Swapped the emitter in my SF A2. CRI/R9 is great 
I’ve got some high CRI warm white 5mm LEDs on the way with which I’m going to try swapping the secondary LEDs (currently red). That should make for an interesting amalgamation of new and old world tech, especially with its buck converter driven Xenon lamp.
Well guys, about my most lame mod ever… I have been having eye problems and could not see to mod. Don’t know if I will ever get back to building my own drivers or not.
I have been on a kick with AA/14500 lights lately, not much out there with a decent driver. Now, I love the P60 modules for testing new emitters and drivers, way back in my P60 bin I had a Solarforce .8-4.2V XP-G R5 dropin. As you could guess, from Solarforce a very low drive current, crappy CW emitter. But, 3 decently space modes!
To me, this was almost no use because of the existing emitter. Given that high mode on 14500 is only about .9 amps, I decided to use something with a fairly low Vf… this required Nichia of course. I have them all from sw-30, sw-40, sw-45, sw-45k and sometimes multiple bins, my favorite emitter, But, my eyes… so I found that I had 2 sw-40 D200 already on Noctigons… Swapped out the nasty XP-G, wire soldering was bad enough. But now I have a very low voltage dropin that I swear now has a bit more output and makes my eyes happy.
The copper tape on the dropin is cut and folded back on itself to all for a better fit in the FiveMega 18500 tube. It was not making reliable contact without it. Someone told me there is a fitment ring made that drops in on top of the dropin, under the retainer that would likely fix that issue. According to FM the tube is SolarForce parts compatible, that switch and one other are the only 2 that I had that would screw on the tube. I was really bummed by that as I really want this to tail stand as it is a SHTF light for me. Overall, I am fairly happy with the final product.
I have Convoy low voltage drivers on the way, if they ever get here… I will test them in a shell, they will take more work as they are springless, I will either cut as solder a longer brass pin on the driver or see if the old AK springs will fit and find a longer version of them for the driver. But, the Convoy driver is 4 mode and a bit higher current draw. A good while back I built a dropin based on the Jaxman M2 driver for 2xAA operation and I am reasonably happy with it as well.
On an interesting side note, I compared all of my ECD 4000k lights in low modes to this dropin… Most look sick! I have lights with 2 bins of SST-20, 2 bins of Lh351D and with XP-L 5A3 and 5D2. Of all of them, the 5D2 was about a perfect tint match, but much lower CRI. All of the SST’s and one of my LH351D’s looked down right yellow green next to this emitter.
Anyone have an extra one of this dropin? I would really like one more, not sure why I only bought one at the time. I guess I figured SolarForce would be around forever.
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First test not focussed
@Djozz The lens is stabilized with metal
The lens sit in in the falt
Regards Xandre
Thanks Xandre, that sounds good. Nice beam, it looks like it will be a bit of a rainbow around the focus, like I had with my XM-L2 36cm fresnel box, but I hope it will still be a good spot 
I’ve been trying to get Convoy 12V boost driver with current sense resistor value halved to work with XHP70.2 on 12V MCPCB. Well, not a success. It lits up and is quite bright, but I can’t change modes. Few taps and nothing happens, few more and it flickers. 20 taps and I can get to config mode and change groups. If I use GT-FC40, the driver works just fine. Can’t really tell is it brighter than with stock driver. At least it works. So partially success?
Half the value will double the current, was that what you wanted to do ? It might hit the switch current limit and some components might be undersized for it.
Which driver is it, is it originally for 6V or 12V?
Yes, that was what I tried to do. It is meant for GT-FC40 and is 12V boost driver. I was trying to use it as a 12V 5A driver for XHP70.2. Didn’t work. For GT-FC40 it did work. Molicel P42 is the battery I used.
Convoy S21A with GT-FC40 and S2+ clip.
I see you had to drill the reflector...How's the beam?
Very floody.
I know, i have XHP70.2 in my S21B but I didn't drill the reflector.
Any beamshots?
Probably 100m is closer. Hadn’t had opportunity to try it in dark conditions. Only indoors. I have one extra OP reflector for S21A with 11mm hole, if you ever need one.
Sorry, no beamshots. There really isn’t darkness before 1AM and even then you still can see around quite well.
I have an old C8+ build with FET + XPL-HI, works fine but I want to upgrade it. Which would you use?
CSLPM1 or SFT40?
Convoy ramping driver or 5A 17mm “SST40” driver? Does anyone know if these drivers accept convoy lighted switch?
Sst-40 driver works with lighted switch. As does Led4Power drivers, if you choose bleeder option.
Nice one! :+1:
I think it's maybe not so small - looks really good!
Today I swapped the three secondary red 5mm LEDs in my SF A2 Aviator with some warm white high CRI LEDs from Ebay (Sophia?).
I filed off the lip on the bottom of the LEDs so they would fit properly in the reflector holes.
I didn’t want to try to remove the leaf spring contact ring from the bottom of the LED board to properly desolder the red LEDs so I opted to just snip them off and solder the new ones right on top. This worked out great.
The LEDs in this light are powered directly by the cells with just a resistor in series. I left the original resistors for the red LEDs (100ohm I believe) since I’m going to use 16340 cells with this light rather than CR123 primaries. That’s a perfect value for the white LEDs with the higher voltage cells.
The incandescent lamp is actually driven by a buck converter (4.5v I believe?) with a “soft start” feature to extend lamp life. Pretty advanced for a light of its time.
CCT of the LEDs matches perfectly with the incandescent lamp. The LED beam is a bit weird when you shine it on a white wall but it’s so wide it isn’t really noticeable in actual use. Here it is next to the incandescent beam which has a very tight hotspot.
And here’s some measurements of the LEDs along with the incandescent lamp just for fun.
Those wanting to do this mod I recommend Convoy S21B. I just found out, not in a nice way, that it takes 22mm driver. So Convoys 22mm boost driver is direct match. With 21A I had to do all kinds of tricks to get it to fit.