What did you mod today?

Another basic and slightly silly mod for me today.

I have been looking for hosts for rngwn’s high-CRI 5mm LEDs and recently I came across the first LED flashlight that I owned. It’s a fairly typical ‘shower head’ style light with 14 5mm LEDs powered by three AAA cells. It was given to my by my father but I can’t remember when - could it be 15 years old?

I replaced the original cold white 5mm LEDs with rngwn’s 3400K version, replaced the plastic lens with a glass on, and replaced the ‘driver’ spring which had fallen off.

Stupidly I didn’t take any photos of the light before the mod or even power on, but I’m sure it’s brighter now and it produces a beautiful warm flood of light. The comparison photo shows a similar (but much lower quality) generic shower head light. To be honest, this light is probably perfectly adequate for the majority of my flashlight use.

If anyone can recommend some decent quality (e.g. retaining rings rather than press fit) shower head lights for more emitter swaps I’d be interested to hear. There are a lot of UV flashlights on Aliexpress with 5mm LEDs, but you can’t tell much about the build quality from the photos.

Because I cant leave anything alone, had my Emisar D4V2 a whole day,
then decided to fire up my mini lathe that I have not used in 15 years.
Loving the light, its my new EDC, for now :wink:

Very Nice. Really sets off the blueish grey.

+1 noice

Two and a half years ago I bought the L2 host. Finally I put something in it. Sst40 with a cut and polished lens and TA fet+1 driver with bistroHD.

Don’t know what brand it is, maybe you can identify it on BG. It is of remarkable quality. 9x2300K, 3x5600K, formerly UV. Like it very much. Sorry for the dust.

This one: Page Not Found - Aliexpress.com (click on 12 UV LED)

Looks nice. I was intrigued until I saw 3xAAA :confounded:

Dont give up, use protected 18500 battery! :slight_smile:

This might kill the LEDs. There’s no current regulator.

Ehh, just shoe-horn a single 7135 in there to limit the current. Assuming they’re all in parallel, 350 mA / 12 = 29 mA per LED. Djozz says they’re good to 100 mA, so that shouldn’t be an issue. That’d give you 10 lumens each, total of 120 lumens.

Yes, already racked my brain about this.

I haven’t worked out the “schematic” to see if it’s doable, but one of these

https://www.fasttech.com/products/1611/10001840/1133803-universal-star-base-plates-with-350ma-amc7135-driv

might be able to be used as a contact board. Solder a small spring or nipple to the center pad (isolated or connected to something I have no idea), got the 2 electrically-connected pads on the side (for those “bead” type LEDs), and wire up something appropriately to use that to solder to the board with the 9 LEDs on it.

Of course, insulate appropriately with plastic sheet cut to fit, etc.

It’s possible to do a cut to isolate plus, then wiring the IC, then pot everything with epoxy.

This board is interesting, too :+1:

Thanks Unheard. I found that searching for ‘12 LEDs UV flashlight’ on AliExpress brought up many listings for that light (or one that looks just like it), including some in different colours (blue, silver, and red). I’ve already ordered a couple from different sellers to try out.

You have to watch out for the the cheaper 9 LED version that’s in many of the listings - it looks just like the red one in my photos which is absolute rubbish.

As contactcr mentioned, some 3 x AAA lights will fit an 18650. I’ve even used a 21700 in one. However, I’m happy with the 3 x AAA in a low power light like this.

Thanks pc_light, that description is excellent. I hadn’t realised there was a lens over the optic - I assumed that because it was plastic it was a single piece like in the later production FW3A.

Just modded the lanyards of these two lights! I think I will call these “poor-man-lanyard-without-tritium-in-titanium-bead-but-with-GITD-fob-embedded-in-paracord” the “”Firefly style lanyard”:https://www.google.com/search?q=firefly&safe=active&sxsrf=ALeKk02pXGvupQdmyHYd0BcLF4UsC8okUA:1591916185235&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi7ou717frpAhVuyoUKHVPYAeUQ_AUoAXoECCAQAw” :smiley: :student:


Not the best looking, but it was the possible work :partying_face:

Nice work, MB! Did you make the GITD fobs? CRX?

Thanks gchart :wink:
Yes, I got them from CRX, I forgot to mention that :person_facepalming:

The aqua blue one already arrived with the split ring “embedded”, while the orange one (that arrived during the OL Contest due to the theme I had in my light) didn’t have that. So I picked 2 thin drills and added a split ring to hold it to the lanyard. That’s why they are so bulky in some parts :person_facepalming:

Great quality from CRX as ever! :+1:

I know. Some have a PCB, some only cardboard carrier for LEDs. They’re all made from sheet metal. Terrible.

Solarforce!
Black L2P with T head. Luxeon V2 4000k
Blue L2P. LH351D 5000k 90cri with cut and polished lens. I did it first time with this led and I can say that this is the easiest led to cut to dome.
Both have “Biscotti” 5A driver.
I think I used too long copper stripe for blue L2P because I had a serious problem to push it. I hope I won’t have to pull it out because I don’t know how to do it.
I did this build before “Barkuti described a problem with ”Biscotti” driver”:【convoy】S21E XHP50.3 HI available now - #2554 by Barkuti, and I didn’t even notice it. But everything works.