I bought a few lights at Home Depot the other day and two of them were Coast G20 penlights. I like the looks of them and the fact that they were $9.95 each. I figured I could mod them and I did.
I figured I would share one way to mod it, in case anyone else wanted to try it.
Here's the stock light in the package.
Here's the tear down, along with a TIR optic. I couldn't get the head loose on the darned thing. Finally I heated the head to get it unscrewed. You will notice the original white plastic sleeve is warped from the heat. I don't care, I'm not going to use it anyhow. The original optic was a double convex plastic lens. The original led was a 5mm led with a board attached. I'm going to use a TIR optic from CNQG, along with a Nichia 219 on 10mm star.
The TIR optic is just a little too big in diameter, to go in the head, so I used sandpaper on a sanding block to sand down the outside lip, till it would slide in easily.
Once I put the optic in the head, I could do a little measuring and I found I had 20.8mm of room, so I figured the thickness of my led on star and found I could use a 1/4" copper coupling with a .250" thick copper round and come up with a workable stack height. I intend to use the black plastic end cap on the original stack, for the positive terminal, just as it was. I will need to cut it down to fit, but the stack height should be just about perfect.
Here's the copper coupling with the copper round soldered on and the center has been filled with copper shot and solder. It makes a very nice pill and a very big pill, for a penlight.
Stack up next to the head. The plastic end cap will bring it up to flush.
Here's the whole pill. The led is glued to the copper with AA and the plastic end cap has been cut down to be short and give just the right overall height.
The inside of the head already had grooves cut for the original driver that sat in the head. I just deepened one of them, so I could force the ground wire in, along side the copper pill.
Positive terminal, not pretty, but functional.
TIR fits like it belongs there.
Beam shots with a stock light and the modified light.
Stock
Modified
Stock
Modified
This is not a powerhouse. It's a penlight and it's not designed to scare the neighbors. I am using the two Alkalines that came with the light. NiZn or Primary Lithiums could also be used. Do they make AAA NiZns?
Anyhow, I think I like it better with the mod. The original light was blue white and I just hate that color.
That's all.