Nope not a machinist and don’t have a background in the industry. I don’t even work in a technical field. Pretty much everything I know about lights I learned from BLF or CPF.
What makes last night’s metal switch mod so easy is at heart it’s really just a homemade replacement switchboot. The new boot is composed of a circle of rubber sheet the same diameter as the stock boot. An aluminum circle is glued on top of the new boot to make the metal button.
SX5 was a solid performer and seem to be built really well. I also like that it can run on multiple types of battery. But I haven’t used it for a while because of the emitter and not so nice beam. My modded H03 became my headlamp of choice. I was planning on leaving the driver as is and just replace the emitter and reflector. But the bright flash before going to moonlight mode really annoyed me so decided to replace the driver too. Now with the mod its my favorite work headlamp. I forgot how comfy and balanced it sits on the head with the separate battery pack.
I swapped the LED's to XM-L2 3D's for now, might be tuff to swap to decent MCPCB's, but cant get access to the driver yet - probably glued. This is a really decent cheap headlamp. The UI is not bad at all for my use, and it's light weight though the headstrap is a pain because it keeps loosening up, but better headstraps should work with it.
Those seem popular here and decent build quality especially considering the price. Nicron headlamps also seem to be nice candidates for headlamp host. I have their more expensive H30 which I modded. Its well built and stock output is good but UI is horrible (cycle to off). Modded mine to fet+1 and LH351D and it’s a nice throwy heeadlamp (21Kcd at turbo). Could increase throw with xpl-hi or sst-20s or White flat. I broke the driver though because of too much tinkering so now its sitting on my work bench.
I just made the new face plate to hold the Carclo optics, I believe 10048? Have to check my DigiKey receipts. The beamshot was hardwired into a 5200mAh 3s LiPo running the two XHP35s in parallel so a little over-driven, but I probably could run all 4 with it. Because the optic holder and MCPCB stick out past the original lens height I had to make a face plate with an integrated bezel for each TIR. I decided since I had only 1/2” stuff to make the bezel taller to add to the “projector” effect.
Haven’t decided on a driver yet, since I want to make sure I get one compatible for automotive use. But I want to incorporate either modes or ramping of some sort.
Received my black S2+ host and immediately proceeded to give it a bit of heat treatment before transplanting my Luxeon V triple into it. Makes the little hot rod look a bit more gnarly and hot rod-like!