I thought I’d make a quick worklog of the modding of a Jetbeam TC-R1, commissioned by Rmbautista.
What do we have here? A stock TC-R1 head.
Which gives the stock TC-R1 beam. Not the best, in my opinion. And that tint… (WB set at 5500K).
This is the driver side.
Let’s open it up.
Then, let’s open up the front. Some Loctite there, but not too hard.
Remove the stock reflector…
Remove the stock centering gasket,
And let’s put it in the vice.
Next, we desolder the wires from the MCPCB.
And remove the MCPCB. Not much thermal paste there. Nor the best quality.
Out with the old driver
New 2020 RRT01 driver with thermal regulation on the left, stock TC-R1 driver without thermal regulation on the right.
And the other side.
Cracking the rotator ring open took some force. It has some red Loctite.
Opened and ready to be cleaned.
New ceramic ball on the left, stock steel one on the right.
New lube is applied (Krytox 205).
And then the ring is assembled again.
Next stop, the MCPCB. A new MCPCB is required for our new 3.5x3.5mm LED. The new MCPCB is larger by about 1mm and needs to be filed down.
It is also thinner by 0.5mm to compensate for the fact that the new reflector that will be used is longer than the stock one by 0.5mm.
Filing down the MCPCB is not much fun and takes time.
The openings for the wires have to be enlarged too, without cutting into the traces.
Now it fits fine.
New driver installed and waiting for the new MCPCB.
The new MCPCB needs a nice new LED. It will be a Nichia 219b R9080 sw45k, provided by Andy Zhu.
Solder paste, on.
LED, on.
Soldered! Some solder is also added to the wire pads.
A healthy amount of good quality thermal paste is added.
And the MCPCB is pressed on top of it. Then the wires are soldered.
It works!
The stock centering gasket is not fit for the smaller LED, so a new one is used.
Installed and ready for the reflector.
The only thing left is the new reflector. It has a slight orange peel texture.
The reflector is installed and the bezel screwed back on.
This is the result (WB set at 5500K).
I hope Rmbautista will like it.