A few weeks ago I destroyed the stock driver attempting to remove it for an LED swap. Zebralight no longer has any driver boards available for the SC52w, so they canāt fix it. This left me with a nice host with no electronics.
Iām in the process of turning it into a triple. My plan is to use a copper platform to hold the star in position, while the driver floats in the space below the platform. Iāll use the stock switch and it should not be necessary to modify the body of the light.
Steps completed so far:
Carclo 10507 optic modified to fit in available space in the head.
Noctigon 20mm triple star filed down to fit into available space in head.
Copper platform made from sheet copper for star to sit on.
Fit-tested copper platform, star, optic, lens and retaining ring.
Inserted wire and contact for positive contact in battery compartment. This still needs a bit more work.
15mm Mountain Electronics driver flashed with Anduril and tested for function outside the light.
Still to do:
Fully insulate the underside of the copper platform with Kapton tape.
Connect the wires from the battery compartment to the driver. This is probably the toughest step since space inside is very limited. Hardest part is probably the positive wire from the battery compartment to the driver, and the negative wire from the screw to the driver. Both will be underneath the driver and there isnāt much room to lift up the driver.
Insulate bottom of star except for contact points with battery tube wires.
Connect the switch to the driver. One of the switch contacts will be right next to the edge of the driver. I think a solder bridge should work without wire. The other will be only a few mm from the switch contact, so maybe a short jumper wire from the ATiny.
Connect the driver to the star. Should be relatively straightforward.
Place LEDs on the star. My resupply of LEDs from Kaidomain arrived. Thinking of either 3x SST20 FD2, or maybe 3x XPL HI using 2 high CRI XPL HI and one cool white low-cri XPL HI.
I hope my Arctic Alumina adhesive is still good. I think Iām down to my last tube and they no longer sell the stuff anymore. If itās not good, Iāll probably end up trying UV super-glue and hope itās good enough.
Iām trying to go slow and take my time with this mod. I donāt have any spare drivers and the host is irreplaceable.
I was expecting a difficult mod due to the tiny irregular space in the head for all the new electronics.
However, the mod went surprisingly smoothly and the light worked on the first try. The hardest parts were filing the star and optic down to fit in the cavity and then figuring out the best way to attach the positive and negative wires to the body under the star.
For the positive wire I ended up using the stock contact board. I strung a long piece of 24 gauge wire through the pass-through hole in the shelf, all the way through outside the bottom of the light. I then soldered it to the contact board and added a bit of thermal epoxy around the solder to help insulate it. Then I pulled it back up into position at the top of the battery compartment, cut it off and then soldered it to the board.
For the negative wire I inserted one of the original driver retaining screws, wrapped a short piece of 24 gauge wire to it and soldered it directly to one of the contacts on the bottom of the switch.
When I inserted the driver (15mm Mountain DD driver flashed with Anduril) I used a solder bridge to connect the edge of the driver to the switch with the negative wire. I used a 26 gauge wire to connect the pin on the Atiny to the other switch contact.
I took more pictures and plan to post a build thread later today.