How small are you? 3- mode Solitaire, some beam shots

Thanks, that’s a nice small driver but even sanded its still too big for a solitaire. I make a stack and use them without the board stuffed up into the narrow section formerly occupied by the “switch”. With just a little sanding it would fit a AA Minmag though.

ah, a stack sure beats this, you can't get smaller than that. Good luck and keep making pictures!

I think you missed your profession as a microbiologist rufusbduck :slight_smile: This obsession with small things will ruin your eyesight!

You need to start hanging out with TGWNN:

(post #1483, a bit down the page)

Here are the two bits I need to join, the chips soldered to the contact plate and what’s left of the brains.

After I stuck the two parts together with Fujik I needed to solder 3 spots on the brain board to the contact plate, the resistor, the capacitor, and the two pins of the IC that I had previously shorted together. Here is a crummy pic of the resistor connection.

Once all three had been soldered I filled the voids and buttered the edge with Fujik. Like a six year old with a very small layer cake.

Then I wrapped it in plastic and pushed it into my guage tube to cure.

We’ll see what it looks like later. I have to run off to the post office and won’t be able to play with this for a few days. I’m leaning toward a black solitaire with some brass like this one

What do you think?

Really impressive, a work of art!! I like the look of the brass collar.

I did a couple of soli mods with smt components…never again, just too fiddly for my sausage-like fingers :slight_smile:

Here it is unwrapped.

And again with an 18650, a solitaire host, how it started (left), an lr44 button cell (right), and the reworked driver (center).

The more observant among you may have noticed only 2 chips where I stated in th op I would be using 3. Space condiderations aside I felt it would be a sort of flashlight hubris to run a solitaire at one full amp. It would work but in this instance my conservative side would not be denied so 700mA it is.

Plans changed so I got to stay home and play. I dug out my stash of brass tubing and cut up and soldered some things together.

The shorter one on the left is for Mum’s pinky and the longer one along with the stepped piece is for this mod. Why longer? Why the extra piece? Because I cut the head of the solitaire in two of course!

Well, “What for?” you might ask. So I can make it long enough to focus a zoomie, that’s why.

Tomorrow they will go out to my high tech lathe set up(not) and have some fins cut. Stay tuned. :open_mouth:

I'm running out of things to say rufusbduck. The driver there aganst the ruler must just be over 3/8 of an inch. Thats so tiny. Dumb question. You still have modes?

That was the idea. 3 modes, last mode memory, low voltage warning. I could probably do this with a Dr J Lux drive if I had one. Wouldn’t that be special.

Why is there a fast tech ad overwriting your avatar?

If your talking about my avatar I see a mongrel looking Moose. I had to ask about the modes as I thought that this was the idea of the mods. How many more of the current chips would you be game to put on these drivers?

Functionally, it’s no different from before so the drive current depends on the ability of the host to radiate heat and the physical space available. For example a AAA Minimag has a larger head for more fins and a longer tube for more chips. There may be enough room in a solitaire for 3 where I currently put them but without lengthening the battery tube or using a smaller battery, that’s the limit. 1A would likely heat up fast and since there is not enough space for a decent sink might not be good for the led.

I made a few more parts for the light.

Actually, it’s just the zoomie bits I wanted to show. The led fits inside the tube with the copper bottom which slides up and down in the other piece which is the extension for the head. It is long enough so that with the head screwed down, the lens pushed down on the end breaking the circuit(as with the original).

Still more to come.

Tested the driver with an xre I had lying around. Surprise, it works!
And since when “on” the pill will float I decided to try my hand at a DIY sink pad. I changed things around by desoldering the tube, reflowing the emitter(XP-G2 R5 3D) onto this new base and gluing the tube to that with AS-5 and filing off the excess plate.
I left a tag end if the awg 14 protruding to help anchor this part to the driver half. I’m getting a lot of reflection from the AS around the inside, it’s a bit tidier than this looks.
That’s all for a few days. I’ll need to make the brass fins before I do any more.

Btw, I used the fine tip on the wand with the heat turned up(400C) to solder the awg 26 Teflon wires to the pads. That tube is ~9 mm ID X 12 mm long. I filed a 10 mm round star down both in Dia and thickness to fit.

Next time I’m going to move the cap closer to the IC or directly between it’s last contact point and the ground plate.

I got to stay home one more night and made these.

The bolt is how I chuck the brass sleeve into the drill press. A hack saw blade screwed to a 1x4 block w/2mm of the teeth hanging over the edge and another block to raise it above the nuts. 1/2 crank per fin on the small ones and progressively more for the zoomie sleeve. Here’s how they look installed.

And

I think mum will be pleased and the delivery notice for the batteries came in the mail today so it and the Blues Bros will be shipping out soon. Everything works on the zoomie, modes etc and the beam comes to a fairly good focus(square die but with rings and artifacts). I turned the lens around and this smooths the beam out and virtually eliminates the rings. However, it is not quite as floody when all the way in. More like a spot to medium range. I have several of these lenses and I have one set up on the end of my “lathe” bolt with a sleeve to center it and I’m going to try and change the sphere radius and see what that does. The bezel is not glued on to the head yet and once it is there’s no changing this lens so I’d like to experiment while I can. Since this will change the focal length it will likely change the image at both ends but I need the data anyway.

I’ll post beam shots when I can show a comparison of the modded vs unmodded lenses.

Here it is again after about an hour and a half of spinning it on a file, various grades of w/d sandpaper, and turtle wax lens clarifying compound(brass sure polished up well!). I tried to match the former image angle to show the difference.

I’m not at home to check it out until Sunday evening.

Wow, you made it a zoomie as well? Thank you for the detailed pictures!

Must be nice to have such talent! It was all I could do to get a double board driver in the HD2010 and working, lol

Nice work!

The lights that he mods are so small

And the tiniest bits he'll install

Inspiration has struck

Our dear Rufusbduck

Whose creations will always enthral