Vintage German WW2 Daimon- Ze Germans did not have enough light...

Ze Germans lost ze war… Why?? Some say their flashlights was not bright enough…
All I know is… I had to mod one… Maybe several… I have tree. Two are still stock. :stuck_out_tongue: (I have some nice ideas that I might put to life)

Some music to get in the right mood: (Old-Lumen style)

Now, lets look at what we have.
Its not what I would consider the most classical WWII light. The one with the filters. But its a German Daimon light. As far as I know, its from the WW2 period. This type of light have my favorite design. And the condition was good. If anybody have some interesting info or facts about it, please share. :slight_smile:

For this particular build. I wanted to keep it nice, simple and fairly stock looking both on the inside and outside.

Problem was the reflector…

Even modified, it was way too big for an XP-G2 on copper.

I tried the reflector on both XP-G and XM-L emitter…

XM-L was actually better, since it had less of a dark hole in the middle. But still not good enough for me.

I tried cutting even more off it than I did at first, but still same results with both emitters.

So, in order to get a nice beam, and not just pure flood. The option fell on a P60 reflector. It fit quite nicely in lenght with a pill.

Here is one of my earlier pictures. Brushed aluminium plate. A battery box that fits perfectly!

Modified the light for a flat surface. Also added some brass so that the pill with transfer heat better to the body. Added fujick to make sure moist would not get easily in from the backside.

Modified bottom plate.

Sits nicely onto a top-plate.

This is an early picture of the modified pills. Also known as. Driver circuit holder, and the pill. Some more modifications had to be done to make them perfect fit.

In order to let the stock switch function nicely, and look stock, I used most of the stock parts. In order for that to sit nicely in place without ever having to worry about movement I cut into the top plate… Hand work, with a dremel… Most of the work on the light are done with a dremel…

Made threads so that the battery box could be screwed in place. Screws was later cut.

I made a hole for the P60 too.

Used the positive side on the battery and attached it to the box.

The driver holder get isolated from the flashlight. Tested everything. Used JB-weld to fasten the aluminium plates the flashlight.

Finished result:
I did consider something around the reflector, but for now, ill keep it that way. Its nice and simple.

Inside:

To keep the vintage look. This is a warm white XM-L. 3000k. I like that color.
Driver is the KD 3-18V. That gives out 1,5A to the led. Which for this type of build is enough.
The driver is a simple 1-mode, and you can throw every type of battery on it. Its regulated, and will give 1,5A even when cells are fairly low on voltage.

Compared to stock:

Stock switch function perfectly! Checked resistance before building the light. It was basically close to none. So no modifications were done to that.

I dont have a battery for the stock light. But lets just say, that it would be no match!

For a vintage light. This is BRIGHT!

Future plans… Use in in the facility below and the area around this cannon.

Would see my house from this location today, far away in the distance…

Today there is a simple “resturant” where the Cannon was. From that place, you can get a guided tour inside a large facility!

The place was called “Fjell festung” in German. The Germans built it under the second world war… Very nice place to check out for a flashoholic. Why? Lets just say that that area holds lots of more stuff than just what a guided tour would give you. And you could spend a whole day there, and not have seen everything. Despite not taking a guided tour, and despite that many places are locked down… Its a lot of stuff in that area!

I regularly go for a little flashlight tour there… Might take some outdoor pictures with the modded flashlight from that place.

Hope you liked the modding done to the light. Thanks for reading…

Outstanding build! Love the concept.

Would you be at all interested in selling these? I know my Dad would absolutely love one. He loves WWII stuff.

Love it. I’m a sucker for old gadgets. How did you secure the LED pill and reflector to the base?

Fantastic mod! Just my style. Thanks for sharing! :beer:

And yes, I would definitely like to see some outdoor pictures from that place!

Whoa, fantastic build! Nice work. :slight_smile:

Excellent refurbish of an historical light! Shame you couldn’t find a reflector that closely matched the original but still, now it’s a useable light making some 250 lumens, yes?

Nice job! Thanks for sharing.

Great job raceR86, and thanks for the additional photos of the gun battery, reminds me of my childhood holidays to the Normandy coastline :slight_smile:

What are the dimensions of the original reflector?

What a very nice build ! I hope this encourages more people to update some classic lights.

Good job there!

My dad had a similar light in the 80s that was issued from the german railways. It was grey and blue and had red and green filters to slide over the reflector.

