New XM-L Light,, 26650/18650/4xAAA Good Price and 57mm head ......... NOTE: The star is solid aluminium !!! :bigsmile:

I get 20.0mm with my calipers. Maybe a 17mm driver could work with the P60 pill/retainer method used on the HD2010. Might also get a 19mm driver to work.

-Garry

Thanks Garry! I only get around 2 amps on any of my batteries and wanna pump it up. Have 26650’s on the way to see if that help I guess need to take the tail cap apart and do resistance checking to see if that helps. I did read that when i re-read the thread. Never done anything like that before.

Thanks again for your help.

There’s a ton of resistance in the switch, but the other thing you should do is replace the wiring between the driver and the star with some lower gauge stuff. My readings at the tail shot up over 3A (from around 2.2) after that mod alone. It seems common also for there to be some resistance at the contact point between the driver and the pill (especially if the driver is loose, and also if the screw in aluminium ring it sits in isn’t screwed in tight).

I’d be careful about removing too much resistance without also filling in the hollow pill though. It almost seems as if it’s constructed this way on purpose to prevent over heating (in other words, bad design as a feature).

Thanks for the info. I replaced the wires when I filled the open hole. When you say lower guage do you mean thicker wire? Just rechecked my tailcap readings and my solar force blue and white protected pulls 2.7a on my hd2010 the pulled it out and put in this light and it pulls 1.8a granted that the the battery voltage was only 3.8v but it was the same for both lights. I also tightened the ring down earlier this week.

What kind of things can be done to the tailswitch? Also the light seems to flicker sometimes when turning it on. Think that it might have something to with the driver spring maybe.

Thanks for the info.

Yes. Of course you did. I’d forgotten that it was you who detailed your efforts earlier in this thread. Please forgive my absent mindedness.

Yup.

I ran some copper tape from the part of the switch that springs out to contact the body up to the top of the switch, so the aluminium ring that screws down onto it makes contact with it as well. It seemed to improve things, but I think what I ultimately need to do is get an entirely new switch in there somehow. I’ve been meaning to take another look at it, but just haven’t gotten around to it yet.

My middle name is absent mindedness so i definately understand. The wire was thicker also that i used after the build up. Have t ever really looked for a driver that size so may there is one out that fits my needs. After all that work on filling the pill up I would just like to see this thing screaming somewhere in the 3.5a+ range! See if it can try and compete with my HD2010 and hopefully wont lose the 4aaa feature to get there. Maybe it will help with the 26650’s that are one the way.

Thanks again and update here if u find a switch or just any general information that is good.

I just discovered that Solarforce inner switch sets fit into the tail on this light (with the exception of the boot). I used a different boot that I had laying around that is the same size as the original, but has a nipple inside it (the original doesn’t). I also used a round plastic spacer (reduced to the correct diameter) which happened to have just the right sized hole in the middle of it. The following pictures tell the story:






This has significantly improved total output. I can only measure it relatively using my Android phone running the beeCam lightmeter app during a ceiling bounce, but it’s a true story. Besides, it was visually noticeable anyway.

Thanks cainn! I'll have to order a couple of these! Can you measure resistance of the original switch and this one for comparison?

-Garry

Thanks for the info cainn. :bigsmile:

To be perfectly honest, at this stage I don’t have much confidence in my ability to accurately measure resistance in something like a tail switch. What I did do was take some lux readings with the original switch and the Solarforce replacement. 152 with the former and 188 with the latter, averaged over 2 attempts. I started with the original switch, took a reading, swapped in the Solarforce switch, took a reading, swapped in the original again, took a reading and finally swapped in the Solarforce switch again, and took a reading. The difference was about the same each time, so the averages above are an accurate indicator of the difference (rather than just the average of 2 wildly different results). This was during a ceiling bounce, with the light tail standing in the exact same spot each time, about 2m from the ceiling.

Any idea what diameter those solarforce switches are? I'm wondering if I could just get a 5 pack of these Ultrafire's from Manafont (21.27mm in Manafont photo). Then there's these Uniquefire's (20.56mm in Manafont photo). I have some of these basic switches, but they are kinda junky and are probably higher resistance than the other two options. I would have sworn I'd seen some "Ultrafire High Current tail cap switches" at Manafont too, but I can't find them now.

