Match, very nice job and tutorial! I did a mod with a small copper pedestal for an SST-90. The raised pedestal was rectangular to fit the center of the emitter base and I wired to the underside for +/- . I Soldered the emitter to the copper and AA'd that assembly to an aluminum heatsink, but the AA kept from letting enough heat transfer go into the Aluminum, for an SST-90. I never pursued it any further and I never did any photos, since I wasn't satisfied with the result. Copper heatsinks really transfer heat fast, but of course, sooner or later it all gets too hot. How about doing an active cooling flashlight or spotlight Match? With your talent...........
Oh, Match? Be careful - If you turn that beam on the sun itself, it will probably end up causing another solar flare!
I like the way you did this one. Thanks for taking the time to post this thread, for people to learn from.
O-L, last year I also tried just using epoxy for a bare emitter, with similar results as you. As for a spotlight, I think this is as close as I'll come for awhile. I have a few of those plastic handheld halogen spotlights that I bought years ago, but haven't bothered to try and mod one yet. I think the bulkiness of them turns me off, not sure...
Thank you for the compliments. As stated in the opener, I couldn't find anything on the net for an emitter directly to copper. I've seen the digi-key video, and also the nice one done by you as well, but those were pcb to pcb.
The main difference is items such as what to do about the bottom electrical contacts, where to wire up the new contacts, and (as I found out) what a bugger it can be to actually solder to the emitter due to the direct copper mounting being so dang effictive of a heatsink.
Yup, the single beamshot was done competing against good old South Carolina sunshine. As soon as I get a free minute, I do plan on doing actual nighttime beamshots and will update this thread when completed.
As for the reflector, that's the stock rebel from Maglite. The extra space around the emitter is due to the copper pedistal only being 7mm in diameter. Most Mag mods usually have a 12.8mm star that would fill up the remaining space. I spent quite a bit of time ensuring that the emitter was centered and seated at the correct depth, which also helped in getting the lux readings that I did.
As for wanting one? Stay tuned....I'm actually now considering making/selling some of my mods :)
It's weird, but I like owning lights worked on by by BLF members. I guess that's why I jumped on OL's 3D. Besides being killer good looking, it's Justin's light so I like it. Same with my C88 and F15; the fact that they're among the brightest lights I have is awesome but Erik made them that way so, they're different. Probably what some people like about Haikus and Spys. Foy can't afford that so . . .
I wonder how many XP-G/XM-L Match Mod Minis you could sell? Before I fried my SST-50, I put it in my MMMM with 2 x 14500. Come to think about it; that's how I did fry it. Anyway, during the 30 seconds it lived, it was about the brightest damn MiniMag you've ever seen.
Yes, very nice!
I noticed that you bought some aspheric lenses. If you mount a XR-E on a copper heatsink with the little pedestal as in the picture above and then put that under an aspheric in addition to being able to drive it hard the beam should be improved since there is nothing else on the same plane as the emitter (due to the pedestal).
Everything else would be out of focus other than the emitter.
I’m curious as to what project you have in mind for the aspherics
Did something like this with an MC-E on a brass pill a few years ago...
What you can't see in the pic is that the legs are bent up, then there's kapton tape beneath them. Had to use flux to get a good solder joint on them, then thermal epoxied the wires in place and to aid in heat transfer.