What did you mod today?

Some revisions to one of my Sipik 58s.

Bezel and optic same style as I had previous in this light, but now redone for a cleaner look.


This is the stock lens retaining ring with the interior widened with a cylindrical grinding bit. The LED-Lenser style optic is from a $10 zoom light from OSH.

The previous bezel and optic I had in this late used the same setup, but looked much messier because I ground the inside edge of the bezel where it meets the optic back. And I’d messed up with the glue and some had run down the backside of the optic creating blindspots in the spot beam. This latest attempt looks much more professional.

Minor revisions to the interior of the tailcap.
I replaced the momentary pushbutton I had in there with a bigger one with a more noticeable click. I also replaced the post in the tailcap with a wire-bypassed spring:

Previously, I had a spring at the head of the light and a post made from 2 copper disks at the back. That setup worked, but I noticed the light dimming or flickering after a minute or two of use. the problem was a bad ground connection. Adding the second spring fixed that problem by more firmly pressing the guts of the light together.

NOTE: This particular Sipik 58 clone is very heavily modified. Modifications include:

  • All anodizing removed and bare aluminum polished up.
  • LED mounted on a laminated copper post on top of a copper Noctigon.
  • Stock 18mm aspheric lens replaced with LED-Lenser style zooming TIR optic.
  • Driver replaced with e-switch FET driver from Mountain Electronics (moppydrv firmware. If I were doing the driver today I’d go with a FET+1 driver with D4 firmware).
  • Interior of battery compartment widened to make room for a rolled up plastic sheet and brass sheet to serve as electrically isolated e-switch contact.
  • Tailcap guts rebuilt with copper structure and momentary pushbutton switch.
  • contact rings added at both ends of the battery compartment for e-switch.
  • tailcap switch boot replaced with light-green GITD boot.
  • LED replaced with XPL HI 5D

What’s going on here?
Is that a DR. Jones RGB driver on the test stand?
Yes, yes it is!

More to come, off to ITCC finals!!!

And here it is (my ITCC event got pushed till this afternoon)!

After a stupid routing mistake cost me my $10 driver boards, and not willing to try, and wait for, boards again I switched direction on my triple Rook.

Dr Jones RGB driver! It’s his standard 17mm board with modded rgbw FW (to be 3 channel, using RGB for white). Each channel is 2x 7135.
I really like how well the flood optic works with the RGB and runtime should be ~1h on turbo “white”, though it’s more of a toy instead of a useful light so I may stack another 2 chips per channel later and sacrifice that runtime.

Looking sharp Dale !
That’s one good looking Quad X6.

Is that the stock lens? It looks quite thick

I have the stock hosts’ clear o-ring on top of the optic and the AR glass lens on top of the o-ring. :wink:

I just got the fix applied to Bistro, no more stepping down to moon from Turbo or Strobe…. the fresh charged Sony VTC5A yields a start value of 5171.55 lumens, amazing! :slight_smile:

Edit: YOu can click on the picture to open it in a new window then click it again there for a larger look. The set-up then shows itself, optic/o-ring/lens. :wink:

In case anyone’s wondering why I drilled the outer two holes in the base of the copper heat sink when the center hole is used, it’s to give torsional strength to the glued joint. I align the ~4mm deep holes with the original wires holes in the emitter shelf of the head so the glue has “posts” to it, really limits the ability for the whole thing to slip and twist wires.

I love using the Arctic Alumina Thermal Adhesive as it sets up in minutes, it’s stuck in about 5 minutes and pretty much cured in 12. Another thing I like about it is that if an mcpcb just has to be removed you can heat up the board with the soldering iron and break the epoxy joint loose. Can’t do that with Arctic Silver or JB Weld, once in with those it’s just gonna stay there pretty much.

Looks like someone has a new favorite LED

I, uh, bought a tape of 25. :blush:

$2.04 each, shipped I think.

Which CRI and color did you pick? Same 5K 80CRI?

Ayup

Arrow stocks the 5000K 90CRI Samsung now and they do free overnight shipping.

If you are a new customer they have 30% off ending today. (may be able to create a new account and use the code, idk)

https://www.arrow.com/en/products/sphwhtl3da0gf4rts6/samsung-electronics

I wanted to keep the output power bin higher, the 5000K 90CRI drops power considerably. :wink:

6XP-anna mosX PCB Demo build1 - C8 6xLH351D 4000K 90CRI (still not 100% finished):

This is how spacer will look like,a little unconventional and more complicated, but it has several advantages - build is easier once spacer is fixed and can't move, spacer is compressed with high pressure, and all wires can be soldered on driver first which is usually much easier. Hole in C8 should be ~8-8.5mm.

Driver LD-B4 18Amp for this build:

Those FR4 0.6mm thermal insulating boards are working as expected, soldering thick wires on them is very easy.

Moon mode:

I used common 1288 Omten switch and 30Q cell,so I didn't test light under full potential yet, but it's damn bright for 90CRI and it's size. Brightest 90CRI C8? Hm maybe even brightest single cell 90CRI light?

Of course big die dome led and relatively small TIR size (but much bigger than carlco optics) makes this light flooder, but it still can burn paper:)

And relatively big ALU spacer definitely works well as thermal storage because light didn't get crazy hot very fast, but it also took more time to cool down. If you are going to use this kind of light in <1min pulses with >1min pause,it is beneficial.

Wow outstanding mech mod on that pill Neven! :beer:

Ay up? :laughing:

https://ayup-lights.com/

I read a lot of Western’s, the term Ayup was used a lot in the hill-billy or mountain man (typical of slang from the North East US back in the mid to late 1800’s) dialect to mean Yes.

When I said that, I was in dire straits, physically, and giving a short answer before shutting down my computer.

I think it could have ist origin in some german saying, perhaps a mixture of “ja” and the slang “jup”. https://www.mundmische.de/bedeutung/1508-jup

Today finally fixed AT40 :partying_face:

So you’re saying I can remove mpcb’s that I have laid out on an aluminum strip with enough heat? I have a bunch of Nichias on Noctigons that I would love to recover if possible.

With Arctic Alumina Thermal Adhesive I have found that to be true. I typically put the soldering iron on the edge of the copper MCPCB to heat it up, the adhesive will emit an odor when it gets hot, I usually use a flat blade jewelers screwdriver and twist it to apply lateral pressure or if one of the wire holes shows the bottom of the MCPCB I will put the screwdriver against the bottom of the board and give the screwdriver a sharp rap… I actually keep a 1” wood chisel on my bench to use as a hammer for this type of situation.

I have removed glued boards many times this way.

Using Arctic Silver, or JB Weld, not gonna happen. That stuff is resilient!