The Elephant and the Dragon

Flashlight Modding and DIY Parts
1

This light has received a new Nick name: Darth Vader

Not a budget mod overall, but may be it qualifies as “Budget Elephants” series? :slight_smile:

No, this is not about India & China, a book on Amazon regarding to the impact to American economy due to the rise of these two countries.

This is about a crazy man’s rendition of a crazy flashlight that Throws…

The “Elephant” is a 3x18650 Fat Body, a DIY creation as seen here:
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?341778-FM3X-UT-with-CBT-90-amp-Home-made-Elephant

The “Dragon” is the Aspherical head of Fly Dragon, the largest Aspherical head available from a production light. Mag D head was grind down into an adaptor to covert it for mag Use as seen before, details here: http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?280670-Enter-The-mag-Dragon-Beam-shots-added

The Switch section of the mag was cut & used to connect the Elephant & the Dragon, with a 12V blue plasma Vandal switch. The light is the one on the Right of the picture.

The light Engine is XML U2 on Copper PCB with Trustfire X6 SST-90 12V Driver, copper heat sinked for Mag D tube.

What’s reaming to finish up are all the wirings, including re-wire the parallel 3x18650 carrier into serial configuration to deliver 12V.

Just completed the wiring of the head section:

I thought that the only things left is reworking the carrier. But no, the new version of the elephant host came with a new type of carrier making it much harder to re-wire to 3S from 3P.

I am going to re-config the 3S carrier from DRY 3T6 instead, as a result, it’ll be 1/2 inch shorter, thus, it’ll be necessary to cut down the body again, but in the end, it’ll be worth it as shorter body will make the light even more compact & looks closer to the geometry of original FM Elephant.

Stay tuned, I am going on a break, go online & butcher some teenage players in MW3 …

2

Those two both look insane, so elephant gets a CBT 90, and the Dragon gets an XML-U2?

just curious, when you said ’The light Engine is XML U2 on Copper PCB with Trustfire X6 SST-90 12V Driver’ did you take the driver out of an X6, or did you get a different driver altogether? Because the stock X6 driver on high only goes to 6.5 amps.

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6.5 amps seems like plenty for an XM-L to me. :)

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Oh right, I totally glazed over that. Automatically assumed the driver was for the CBT. How on earth can an XML handle 6.5 amps though…

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Copper PCB? It probably would do better with slightly less current though. (5 amps is probably the sweet spot)

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Even with a copper PCB, 6.5 is really high for an XML. I would think that 6.5 might heat it up a bit too much to get maximum brightness, but I dont know, I have never done it before.

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It’s the SST-90 driver from DX, which is the driver from trust fire, 6.5a max.

I agree that 6.5A is a bit much :), but there was a test that XML with copper pcb went to 6A & lumen still going up. 12V drivers for 5-5.5A range are either hard to find or cost a fortune, most of the cheaper SST-50 “5A” drivers are 4A or less, and are for 8.4v, can’t trust any of the specs unless somebody actually tested at led.

Given the BLF spirit, I decide to use the driver on hand, I had this driver for a while, mwant for SST-90 but I didn’t like that it only go up to 6.5A. Given that I’ve driven XRE to 2.4 Amp (1mm die), 6.5A on a 4mm die may not look all that crazy.

I could always swap the driver out later if I don’t like it. I need to do some test & see if it actually pull 6.5A or not,

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Found Match’s test thread:

Also an older test by Saabluster on CPF T6
on Copper:

More:

Mike_CZ tes on XML copper ledtech.de” www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?343702”:www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?343702

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Daaayum, never thought a normal star would be lacking so much heat dissipation… Compared to the copper PCB.
Looks like heat really is everything. I think later I’m going to try get an XML to go to 7 amps. I don’t have a way of testing lumen output yet, but it’ll be fun.
I’m thinking a copper chunk on top of a fanless CPU cooler on top of a flat piece of dry ice. I want to see the limits of an XML. If only I had an integration sphere… so much research would be done :bigsmile:

EDIT: actually scratch that, I don’t have a way of getting controlled currents into LEDs yet. maybe later… :frowning:

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Wow, that is a sweet build!

Who’s in for pics of the LED mounted on copper? :smiley:

Cheers! :beer:

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I am currently gathering supplies for mounting a XM-L on a Peltier plate and testing it at currents up to 10 amps. I just haven't gotten a chance to make and calibrate and IS yet. My hope is to do the test sometime around January.

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Oh that’s smart, I’ve never thought of using a Peltier plate before. I am really interested to see the results of 10 amps, since up to 6.5 amps on the graph it’s still going up. If you can, also test the SST-90, I want to see what’s the maximum you can push it to while it’s being cooled.

But are peltier plates effective at removing a lot of heat fast? I read that it takes a few minutes to cool down to it’s minimum temperature.

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I don't plan on doing a SST-90 as the power supply I have access to only goes goes up to 10 amps. (Or something like that) If not peltier plates then dry ice. :D Either should be able to keep the LEDs at sub zero temps.

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Well I still look forward to the 10amp sub zero XML, which of course isn’t possible in a normal flashlight host. Maybe if there was a host which had an inbuilt peltier plate in between the pill and heatsink and driver and heatsink - now that would be pretty nice. But I think peltier plates require a ton of energy, so it won’t happen in the near future :stuck_out_tongue:

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I'm certainly excited to find out what it can do but don't hold your breath. :) I still have to make the IS and figure out the best way to mount the LED, that along with convince them to lend me the power supply. :D

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Here are the last two steps:

Added a copper ring on top of the DRY carrier to route the battery Negative up there.
Also cut the elephant body down about 1/2 inch.

The switch lit up when the light is on:

Group photo of contestants for the up coming beam shots Battle in the Wood III: The Elephants vs. The Foxes:
All are 3x18650 format except FF3. (left to right FF1 35W HID, Elephant FM3H CBT-90 9A, Elephant FM3V CBT-90 15.5A, Elephant Dragon XML U2 6.5A & FF3 40W HID)

I actually measured the lux but I am keeping it secret :slight_smile: until the Elephantr vs. Foxes battle time, but here is a hint, when on Medium mode, it scored 160,000 lux @ 1 meter, can you imagine what’ the lux # on Hi? :crown:

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Awesome work Ma_sha!

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Thanks :slight_smile:

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Ma_sha, your work is simply stunning!! I can't wait to see what that does on high. What is the lens diameter on the Dragon head?

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I love your posts. Seriously nice pictures there. And nearly insane lights! Wonderful.

Looking forward to the shootout and the revealing of the score on high! TY for showing this.