cannot recommend his services enough. What ever extra money you send his way will be a bargain for what you get back in skill and hardware. Not to mention the frustration you can eliminate by having a professional mod and test your light.

I have limited skills, and hate goofing stuff up…so paying for the services WAS the bargain versus me fumbling around, staring at stuff and hoping I didn’t ruin something.

No brainer for me.

That is just for a driver install with the stock LED’s. The stock LED’s have been doing around ~16-19k lumens.

For the full 20k+ Lumens the LED’s need to be replaced with better ones and the springs also need to be bypassed.

The LED selection is in the OP. The P2 or 80cri 4000l LED’s should put you in the 21-23k lumen range. One of the biggest reasons to do this mod is to be able to pick exactly what LED tint you want in your light instead of some random bargain bin LED’s.

The complete “package” deal for a 20k+ lumen light needs everything (except the dedome, that is optional)

Driver - $20
LED’s - $35
Labor for reflow, driver install and testing - $25
Spring bypasses - $10
Shipping - $12

Total for my modding - $102 without the dedome

The MT09R purchase is separate from that.

Exactly, that is the same thing I used to do, ramp up to max and then step down till I could just tell it was getting dimmer, this usually ended up around 50% power.

By limiting the ramp to 50% it saves me a lot of time having to ramp up and then back down. I just find I never use modes between 50% and max the vast majority of the time.

The reduced stress on the cells, driver, LED’s and heat output sealed the deal on the production version getting the 50% ramp.

I think it is. It's accuracy is as good or better than meters costing way more money. I've got 4 different meters and out of all of them it is easy the most accurate and it costs one quarter of the price of one of my meters.

Yep... I get all sorts of information from him...

Even if it is just the driver the difference is huge..

Like I've told many that email me. My personal light I've only swapped the driver and with stock NW emitters and the difference is a major difference.

Would using TA driver on the stock NW LEDs on the MT09R melt the springs in the long run?

The TA driver for the 70.2 must have a main driver spring bypass the spring just can't take the amperage. The other springs in the battery tube will be fine.. My personal MT09R 70.2 has stock NW emitters and the output is just a touch over 20k lumen. I got a video floating somewhere around here showing that after installing TA's new driver my light will easily set my news paper on fire in about 15 seconds lol. So it is a ton of power. But the stock NW emitter are not too bad at all and, you can always upgrade those anytime you may want to.

The stock neutral white emitter are a much better quality than the cool white. Dale and I were talking last week and right now the NW 70.2 emitters are his most expensive emitters. They are still not top of the line and there are much better bin and quality 70.2 emitters. You would think the cool white emitters would out perform the neutral white both being stock but no so. Even using the old stock driver the NW emitters were in most cases 1000 lumen brighter than the CW.

Just a side note I have actually bypassed every spring and by passing the springs in the battery tube did not cause any noticeable difference.

Just FYI everyone... Only the newly designed TA driver for the MT09R series of lights has been approved for use in these lights. Haikelite has contracted Texas Ace to design and build the driver for the MT09R series and is still under contract by the company.

Haikelite has agree to allow emitter changes completed by Texas Ace as he is still under contract by the company so as long as you request emitter changes that are of the same type (Example 70.2 emitter for the 70.2 version and a 35 High emitter for the 35 High version manufactured by Cree of course) then your warranty will still be honored by the company.

Naturally of course once anyone purchases something it belongs to them and they may do with it as they choose however, as the North American representative for Haikelite I must advise you that any modifications other than stated above or any driver changes that are not the driver that has been approved by Haikelite will void your warranty. The only driver approved by Haikelite is the Texas Ace driver for both the 70.2 and 35 High version.

Thank you all.

No... The driver main spring has to be bypassed unless it is decided to go to a dual spring.

The springs in the battery tube are not under nearly the current that the driver spring .

I would be interested in the sphere at that price

Thanks for the explanation on the 50% ramp, a friend of mine here had PM’d me about the lights he just got built by TA and he was raving big time and as he said in his most recent post he’s frugal so if he’s beyond thrilled like that then I’m now thrilled as well, so lets get with the shipping MR. T, ha ha, actually I’m still thinking on this build so haven’t payed up yet for the modding so no rush for me.
He also explained that 50% ramp to me in dumb mode, he said it’s like a muggle mode, OH, now I got it… ha ha, actually I did understand all the explanations.
I have two BLF GT’s and I can see where a 50% ramp would not be a bad idea.
So another dumb question, if this is Narsil version 1.2 or whatever it is now that would mean their is also the ability to switch from ramping to mode stepping, I’m really not sure the technical name for the other UI but I do like to switch from ramping to regular type step modes, it’s so easy to change from one UI to the other I really do love this UI.
Edit: If you set the ramping to 50% does that affect mode stepping, please don’t say that has been disabled or other, I’m seeing switching to mode step and only having low, med, med 2 or something.
Also what is the diam. of the mcpcb for this MT09, same as the MT07S…? And what mcpcb are you using for the GT XHP70.2 mod, SD75, Maxtoch…? 32mm.?

That price sounds very reasonable for a calibrated sphere from the great TA himself. I would be definitely buy it.

I think he is wondering that if TA sets the the max ramp to 50% vs 100% if that would affect the mode set maximums in any way…I assume not…

Let’s wait for TA to answer.

Do you guys think i should swap my blf gt xhp 35 emitter Let me know your guys opinion. Thanks

Good to know, watch for an interest thread, tomorrow most likely. I think I will do a “group buy” on them, the results seem to be repeatable

I am guessing I will make 10-20 of them.