What did you mod today?

I’m using an original OP reflector from an early version Niteye Eye10 in my TCR-01 with SST-20 right now. I quite like it.

The beam is pleasantly smooth with good throw. Sure the outer edge of the spill is slightly brighter than the rest of the spill, but it’s almost unnoticeable…. even in a white wall test. In real-world use I don’t see it at all the beam looks perfect. I have many lights with orange-peel reflectors designed for their emitters that look much worse.

In my older RRT-01 I currently have a different OP reflector which I purchased from Kaidomain years ago (I think). It gives an even more uniform beam than the Eye10’s beam, but has a noticeably dimmer hotspot.

My original RRT-01 and TCR-01 both came with the same smooth reflector that was absolutely horrible. It produced a horrendously ringy beam even with the XML-2 emitters that came with those lights. Yuck!

It’s a mod! This has been done a lot to firm up the feel of a switch or make it more responsive without going to the trouble of replacing it with a different switch. An easy way to to use some hot glue on the plastic plunger of the switch itself, then you can trim it to suit with a razor blade. A suitably thick plastic disc can be punched out with a paper or leather hole punch and glued on or just tucked in there. Even easier sometimes is to use a different switch boot that has a nubbin attached to it…use it as-is or trim it down a little bit. Something like this type:

@CRC:

For fine tuning the gap between the top of a clicky switch and a button boot I recommend the following:

Layer up small pieces of tape on the tip of the switch.

  • I tend to use Gaffer’s Tape or 3M Safety Walk Tape. However, any tape will do…. even masking tape.
  • The tape doesn’t need to be strong. It won’t come out of position with use since all the action is straight down into the tape. There’s no lateral force.
  • Using tape gives you very precise control of the height of the switch without affecting the feel of the rubber switch. It’s also easily removable and adjustable.

For me, switch feel is soo important. I totally get it. Forward clickies go on basically every light that isn’t an e-switch and proud, hair-trigger setups are my favorite. These are usually always throwers with one mode or dual switch or no mode memory, turbo first. I approve :+1:

Did two fun mods today!

Convoy C8 with sbt90.2

https://imgur.com/a/hYKzcAx

WildTrail WT1M with "W2.2" CULPM1

https://imgur.com/a/OAiMo1k

Enjoying them both, but need to dial in the C8 beam better. Probably remove the centering ring.

I repaired the driver today. Beamshots of the two:

V10R Ti+ sw45k on the left, RRT01 sw30 on the right. As you can see, the beams are pretty good. The RRT-01 has a wider beam, and overall it’s slightly better. The VR10 has a bit of a bright ring at the very edge of the spill, but that’s really the only “flaw” in the beam as far as I can tell - and I don’t mind it in real use.

The V10R Ti+ is as low as it’ll go (which is plenty low), but the RRT01 is already dimmer and has more room to go. I can get it dim enough that I can only tell it’s on if I’m not looking directly at it.

Is the off-center 90.2 noticeable in the beam?

lol, thanks for pointing that out.

YES, yes it is. The beam is.. well.. bleh. not good, right now! ive put all of 45 minutes into the light so far though, non of which has been working on the reflector location. I need to drop it. and center the reflector of course. i just wanted to get it together to try it out tonight. lol.

But yes, the off center led makes the beam not have a hotpsot essentially. at 20m you see the hotspot, but its not defined.

Before removing you could try sanding the bottom of the centering ring and see if that helps

You probably already know to be very careful of reflector shorts with the centering ring out

thank you, I will try that. I think I already did it on this one but I don't remember because I might have a couple lights yesterday and on some of them I sanded the centering ring really thin. So I may have done it on this already but I will try if I did not.

and absolutely about the short possibility. I surrounded this sbt90.2 with kapton tape, which I always do when I Delens them, just to be extra cautious . So this one is insulated pretty well. This is the first time I noticed a green tint coming from the delensed sbt90.2, though. At least on lower levels.

I got it from Simon at convoy I wonder if it's just the particular batch..

Today I changed XHP50.3 4000K 90cri from Digikey to my Convoy S16. It has 6V 5A driver and OP reflector. Original emitter was XHP50.2 4000K 70cri from Convoy flashlight store. Here are some white wall comparisons with color balance of 4600K and about 2,5 metres distance.
First with 10% mode:


Then with 100% mode:

New one is throwier, dimmer and ugly greenish yellow.

I would think the dimmer is expected - you always get less lumens for higher CRI? I can't see the ugly greenish compared to the 50.2 in these shots, maybe just me. The hotspot is definitely smaller though - would expect better throw.

I would also expect dimmer and greener tint for HI CRI (im thinking sst20 here, greener at 4000k Hi Cri compared to xpl-hi 4000k) i would actually prefer the 50.3 NOT be in Hi CRI, i have never understood the need for a Hi CRI throwing LED? If one can barely see the target at 300m, why does the color rendition mater?

On to- why are so many ppl interested in SFT40 in 4000k & Hi CRI? i would be happy with 5700k. Actually, i would be happy to just be able to buy some of them! my god... this is getting painful! C'mon Luminus! :))

Anyway, i guess good tint doesn't matter at 300m either. lol.

Either way, im excited! that 50.3 should be awesome. Just wish there was a 3volt version, i dont care what color or cri. just 3v.

Yes, it was not a surprise it is dimmer. It is easily the greenest led I have ever seen. Picture won’t show the difference. Even my wife asked why have I built green light. :smiley:

Warmer tints for throwers is reported to have advantages in less reflection with moisture in the air, could result in better range in real outdoors. Plus throwers aren't used solely for long distance, least in many use cases. If you got a light in your hand, you are gonna use it for anything that's needed at the moment.

Interesting about the green...

This isn’t the domeless version. So this is not the smallest led. Probably not a good choice for a thrower.

I bought few different new XHP’s when I ordered components from Digikey.

80cri version of 4000K is not so green, but not neutral either.

I also have XHP50.3 in 5000K 80cri and 90 cri versions. Interestingly I couldn’t find the 90cri version in the datasheet. Binning label that came with the led tells this is one flux bin higher than highest flux bin in the datasheet.

I haven’t tried 5000K versions yet.

I also ordered 70.3 in 6000K. Haven’t tried that either.

Nice! Just Digikey here (US) and found 58 listings in stock for the XHP50.3 but all were listed at 11.2V, 11.2V also done at 6V.

So this one is green but does it at least have better color uniformity than .2s ?

Some tint shift on lower power levels, not so bad with more power but still there. Blue area in the middle of the beam from the cross section of four diodes. With this Convoy M1 reflector I liked XHP50.2 more.