Is there a reason for using the Solarforce switch? Is it because of the retaining ring piece, or is that not needed? I also don't have any other tail cap boots.

-Garry

Well I finally received custom pill and after some painstaking sanding and few “touches” with hammer this is final (almost :bigsmile: ) result.

Custom alu pill with opening for standard 17mm driver

I slightly miscalculated things so plunger on spring provides reliable contact with battery

Reliable negative contact is made with wire sandwiched between battery tube and pill part. Not pretty and elegant but it works reliably.

Holes for wires were bored at an angle

I still have to make some real world outside testing but so far things are looking promising :beer:

Looks nice chief

The Solarforce switch has a diameter of exactly 20mm, and measures about 24mm from the button to the tip of the spring. It’s the ideal size really because it’s only a touch shorter than the complete original setup. Using a switch that’s much shorter than that might result in decreased output due to exerting less pressure on the battery, although this could be overcome by soldering a bigger/longer spring to the driver (or even the switch itself for that matter). The retaining (screw-down) ring piece is important as you can’t use re-use the original because it would create a short between the spring and the body (making for an always-on flashlight). You could try to insulate it somehow, but it also has to make contact with the switches outer ring so it would present a challenge.

I’m not saying that you can’t make some other sort of switch work for you. I’m certain that it’s possible. It’s just that you’d likely end up doing something different from what I’ve done. I was simply lucky in the sense that I already happened to have parts laying around that were suitable.

Just look for 16mm/8mm (or 16mm/7.5mm) rubber/silicone tail cap boots with an inner button (not the recessed kind that IO sells). These ones are probably suitable, although they are currently sold out.

The other thing you could do is pull the original switch out, look at it, look at the tail piece, put it back together, think about it, pull it apart again, run through some hypothetical scenarios, scratch your head, become slightly irritated, put it down for a while, forget about it, pick it up again, and then hopefully come up with an entirely new solution using a unique collection of new and existing (possibly modded) parts. Then you could come back here and post about it!

Great stuff chiefinspectorfinch :slight_smile:

Thanks cainn for that info. Sounds like I'll just get a couple of those Solarforce switches and hunt around for some tailcaps.

-Garry

Found more 16mm/8mm tailcaps at KD so I placed an order. Ordered 2 of the Solarforce switches too (and it was really hard to resist throwing in a Solarforce body too). I know it's a Chinese Holiday so I expect delivery to be delayed.

-Garry

Got 26650’s in from led-dna today and they were at 3.67v and at the tail cap they read 2.25a which is about as high as i even seen it. Have to charge them tomorrow and see if they sill put this thing up to 3a+. If this thing don’t get brighter then i might have to call this a waste of time without a better driver and positive spring along with other things maybe.

Put it like this built a xpg2 drop in for my l2m with a KD V2 2.28a version and it is brighter the the eBay 57mm head light. Kinda not happy with the ultraOk. Very happy withe xp-g2 though like the he k out of that build. Might have to try a different emitter or style to see if it is better or give it away to a non flashaholic.
:cry:

I’ve seen 3.56A at the tail from a freshly charged Panasonic 18650. Immediately afterwards I put the same battery in my HD2010 and it was delivering 5+ amps so despite my best efforts there’s still a significant degree of resistance somewhere. But it’s not a big deal because I don’t really want any of my XM-L lights to be pulling much over 3.5A anyway, so I think I’m done modding this one.

In the end this has been totally worth it for me. I was convinced that I was going to end up giving this light away but I’ve changed my mind. It’s finally hanging with the big boys. It’s certainly not winning, but it’s definitely up there. After putting all this time and effort into it, making it better and making it my own, I’ve grown attached to it, and am subsequently deriving increased enjoyment from using it.

That cell at 3.67v is pretty well fully discharged. You should see a huge gain in amps from it when it's fully charged! Be sure to report back. What brand of cells are they? (I haven't tried any 26650's in mine since I haven't gotten the LED properly heatsinked.) I would like to hear from ceHowardGS about his cuz I know he's using 26650's and hasn't done anything to the LED star/pill connection.

-Garry