What did you mod today?

With everything askew, it is not a work piece I would dare to show Don, I hope he is not watching :person_facepalming:

Emitter swap in a TK35UE for a member here. Swapped in a 4500k 90CRI emitter (XHP70A-01-0000-0D0UJ445G).

Build quality is amazing as you could expect. The battery carrier is the driver and the battery charger all in one!

I finally picked up the pieces of an F13 triple I started over 2 years ago. I had amber/yellow/red in the tailcap from when I started, but I decided to go all amber. I’d like to throw some amber trit vials under the lens.

Purchased the spacer from kiriba-ru back in ’16 or ’17. Wait too long to build this stuff, something better always comes along. With the latest boost drivers, I’d much rather go with a single xhp50 or 70 now. I do love this spacer, though. Huge chunk of metal.

Took the C8ish 7 emitter ebay light to the next level with 7 SST-40’s. Out of the box on a Basen 26650 it measured 1368 lumens from XM-L T6 emitters. Now, with the 40’s and a Samsung 30T, it does a start value of 9694.5 lumens. :smiley:

The F13 makes a very neat triple, with it’s 26650 cell capacity it’s a nice solid build. :wink:

^ show off :wink:

(PS - nice touch with the 45 casing)

Lol…yeah, no kidding! DB is there a build thread on that F13 somewhere?

Its This flashlight, I think: What did you mod today? - #6763 by DB_Custom

Did you only do an emitter swap? Or does it have a better heatsink now.
Do you have a link to this Flashlight?

Several months ago i bought 3 Osram Flat black and now I decided to put in Convoy L2 with LD25 constant driver tuned to 5A

Driver hook up with XML2 for testing current purpose. Didn’t want to kill my Flatblack during testing.

Driver with 20mm brass ring adaptor

Beamshot at 8m with perfect focus. Thanks for the orginal centering ring and I didnt to do any focusing.

inside reflector

Took lux reading 8m and it gives 3850 lux. This equivalent to 246k candela.

I also did mod with convoy C8+ similar setting and it have slightly lower candela but not much. Considering the size for pocket I definitely think C8+ is perfect reflector size for this LED throw and it’s a winner :slight_smile:

Link to Convoy C8+ with Flat Black

Don’t know if it counts as a “mod”. But i made a 5-minute setup, to light up my wife’s Harry Potter LEGO castle.

Q8 was the only driver I had that was’nt in use. It’s extreme overkill, but gets the job done :smiley:

BLF Q8 driver + XP-G3 R4 8A3 2700K + 3 x 18650 LG S3 2000mAh cells + Anduril in candle mode


Link to a givf showing it in action: Imgur: The magic of the Internet

Nice Castle lighting! :slight_smile:

Wieselflinkpro, it’s the SupwildFire 7x shown in THIS post. I had to make an aluminum filler for the hollow head, changed the large MOSFET, bigger leads, spring bypasses, and of course the emitter swap. Will probably do individual copper DTP 16mm MCPCB’s as a final tweak. This has been another incremental mod light, recording each step along the way to see where the gains come in…

I made a flat white 1mm² in my convoy c8. The gaskets from int outdoor are for a 7mm reflector but i used it anyway. After turning the bezel a couple of times i got a pretty good beam. Uses a single mode nanjg driver with 3.04 amp. It gets pretty Hot after 60 seconds.

Top is the flat white and bottom a c8 with xpl hi and fet driver.

Damn, that’s a nice tight beam! :laughing:

I used a lightmeter app on my phone.
utorch ut02 xhp 35 got 120k candela
convoy c8 xpl hi fet got 69k candela
convoy c8 flat white got 169k candela. Its at around 3amp so a little heigh meisurment i guess.

Since this is my very first 'essential' post here, I'll shortly indtroduce myself...

I've been AF (Anonymous Flashoholic) since the middle 2017. At least this is the date I've started to read BLF and even worse - started to buy ... THEM !
Yes..., I know I should not, but... I buy THEM because they are cheap, sexy and ... available . Someone, please help me to stop this...

Looks like, I'm especially in love with Convoys S2+ (well... basically it means - whenever price drops below 9$ I buy them, sometimes I manage not to do so). For this price man can buy only 'basic' 6x7135 XML2 Grays... and it's ok for an addict like myself (guilty me, once a month you have to take your dope)
Of course, last year it happened to buy some other stuff as well (2 Convoy's C8s and 1 C8 from Sofirn when they droped below 15$, and 2 SP33's lately on Christmas for the less then 20$ each) but you know what they say - the first love is the biggest one and for forever...