I guess countless lights like these survived up to today in kitchen drawers.

Thanks for all the nice words everybody! :slight_smile:

Selling? Time will tell, I might sell it. But not sure if the price would be suited for international buyers…

At the moment, the Pill is not secured, it is perfectly “press fit”. It sits inside the hole at the bottom plate and while closed it presses slightly onto the lens. It wont go anywhere. Even when opened up it will not move easily out of place since its attached with the wires.
I will probably make a short aluminium rod and put it under the pill and fujick it all in place so that it wont move anywhere when you open the light. And to make heat transfer better. But since the pill I used had an emitter with thermal glue on it, I need to get the pill out of the light so that I can easily change the emitter if I desire (warm white XM-L2 on copper). So its not 100% done at the moment… But not far from! :wink:

I guess you are talking about OTF lumens… I would probably guesstimate a bit higher… The picture I took of the lit light is with flash directly towards it btw. Its pretty bright!
With a single li-ion the driver have input of about 2,1A. Output is 1,5A if not slightly below. I have done several measurements of the driver in another thread. 1,5A to the emitter is usually about 540 emitter lumens (according to graphs my match). Not sure if that was a T6?. This warm white is probably T3 BIN, but FT says T4… So I would guesstimate around 400 emitter lumens based on that? The glass lens is stock, but in pretty good shape.
No matter what it is, its probably 10x more light than people would expect! :smiley: And that is the fun part with this light! :slight_smile: And also, AA batteries. No li-ion. And alkaline compatible, although nimh are highly recommended. The Eneloop XX work quite hard judging by the heat after running it constantly on for some time… The driver pill also gets quite hot. So if building the light with absolute max output for nimh AA batteries and another driver better heat sinking would be highly recommended. Lets just say I have made some thoughts about that and also running two 18650s in it… 0:)
Its also quite fun that people who buy fairly expensive LED lights around here (Norway) gets less lumens in their CW lights than in my WW vintage light! :smiley:

Stock reflector is about 34mm wide… Roughly 17,5mm deep, stock. Once the the bulb threads are cut away like my last picture of it. Its only 9,65mm deep.

I did find a reflector that was 35mm wide (could be made slightly smaller). But it was too deep. Stock reflector is not really suitable for LEDs.
If anyone know of suitable reflector that is fairly wide and short please let me know. I also have two French Wonder lights from around the 70s, maybe up towards the 80s with that simular box design, but with a more modern side button. Reflectors on those are wider, and not that much deeper…
I do wonder if MT-G2 would make a nice flood monster in the stock reflectors though … But then heat sinking to the body would have to be on a higher level.

That is a great build with a lot of attention to detail! Thanks for the tour. I'm sure it inspired some to do a build on a classical light as well.

This is one that lives in a drawer somewhere at my place. The design and the 'made in Germany' makes it post-WWII, but it does have the red and the green filter (building a MC-E colour in it would make give it cool and senseless 'double colour-control' ):

Awesome build .

Thanks jacktheclipper.

Nice light you got there djozz!

Here are my three WWII period lights… I bought 4, but I have a friend who collects, so he bought one from me. I bought the lights off from ebay.
There are two french Wonder lights in the middle. They have been in the family. I believe they are from somewhere around the 70-80s. Also have at least one more with a longer straight tube barrel, but I dont find them to be that cool as the “boxy” lights…
The blue one in the front is probably a cheap no-name light from the early 90s or something… Its basically worthless…

Here are some snapshots inside the facility I mentioned. Not much need for a flashlight inside there, where there are guided tours… but some might enjoy watching some pics…

Green LEDs= Mine field!

The Germans knew how to build tunnels.

Lots of various goodies in this room:

Not so much inside this room: (lit up by a Led lenser X21R btw)

Now this is a “flashlight”… I think…

That is a mine!

Engines

Scale model. Lots of space below the huge cannon.

+1! Now I need to look for something like this. :wink:

That's some cool gear. Don't be shy posting more pictures.. Tongue Out

Fantastic! Thanks for sharing.

Great looking light.
Your work is Outstanding :slight_smile:

Love the History Pic’s and the Light. Cheers

Very beautiful light and great work!
I bought an Swiss flashlight just a few weeks ago because I love this formfactor (something like this picture)
But I have to admit, the Daimon is way more beautiful. :slight_smile: