What did you mod today?

Human error is real, but its something that happens to other people. :person_facepalming:

Today, I modded nothing… I’m waiting for parts…

:smiley:

You don’t even need to point it at yourself to be blinded. Even a slightly reflective object is enough to burn your retina faster than your blink reflex. Laser protection goggles also only block from the front, it is still possible for the laser to enter your eye from the side.

I’m glad you mention this because all this gun comparison doesn’t really do it justice. A laser is constantly firing and reflecting off crap as you move it, unlike a gun.

A laser may merely burn skin or clothing, while a ricocheting bullet rips people a new arsehole! The laser’s only real claim to danger is a direct retina hit, which is of course a real danger but not so easily accomplished whether by intent or by accident. I have had the tail switch accidentally on when loading cells into my blue laser, the laser fired within an inch of my hand and burned a tiny blister that stung for hours. Had that been a gun… well, obviously I’d have a hole through my hand AND the very real possibility that an innocent bystander could have been hit by the bullet after it left my hand. The laser goes through people to hit people behind them? Like, NOT! Depending on the firearm and the situation, many people and/or property are at risk for quite a distance from that one accidental discharge. Case in point, pray you never accidentally fire a .454 Casull, a 300 grain bullet that travels 2000 feet per second!

Safety goggles that wrap around protect the eye from all directions, depends on what you purchase I guess and if you even wear them at all. I normally don’t wear them as they render the amazing beam invisible which makes it all a moot point. I HAVE been wearing quality goggles while frying the yellow jacket wasps right outside my window as I’ve been getting them through the glass. :wink:

I don’t kill wasps with the laser for fun or meanness, I am highly allergic to them and to leave them in place could get me dead instead of them. So I eradicate the ones that build nests too close to where I make ingress. I leave many thousands of them alone in spite of the danger to me when I mow.

X3, don’t ya just hate the waiting game? As many parts as I have here I too am waiting on a couple of specific items in order to complete the next build. Can’t really even get started without this one piece that locates everything else, a new LED reflector to put in a Maglite Classic.

Come on, were you in my home the last weeks or what ?
I was waiting for an aluminum SST50 reflector from FT, because it’s what place the LED board, hence the aluminum pill that I have to lathe… and everything else.

Powerful lasers do not need a direct hit to damage your eyes. Diffuse reflection is enough.

With a gun everybody knows that it’s very serious and not a toy. With lasers this is different. Most people don’t realize the danger.

A blue or red laser is much more powerful than your eyes make you think. This is because the human eye is not very sensitive to these colors (wavelengths). The difference between 555nm green and some shade of blue can be up to 20x for the same wattage.

It looks like you have parts, many many many parts.

I haven’t modded anything lately because I’m making tools. Solder paste stencils, to be specific.

I dragged out our little used vinyl cutter (Silhouette Cameo 2), found some useful open source software called gerber2graphtec and did some test cuts for Lexel’s variant of TA’s 17mm driver on some heavy, scrap vellum. When that looked good, I ordered some 4mil mylar sheets. The sheets arrived yesterday and I cut stencils for 3 different sizes of the driver. I’ll give them a trial run tonight.

I’m also planning to use it to make a stencil to apply solder mask to copper discs to aid in the precise positioning of 10mm sinkpads in order to create custom triples and quads.

Hey, just talk to that lady in California who almost got killed by those thousands of African-American bees that swarmed her. Bet she wishes she’d bought propane-tanks filled with Raid to exterminate them all.

And I know someone who got swarmed by YJs while pulling up weeds; they built nests in the ground.

Well, this should have been an easy mod, but it turned out it wasn’t

With special thanx to BLF member Djozz who did reflow the noctigon twice.

First, i had some issues ordering a spacer, which took more then a month. Luckily BLF member Kiriba was very helpful with ordering and shipping.

Djozz offered me the mcpcb and XPL2 leds for a more then fair price and was even willing to reflow them for me.

After assembly i wanted to clean the LEDs and ended up with a dome on my cleaning cloth…

Luckily Djozz was willing to reflow them again, so i had to order a new Led.

After sending it back to Djozz again he even did fix the BLF X6 driver for me so it can be used with the triple X6.

Today i had finally some time to assemble it again and luckily it worked out great this time.

Thanks again Djozz !

Your tweezers look pretty sturdy compared to the crappy ones I use. If they are good quality where did you get them?

They’re rejected medical tweezers (used for animal surgery)

Its good reading about stories where one BLF member helps out another. Nice mod Yokiamy. :beer:

Nice Yoikiamy! That is my favorite build of all time! :smiley:
I have two Eagle Eye X6 hosts en-route and I have the new Samsung LH351D emitters just waiting for the hosts to get here.

Kudo’s to Jos on the help, good work the both of y’as. :wink:

Had to do some light machining on a KD reflector to fit a 2D Maglite this afternoon. With the thermometer stuck on 110º at the lathe I made every effort to keep it short lived, fitted the KD reflector to allow the bezel to screw all the way down on the head, flipped it and opened up the emitter hole for the pillar style emitter mount of the heat sink that is in the top end of the big tube. So, next I’ll have to chop the tube as I now have a spacer in it, may as well have it shorter so it fits the hand better.

A guy can lose weight working on the lathe in these conditions! :stuck_out_tongue:

Well done Yokiami! And isn’t it absurtly bright for the size ?! :smiley:

“For it’s size…”

It’s also fun to put a short tube on it with a quality 18350 cell, :smiley:

Edit: A comparison, on the left the Kronos BLF Special Edition with a de-glassed SBT-70, on the right a baked Eagle Eye X6 with SST-40 and Lee filter to correct the color to white, in the middle a shorty with trit vials in the optic legs and 4 additional trits in the head itself, only the end of the trit showing. The shorty is a triple with a polished face CUTE-3 optic.

1 Thank

Also have a new mfr. X6 on the way for a look, it is factory made as a triple. :wink:

Seems weird, seeing a factory triple X6 coming out after all this time… I started the triples what seems like forever ago and still have that first one, built on the sample that got tossed out the window of our Ford Escape. :slight_smile:

Don’t even know how many I’ve built, I have 12 now with 2 on the way (again) and the new mfr triple will make 15. I’ve tried to build em all different somehow, from XHP-70 to SBT-70, triple XP-L HI to triple Nichia, always tried to keep them each as different as possible. Getting more difficult to do. lol

My cousin flies his Cessna with one I gave him, even the UPS delivery guy has one I built! My favorite light, so versatile and extremely tough but inexpensive for all that.

The first Eagle Eye X6 triple, November 2, 2014. Showing road damage from the toughness testing before it got built as a triple.

The first one I didn’t drill out the center pad in the 32mm Noctigon, found it difficult to keep the wires intact when tightening the bezel. Made the change and have built dozens and dozens since then! Nitro had sinks made, Kiraba Ru has had I don’t know how many made, they’re out there en masse now, a fantastic little light that really gets the job done. :smiley: