What did you mod today?

I have a 2D Purple Maglite here that Iā€™ve been tasked with chopping to make a 1D, the challenge is to do it the ChicagoX way. being as how Iā€™ve never done one at all itā€™s an interesting propositionā€¦

Lots of measuring :wink: .
Feels good when then stress is finally over for sure. :confounded:

I use to do a bunch of them 1D mag mods. I never tried one ChicagoX style though. Iā€™m guessing the switch gets moved to the tailcap.

Right, he cuts off the switch area and centers the knurling so thereā€™s an equal section of smooth showing for a pleasing aesthetic. (Cuts off the switch section, flips the tube around and re-cuts all threads and o-ring landings.) Then machines the tail cap for a boot and clicky switch. By doing it this way itā€™s considerably shorter than leaving the lengthy stock switch in place and actually carries higher current as well due to the stock switch assembly having so much resistance.

He later started cutting fins in the head and matching grooves through the knurling, Iā€™ll probably go that route as well to the degree Iā€™m capableā€¦ still relatively new to a lot of the machining practices as Iā€™ve only built 7 lights from scratch and some heat sinks here and there.

i couldnt mod anythink, babey was asleep.

!!

On a Vipon coupon for Amazon, I got a light branded TESLACOM, listed here on Amazon for $18.44, discussed here on BLF.

Finished up mods, keeping the stock driver and stock USB charging.

Prior to the mod the light did stock withe 4 well spread modes, on hi/max:

585 lumens (manufacturer lumens), 15 kcd -- way below spec'd as expected

After the mods I measured on 2 VTC6 cells at 4.19V:

1030 lumens at start, 986 at 30 secs (manufacturer lumens), 26.5 kcd -- much closer to specs now, in a much nicer tint

Here's the driver/pill components. Yea, it's pretty bad. The wires are long because they have to loop over the shelf and MCPCB, coming down to the MCPCB

Close-up of the driver. The MCU driving the main LED seems to be on the vertical board. The small 3 leg part appears to be a simple FET and resistors added to drop amps on the LED- connection. The MCU has the red and green aux leds connected, as well as the charging circuit:

The aux LED's are on the left and shine thru the semi-transparent switch boot. Each spring has it's own diode, probably for reverse polarity protection. The C4 cap is batt+ to grnd.

All the parts - including the tail assembly. It's a pain to start the threading:

The stock spring gets compressed from the PCB being screwed dowd - kind of strange. I replaced it with a brass button as shown:

Swapped the stiff stock springs with Blue BeCu small ones. The BeCu springs are also stiff, but I'd say slightly softer than the stock ones:

Changed out the stock XM-L2 CW on alum with an XM-L2 U3 3D I had laying around, and using 20 AWG instead of the stock 24 AWG. Also note I added epoxy to the top of the switch - notice a slight bulge out on the white switch below:

Decided to just jump out the resistors because there's still plenty enough of resistance in this light:

Shows the MCPCB wired up. Has to re-wire later though after this pic because the stiffer 20 AWG did not fit coming up - changed to coming sideways and down in order to route/fit properly.

I messed up and fried a trace for the switch by getting messy with the soldering of the spring. Didn't know it could happen, but created a short in the SW trace, then applying power probably fried the trace. Patched it with 30 AWG jumper and all is well now . White wire below is the jumper:

Not the best light for sure, but the 2 parallel cell lights always intrigued me. This one has an advantage over the old Small Sun T08 because of the e-switch, but the reflector size is much smaller with a 41.3 mm head diameter, and a 31.5 mm reflector I.D.

Terrific mod Tom. Love your work. :beer:

Thanks for posting it up.

Modded my D4 some more. This time I added a lighted switch! :sunglasses:

Whewwwwā€¦. what a pain! Actually burnt out something in one D4 driver during mid-assembly testing when I didnā€™t realize the positive and negative driver wires for the main LEDs were touching when the star was not installed. Oops! I think the FETā€™s gone. Fortunately, I had another driver, so rebuilt it and kept on going.

The first problem I encountered was removing the finishing washer I had previously attached to this light.

  • It was attached with Arctic Silver thermal epoxy and I found I couldnā€™t lever up the switch retaining ring and remove the boot with the washer still in place.
  • Trying to cut the arctic alumina or lever up the washer didnā€™t work. That glue is strong!
  • I ended up having to use a hammer and chisel to get it off. Fortunately, with that method the washer came off instantly.

I had some ideas about building my own mini-circuit board for the switch LEDs out of scrap on hand. A big complication is the D4ā€™s switch does not sit on a board. Instead it fits in a socket in the head. The switch leads come out the bottom of the switch. I needed a board small enough to fit in the light without raising above the head much.

  • First I tried some thin brass sheet with a layer of Kapton tape on top. I used tiny strips of copper tape applied by hand for traces and then soldered it all together. No luck. My switch LEDs poofedā€¦ didnā€™t have the right resistors. Also this felt very awkward. I was worried the kapton tape might break and cause a short.
  • Second attempt used a piece of 0.020ā€ polystyrene sheet for the base with copper sheet on top. Unfortunately polystyrene has a low melting point and my board melted during soldering. No go.
  • Third attempt was back to the brass sheet, this time using a conductive carbon ink pen for traces. It worked during initial testing. I then coated the works with superglue to lock everything together only to discover it no longer worked for some reason. I think the LEDs poofed again since I saw a tiny bit of smoke.
  • Fourth attempt I decided to go for tried and true. I started with a basic lighted clicky switch module from I think Aliexpress. I desoldered and removed the switch and spring. Then I filed down the edges enough to verify that it could fit into the D4ā€™s switch receptacle. Finally I drilled a whole in the center of the board, then filed it to size with a handfile. I also filed down the back of the board to make it thinner.

Here is what I started with:

And what it looked like after I worked it to shape:

The next step was to wire up the driver for the switch.

  • This was fairly tricky since the open space around the D4ā€™s driver is tiny and there are now 8 separate wires inside: 2 for the main LED, 2 for the switch, 2 for Lexelā€™s bezel LEDs, and now 2 for the switch LEDs. It was in doing this wiring I accidentally burned out the FET on my driver. When I redid the wiring on my second driver I covered all exposed joints with arctic alumina epoxy for extra support and to protect against shorts.
  • I also needed a way to get the LED switch wires to the LEDs. There wasnā€™t any space around the switch, so I used a dremel to widen the sides around the switch socket, creating an opening. I coated the dremeled area with arctic alumina for extra ground protection.
  • With the sides of the switch socket dremeled off I found the switch no longer fit securely in its socket. I used a little fiberfix superglue to hold it in place.

Here is what it looks like with the new lighted switch LEDs installed:

I needed a new switch boot to cover the LED. I used 1mm thick translucent high temp silicone sheet from Amazon. Thanks CRX for the tip on using Silicone sheet for this! :+1:

  • First I cut a circle of silicone sheet the same size as the switch socket.
  • Then I cut a very small circle to glue onto the center of the big circle to serve as the piston. I used plastic super glue activator followed by firberfix super glue. I love fiberfix because it cures instantly when you apply the little blue LED light built into the dispenser.
  • With the board for the switch LEDs installed it was no longer possible to use the switch boot retaining ring. Instead, I used more plastic activator and fiberfix to superglue the big circle onto the light. I carefully went around all the edges to make I didnā€™t miss any cracks and the glue formed a water-tight seal.
    Here is what it looks like with the silicone sheet on. I apologize for the blurry phone camera picture:

I then stuck the washer back onto the light around the switch with Arctic Silver Thermal Epoxy. Here is what it looks like with the washer in place (light is wrapped in tape to prevent epoxy getting on it):

Finally, to cover up the still visible switch and give it a classy feel I glued a circle of aluminum onto the center of the switch with fiberfix. Prior to gluing I used plastic activator on the silicone. I also filed the edges of the circle at an angle and roughened the underside of the circle to reduce the chance the circle might come off.

Hereā€™s the end result:

It took a lot of effort but Iā€™m quite pleased with how it came out. The switch looks and feels great and still has a distinct click. Due to the washer the switch is recessed reducing the chance of accidental activation (though not as much as the rubber boot did). The firmware is Pobelā€™s modified version of D4 Anduril with aux LED controls activated.

Amazing. Love what you and CRX do to your Emisars. :slight_smile:

Twins. Heā€™s the taller better looking one :smiley:

Firelight2/CRX, itā€™s always a pleasure seeing the lights you fellow put out.

For today all I have is a mod of the tint coming off of some lights.
(Actually I posted this as an OT on another thread that dealth with ā€œPainted Collarsā€ for purposes of harnessing forward light but figured this might be more appropriate as a Mod topic.)

I observed that a fair amount of tint-shift results from stray light from the sides of prone emitters. In my experiments, I placed ā€œMagenta Collarsā€ around the perimeter of emitters in an effort to filter out green, with some success.

Some of my earlier experiments that were successful, ultimately failed but did put me on my current track.

Here is an example of what I earlier called a ā€œMagenta Collarā€ attached around the cavity of a LED spacer -

It would be placed inside a light such as this -

Notice the tint affecting primarily the side off-angle light which appears at center bottme of the reflector -

And here are the results of original beam (on left) and beam after a Magenta Collar (on right)-

The same light, with the same emitter, taken at the same exposure and white balance, with the only difference being the Magenta Collar! The green is reduced without dramatically tinting the rest of the beam as a lens tint filter might.

I mentioned that my experiment with the Magenta Collar failed, that was primarily because the plastic melted from the high heat of the LED. I suppose a collar made of higher heat capable material could be done but Iā€™ll leave that for others to pursue.

My latest experiment (photo below), involved directly tinting the led itself rather than a separate collar. Here for example is an XP-G3 (notorious for green tint-shift) where I magenta tinted directly on the bottom perimeter edge of the led itself. It was equally as effective in reducing green tint-shift in the beam. This approach was also less construction dependent. (Sorry no before/after photos for comparison as removing the tint from the emitter dome is more involved than simply removing a physical Magenta Collar from a spacer.)

This magenta collar approach could be something for fellow tint-snob to consider to help with (but unfortunately not entirely eliminating) green tint-shift. It has the added benfit of less light loss than lens filters.

In any event, Iā€™m putting this out there for consideration. Perhaps someone can make Magenta Collars available commercially.

(3D printer anyone? Or BanL/BG interested?)

That is very clever and succesful pc_light! What did you use for colouring the led?

Magenta Ink from my HP printer cartridge. A very little goes a long way.

There a some really nice mods here as well as creative. Thanks for posting up. :beer:

Nice! All the LuxPro lights I got recently have that nasty and very prominent urine-yellow corona from the G3s, which LP seems to use exclusively. Even when I pulled off the head and left the bare chip (ie, used as mule, no reflector or anything) and held it near a wall, you can see the nasty-ass yellow haze around the periphery, and a decent white center.

Iā€™m wondering if inking the dome itself would do anything, and not catch fire in the process. Guess it depends on how heat-resistant is the ink and carrier, and how hard youā€™d push the LED.

This thread is just one big modding handbook. Nice job everyone and thanks for sharing. :+1:

Geez the entire dome, might be a stretch. Perhaps just try very light magenta at first and not for long. That way you can wipe it off before it gets somewhat caked on.

I canā€™t speak for other inks but the HP stuff is top shelf. Inkjet inks are actually sort of quasi-vaporized as part of being deposited onto papper/media so (Iā€™m hoping) heat isnā€™t a problem.

Nnnnnnoooonononono, nono. I mean just ink a band around the periphery of the dome, not the whole thing. Ie, similar to your ā€œcollarā€ but done directly on the dome itself vs a separate doodad.

Picture your collar as a piece of heatshrink tubing, and shrink it in-place so that it just wraps around the bottom of the dome nearest the mcpcb. Like that, only done in ink vs tubing.

Doing the whole dome would also color the spill and everything else. Talk about a ā€œrosyā€ tintā€¦

Oh, my mistake, I think Magenta Collarring could help. Thatā€™s exactly what I did with the XP-G3 (photo in earlier post).

It doesnā€™t show in the photo because itā€™s on the slightly more vertical part of the dome curve but the magenta reflection at the base of the reflector is from the tinted thin band/stipe maybe 1 mm directly around the base of the emitter dome. The theory of the case being a green filter of the stray horizonal light responsible for green-tint shift.

Do post any before & afters with your trials. The more experience with different emitter/reflector configurations, the better.

Obviously with a de-domed emitter, thereā€™s no dome to tint so no help there.

Actually, if itā€™s the thicker layer of phosphor around the sides thatā€™s yellowing the beam, de-greening it by painting ā€œthe sides of the boxā€ might in fact help tremendously.

I wonder if the printer ink will melt and run around inside your light if you run the light on turbo for awhile.