Photon Fanatic Build, Ti Neck Light (Pic Heavy) *8-5-14 Upgrade*

Thanks Hikelite, how about an accessory from Photon Fanatic to match the light? A battery holder for the keychain so a spare cell is always ready to go…

Looking like a very large bullet, it’s Texas Poker Ammunition. :slight_smile:

Trying out a Plastic Spring from Lee Spring Co, cut down to a single coil it’s purpose is to keep the battery separated from the driver when in the off position and to be slippery enough to keep the twisty smooth and silky. With these fantastic threads smooth and silky is guaranteed! :slight_smile:

The Plastic Spring:

Installed in the Texas Poker:

For perspective (and just because I love looking at these threads):

A closer look, keep in mind that the driver under this spring is 10mm in diameter:

And just because:

:slight_smile:

really state of the art craftmanship. excellent work of photon fanatic. none of their lights are boring to look at…
thanks for sharing the making process Dale :slight_smile:

A few pics of the pair, the Texas Poker with it’s sidekick the Battery Bunker. (Don’t ask me, Fred names em)

The pair with my fav blades from Benchmade, the AFCK with 3.9” ATS-34 blade and the Nimravus cub with 4.5” M2 blade.

How do you turn this perfect a radius on a manual lathe?

Happy trio

Matching tailcaps, except the Battery Bunker is left with a sharp glass breaker point!

Showing the cap off the Battery Bunker and it’s payload: the Efest IMR10440

The Texas Poker and it’s backups, the MBI HF in Ti and CU. The Ti HF has an XM-L T5 while the CU HF has an Nichia 219. They are in configuration to run the Nuke 10250 cell.

Daily carry, the Texas Poker on it’s Ti curb chain and the HF’s along with a Ti Pen, and Ti pill fob of my own make on my keychain….among other things.

Everytime I think I know a little about working with tools or electronics, someone on this forum shows me how puny my skills are.

I hate all of you for making me feel bad about myself. LOL! Just joking but the level of skill and knowledge on this forum is formidable. If all you talented guys could pool your skills in to a single vein, you could start a company that would instantly rival any flashlight manufacturer out there.

Brilliant observation Speedsix, I wonder what it would take to implement a collective action into mass production? My limited knowledge of lathes and CNC machines tells me that once the product is figured out and programmed into the computer, it should be relatively “easy” to produce multiple product of similar quality to the original hand made device. Now wouldn’t THAT be interesting! Custom one-off lights for the masses! In a way, that’s exactly what Guy from MBI did with the HF lights in the photo above. Prototyped it till it met his exacting standard, then produced them in batches of 100 or maybe 200 in metals such as Al (beadblasted or anodized black) Cu in RAW finish only, Ti also in bead blasted or RAW and I think there’s a SS version on the way. Also with or without Trit inserts. Even allowed the first production run to have specific serial numbers. I have the very first HF shipped to the States in Cu with XM-L U2 emitter and a custom serial number. :slight_smile: (Yes, I have 3 HF’s) These tiny lights produce some 600 lumens from a special run of 10250 cell designed by Guy and called the Nuke, a high discharge 80mAh cell that gives that 600 lumens number by driving the XM-L at some 3.02A for a short duration (heat is a real issue in this small of light, even in solid copper variant) {that 3.02A was just measured on my DMM from a fully charged but rested cell}

What a beautiful collection !

Any chance of putting something next to the Poker for scale, please?

A dollar bill (or $100 ;) ) would do nicely.

Thanks !

I’ve got some shot’s of it next to an 18650 cell, standing beside an L2P light, and with the AAA sized 10440. Also with a quarter perched beside it. They should all be here somewhere…

How about on top of an L2P and beside an LD01?

Alongside an 18650 and in front of an L2P

With a quarter

And in hand

It measures 79mm tip to tail, 20mm at the head with a 13mm battery tube.

that is gorgeous, congratulations on such a wonderful little light.

Thanks much - I have a much better sense of scale now.

I made the finishing touches on the Texas Poker. Anodized the head, then polished the exterior back up to achieve a complimentary blue to the orange of the copper. All done, and really really loving it!

Can someone buy me a mill? I hate looking at this light. :heart_eyes:

No mill was used during the making of this project, an old manual Swiss lathe (Wahli Multi 78 or 76)

Gotta step it up my friend! lol The guy that made this started using a lathe about 5 years ago. (IMMSMC)

Your right. I’m handing my license to drive a lathe in. I’m not worthy anymore. Must have something to do with getting old. Its a shame as I was going to do your HD2010 pill when I was able bodied again. Oh well, thems the breaks. :_(

Yep, some days you get the bear, some days the bear gets you!

I haven’t had the Texas Poker quite a year, and finally the break I’ve been looking for. With Comfychair and Rufusbduck, MattAus and RMM, JonnyC and a few others working on FET drivers, 10mm boards, and custom flashing UI Firmware, I’m now able to set the Texas Poker up like I’d originally seen it…and then some!

I built a driver with the BLF ATiny10 pcb and a small MOSFET that Scott sent me to try out. I flashed the ATiny13A MCU with JonnyC’s firmware, a version that Richard wrote for me and I tweaked slightly. And swapped out the Nichia 219 5000K emitter with an XP-G2 R5 1A de-domed. So now the Texas Poker is pulling 3.11A from it’s Efest IMR10440 cell! That’s good for 552 lumens at start, 452 at 30 seconds! :slight_smile:

With 4 levels breaking down like this…Lo - 7 lumens (.02A), Med - 48 lumens (.27A), Hi - 242 lumens (1.49A) and Turbo - 452 lumens (3.11A) it’s got levels for most any occasion.

Here’s Turbo to see the red oil drum at 97 yds, standard shots from the G1X at 1600 ISO, f/5.6 (5.8 tele) and 1/2 second exposure. 1st is at 28mm wide angle, second is 112mm zoomed in.

Not bad at all for a 3” neck light. :slight_smile:

With the FET driver going in on April 4th, today Aug 5th I swapped out the de-domed XP-G2 emitter for an XP-L V5 2A, also de-domed. Same driver, same Efest IMR10440 cells. Amperage draw is up to 3.20A from 3.11A, lumens jumped over 300 to 873 OTF now! Fantastic!

Lo = 10
Med = 86
Hi = 362
Turbo = 873!! Woohoo!

At 3.2A it’s right at the specs for max from Cree, so it should be pretty efficient, not doubling the max recommendation like the XP-G2 was. I should in theory get these additional lumens without much, if any, increase in heat and it’ll drain the cell at about the same rate as before. Win win all around. Better tint now as well. :wink:

The only way it can get any better is with the new BLFTiny10 boards from OSHPark, the new revisions allow it to run more stably and I should be able to go with moon modes and go with 5 levels instead of 4. I’ll get some new boards and build a new driver, lay it out a little differently with a lean towards the lower end. Won’t gain any output, but should gain one or possibly two modes for better usability with a lower low.

Crazy how this little light performs! The red oil drum in the picture is 97 yds away. This light is still using an Orange Peel reflector! That should change soon, and I’ll update this again. New reflectors are on the way…

Nice (re)build :-) Sure is a looker even when off!

BTW: Did I miss something about the driver blfTiny10 ? Was that not a fet based driver? How did you improve moon mode? I am sure it is just me that missed it but ins sounds way cool.