OK, now to the point - this about my first mod.
Let's call it "Quick and dirty 2S (2x18650) mod to 2S+ "

The background...
----------------------
1) To many 'grey' S2+ on my shelf. To many to take everyone and each of them for a walk from time to time
2) Plenty of 18650's (many of them not so modern high drain models)
3) The curiosity - what the XHP family (or the other high output 6v Leds) can do inside my little beloved one ...

The obstacles...
--------------------
1) Mainly there is one.
Why the heck they don't produce and sell extension tubes in a most common size (18650) for a most common flashlight (S2+) on the planet ?
You can easilly find them for L4's, C8's and many others but not for S2's !!!

The decision...
-----------------
One of my sweethearts must die... to give the birth to something bigger...

The result...
------------------
Remove everything form inside the head of S2+ and cut it exactly in half (I did it with a dremel tool)

Now, you have a muff wich will hold and connect two original body tubes of S2+'s. The thread must be milled out 3-4mm deep from one side of new muff (one where was a cut made) for the best matching with the original tubes. Do a final polish to the sharp edge with some sand paper, and we are done with hard metal tooling...

About the LED...
I've choosen XHP50 (it has good output, it is efficient in low current, it has high Vf value which should ease a load on my 7135's and it was ridiculously cheep to get.

About the driver...
I've decided to keep the one what I have had form inside a donor light (costless solution).
I had no suitable electronical components for a 'Zaner mod' modification, so in my case the original Convoy's 6x7135 dirver board was used as a simple 'one mode' linear 2.1A current regulator.

To make it work:
1) Remove D1 from original driver board (the same element which you remove to place 200Ohm resistor in classic Zener Mod) - this will disconnect excessive (+8V) power voltage from the MCU (we may need it in the future...)
2) Connect VDD leg of any AMC7135 (one of them is enough because all AMC's are in parallel) to +Vin - this will open a full throttle of all 7135's (6x350mA)

For my current needs it suits good enough to have one "high" mode only. Latter (e.g.when I get a proper Zener diode) I may consider to restore MCU functions for this driver.
Since basic Zener mod destroys the proper low battery protection then you may try to restore it by modifing the board (cut of the trace with the original R1/R2 voltage divider and build a new one which would be powered by +Vin). An example was given - e.g.look for "The IMR Enhanced Zener Mod to run the MT-G2".

So how does it looks like ?

Pros:
1) Twice as much 'floody' lumens comparing to original design (for 2.1A XHP50 gets 1560 lumens vs 800 lumens for XML2). You can really see the difference in the dark.
2) Does not need expensive high drain accus (like when you power up XHP from a single 18650 cell) or some fancy low capacity and high price 2x18350. It comfortably sucks 2.1A from every low cost 18650 I have in my drawer.
3) It gives similar running time to original S2+ with more light
4) It is still very convenient in every day use. It's size is just 43mm (1.7inch) more then C8. Fits well your pocket since it is as thick as an orignal design. And feels good in your hand.
5) It was planned to be "zero" cost mod. And in fact it is (almost). I had to "sacrifice" one of my Grey's (cut off the head) but it was worth it. I bought XHP50 on a 17mm copper mcb some months ago for 2.5$ on AliExp (4.5$ including delivery! minus 2$ coupon)
6) And it's still "my precious..." S2++

Cons:
1) Of course, it is not so cute and handy as a original S2+ beauty, but still close to my liking.
2) Get's a bit more heat in 'high' mode.
This should not be a big issue since the original design has some redundancy and is pretty safe with 8x7135 and XML2 pill (power used by XML2: 2.8Ax3.4V=9.5W plus power lost on 7135 regulators 2.8Ax(4.3V-3.4V)=2.5W makes 12W loss in total) and mine has 6x7135 and XHP50 LED (power used by XHP50: 2.1Ax6.3V=13W plus power lost on 7135 regulators 2.1Ax(8.4V-6.3V)=4.4W makes 17.4W loss in total).
Not a big difference (5W more), but the body of moded S2 is now longer so the heat dissipation should be also a little bit better.


This post has been written by a beginner (myself) and for beginners, so all experts and advanced users please be gentle or just skip it...

Cheers to all BLF flashoholics...

That is a very clever mod btbw!, and welcome to BLF. Since I do not know electronics very well I can not judge what you did to the driver, but it works so you did the right thing :slight_smile: , am I correct that the voltage on the 7135 chips is outside the specs? (but who cares if it works?).

Great start on BLF :slight_smile:

That would go well with my convoy lantern :slight_smile:

Yes that’s correct. He could minimize the risk by adding a 1000ohm/900ohm voltage divider in the input pin to drop VIN to 4v (well within spec). They’d still be regulating out of spec but the input signal would be below their max. Should prolong their life a bit.

Nice s2+ mod. we need a xhp35 magic wand s2+ with custom harry potter scar on it;)

I thought the same. I wanna see a giant XHP35, just cause.