What did you mod today?

Huh? Whoā€™s ā€œtheyā€?

the illumenati

The lawyers (meadowstar) that own the patent, here: https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/36205, and here: https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/72807

Meadowstar: http://www.meadowstar.com/, over 200 patents, mostly bought (cough, cough).

Here, originally Waiven but bought out by Meadowstar: http://wavien.com/patents/, think the top one listed, here: http://www.patentgenius.com/patent/7976204.html

All the crap, and why we can't get simple technology, like an upside reflector, that will double the candela. Reminds me of the cursor patent - yes, the cursor on all our screens was patented, and legally, everyone who implemented one had to pay a royalty fee... What would you expect to pay for a small upside down reflector from China? $3? $5? Hhmmm...

Oh, patent trolls?

Someone should declare open-season on alla them. All those parasites do is hinder progress, the exact opposite of what patents are supposed to reward.

Replace rubber boot on Surefire G2 into blue one and add GITD tape inside several flashlightā€™s heads.

Sorry for crappy cellphone pic.

I did my first ever reflow today :smiley:

Since my FF PL47 didnā€™t live up to the expectations, it was scrapped.
But I had to give those lovely 219B emitters a new home. So I finally pulled the trigger on the Titanium version of the Emisar D4.
Then I gathered all my courage and gave my first ever reflow a go.
Here is my setup

Old teflon frying pan, IR thermometer for hitting the right temperature on the stove.
And then it happened, the emitters came loose, and i swapped them over to the empty 4XP V2 MCPCB. Added way too much paste, but it spilled out when giving them a little squeeze.
That was easier than i imagined

Did a quick test with my DMM, GREAT SUCCESS! All four emitters lit up.
Then the usual procedure of D4 driver disassembly, flashing Anduril to the driver.

Swapped in the new MCPCB

Not my finest solder job, but I was eager to power it up.

Was excited to see if my reflow would hold on full power. And it freggin did, yay!

Quick beamshot: XP-G2 S4-5D 4000K / 219B 4500K / 219C 5000K

XP-G2 is a little less yellow IRL, but the nichias a pretty spot on. Look at that rosy goodness.

So I have pretty much built my grail-light. The nicest emitters, and awesome firmware; Freggin awesome

Well done i42dk! Reflowing is indeed much easier than you would think. Hopefully this motivates more people to do their first reflow.

Great job! My first ever reflow was also with the help of a skillet/stove. Then graduated to electric stove (without skillet) and eventually hot air rework station.

Once you get the hang of it, it can be really fun.

My recent MOD: changing a malfunctioning driver of a friend's caving light with a new driver, eventually I also hat to change one LED (and considering changing the other LED and optics :) )

I cannot see pics YuvalS

i42dk - I think itā€™s unusual for someone who can easily flash drivers is just reflowing leds for the first time. Not saying itā€™s good, bad or otherwise. I just have the mindset of coming from the other direction, Iā€™ve reflowed leds but never flashed a driver :student:



And now?

I can see them now, awesome!

This may but be a huge thing to many, but I finally got around to setting up an Anduril build environment yesterday. An Ubuntu VM running on Windows. I downloaded TKā€™s repository, and started figuring out how to use it. I couldnā€™t find any guides, so I just winged it, downloading dependencies as they came up.

After some time, I got a basic standard Q8 hex to build! I was ecstatic! I started fiddling with the settings, and managed to add/remove features with ease. Even figured out how to change the rythm of the new fancy button blink with a hint from TK herself. I was super stoked. I had put a few hours in tinkering around, and decided to take a break.

Then later, I knew what I wanted to do. After modding me and my buddies H03s with a Lexel TA driver last year, we wanted Anduril, but a 3 channel + aux LED version hadnā€™t been built yet. Zeroflow was kind enough to build me one, and gave me the documentation and modded build files of I ever wanted to try it myself.

I wanted to try it myself, to get the new fancy button blinking on my H03.

I spent about 2 hours trying to make it work. A few things have changed in the Anduril code since then, so while I could see what Zeroflow did in the old code, matching it in the new code was difficult for me. And many edits to several build files, and fruitlessly searching the forum for information on where the heck ā€œ#define USE_STEPPED_RAMPINGā€ went, I decided to try building it anyway and just leave it in. Last year, we couldnā€™t leave it in because there wasnā€™t enough room with the extra channel added. But with the new code, it worked! It built, and it flashed, and here it is working:

So that is my latest modding story. I know Iā€™ve got a long way to go, and more to learn about how all this Anduril code works, but Iā€™m making progress! And Iā€™m extremely happy!

Thanks to everyone here for all your hard work! None of this would be possible without all of you. I really appreciate you all.

Just fyi, I've built Anduril successfully in Atmel Studio on Windows - you don't need a Ubuntu VM on Windows to build it. It's a much more comfortable environment for me, but of course I work in VS 2017 every day, and Atmel Studio is based on an older version of Visual Studio.

Cool, would like to see the finished light as I do have a friend thatā€™s a avid caverā€¦

Thanks!
I did try atmel studio last year during the first go around. But I couldnā€™t even get standard unedited files to work. They would build, but had strange problems, and if they even flashed they didnā€™t actually run.

Iā€™m fairly comfortable in a Linux environment, used to use it more often than I have in the last few years. But Iā€™m more comfortable in a command line than I am in a powershell. I think TK actually recommends a Linux environment, and it works pretty well.

Yea, TK doesn't do WIndows

Haha, thanks man :smiley: :beer:

Sure I did a lot of research; how hot it should be, tools to use etc. And the new MCPCB surface text changed color due to too much heat.
But hey, gotta start somewhere. Lessons learned :student:
And now I have ordered a little 200W hot plate for future endeavors :+1:

So I got some Black Flatā€¦ and a new Olight M22
So naturally, I measured the stock M22 : 2,9A and the advertised 23kCd from the XM-L2.
I swapped it for a BlackFlat, now it makes a nice 76kCd :slight_smile:

While I was at it, I also put one in my GT Miniā€¦
4,5A and 220kCd, not as good as my D1S (260kCd) but the reflector is known to be far from perfect so Iā€™m quite pleased with that result !

I just love the Emisar D4!!! :heart_eyes: :heart_eyes: :heart_eyes:

Hereā€™s a white one I modded with:

  • metal switch boot
  • Lexel aux bezel leds (pink and ice blue)
  • Firmware: TKā€™s Anduril as modified by Pobel, with aux LED support.
  • Emitter Swap: two XPL HI 5D combined with two XPL HI 3D. Very bright and high output, without looking greenish like SST-20.

Main thing different between this and my last D4 mod was that I used 0.5mm Silicone sheet as the backing for the metal button boot. In my 2 prior builds I used 1mm thick Silicone sheet.

0.5mm thick Silicone sheet is thick enough for this purpose and allows the entire button boot to be thinner. With the new backing, the metal button is recessed below the level of the stock switch retaining ring, which further reduces the risk of accidental activation and makes it easy to find the button in the pocket.

The switch is not lit in this mod. Would be nice to do, but doing so is complex and would almost certainly result in the switch button being higher.