Renamed Thread - Solitaire + Nichia 219 + Efest 10440 = another micro mod - Beam shots are up

Hey, sitting inside playing PC games is killing me, so since it's "supposed to" be a little cooler this week, maybe I can do a simple mod in the mornings, before the garage gets hot.

I have this little Red Solitaire and it's looking lonely. I hate that forlorn look it has, I think you can see it in the photo. See how sad it looks?

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Once the rest of the parts in the garage saw me pick up a light, things became rather hectic. Stuff just migrated onto the table. I didn't even have to think about it, they just showed up for the opening ceremony.

I'm thinking a Nichia 219 with 2x7135 chips and a TIR optic. The rest of the copper and brass is to build some form of pill.

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Trying to solder these two chips together and adding wires that would hold on, was a big chore for me today. I think I am out of practice. Like they say, use it or loose it and from the looks of this job, I've lost it. Well, at least its soldered and doesn't fall apart, so I will go with it. One wire will go from the battery positive to the Vdd pin and onto the led+. The other wire will go from the out pin to the led-. The ground pins are soldered to copper.

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I am trying to make a pill like the stock plastic one, so that the light will use the bezel/head to turn the led on/off just like original.

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I have cut two pieces of brass tube, to act as the new pill. They slide together. The larger one touches inside the body tube, like the normal contact did and the other goes up in the tube to be affixed to the led star.

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Here's how the 7135 chips will fit in. On the left will be a positive battery contact and on the right is the two wires that will go to the led.

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This is how the pill fits in and somehow, (I don't know how just yet), the led star will need to be affixed to the brass. When the bezel is turned in, it will push the assembly down and break contact and when it is turned out, the spring will push it back up to make contact, just like the stock one, (I hope).

That's all for now...............................................................................

07-02-2013

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So.... That nice pill did not work. I had to scrap it and start over. Completely over, as in figuring out a different method all together. If the pill were to lift up to turn on, then the led would not make contact with anything and get hot fast. I knew that, but I was going to pretend I didn't.Embarassed It finally got the best of me, so now the pill will sit on top of the body rim and the bezel/head will tighten onto it, to make a pressure fit, so the led can get some heat transfer. That means a different means of on/off, as the bezel will remain stationary now. I cut a new piece of 5/16 brass tube and soldered on a thin copper round.

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I drilled it for wire holes and it's ready to have the led/star put in place.

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I decided to go ahead and cover the solder joints with AA adhesive. Better safe than sorry.

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Here's the modified star, led and pill. There is Not a lot of room in this tiny light.

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I also made another copper round for the positive terminal and used a short piece of plastic to isolate it. It is soldered to the positive wire to the chips inside.

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I even tested it and it works! The purple color is just my camera's inability to get the color correctly, due to the brightness of the led. This is going to be a really big difference from a stock Solitaire.

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Here's the stack up, with the TIR in place.

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Here's how well the stack height came out. It does not rattle and the bezel is just about down all the way.

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But..... the pill is too long inside the body, as can be shown by the dummy cell sitting inside. It's about 5mm too long, so it will be time to mod the tail cap to compensate. I will have to shorten the tail cap.

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The new method of on/off will be a twist of the tail cap. I removed the Ano from the bottom edge of the body and I am removing the Ano from the tail cap. I am trying to keep the Ano on the threads, so I have it sitting in the greased lightning, so that only the top of the cap gets de-anodized.

That's really about it. It works and all I need is a 10440 battery. I have them on the way. I just bought two of the efest 10440 and an i4 charger. This time, I am going to keep the batteries and the charger. Yes, it has finally happened. I have succumbed to the deadly curse of the Li-ion devil. I will forever be worrying about explosions and the garage burning, or the batteries getting too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter. Most likely, since I will use them only for testing, they will just sit till they die from low voltage, but I do not actually plan on using them for anything but testing.

All this came about because I may be getting lights for review and I will need the Li-ions to test them. If all goes well, I will have a few lights to review and then to Mod... and then to give away. Keep your fingers crossed, it might happen.

I will do some beam shots of this light when the batteries get here.

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The batteries and charger arrived and they are charged up. Tonight I will do some beam shots. Here's the last of the photos of the finished light.

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There's a little filework on the tail cap. If I had it to do all over again, I would not have polished the tail cap, but just left it stock. This is really a bright little light and tonights beam shots should tell, but I really like the tiny size and I am thinking that when it cools off this fall, I should build a bunch of them and sell them. I can get black, green, blue, purple, red, silver, gray and pink, so there's a good selection of colors.

Beamshots.............. Tonight

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Those are all with "Daylight" white balance and they came out too yellow. Here's one with "Auto" white balance and it's a little too white, so the reality is somewhere in between.

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I was totally impressed with the Efest 10440 IMR. Look at these numbers:

  • Start 4.13Volts 650mA
  • 5 minutes 3.83 volts 650mA
  • 10 minutes 3.71 volts 650mA
  • 15 minutes 3.64 volts 620mA

I quit after 15 minutes. I wonder just how long it would run before getting to below 3 volts? For a 10440, that is amazing. I never thought that tiny battery could take that kind of abuse. OH, it's HOT too. I held the light in my hand, so that my hand would absorb heat and it's dammed hot!... But, it did well and stayed bright!

That's it.

there was never a more appropriate use for that meme.

Can’t wait to see how you pull this off. So far it looks more elegant than my method.

Updated, it's basically done now.

The parts on Solitaires are so small they make my fingers ache. Nice job.

Thanks, you're right. My fingers were swollen and sore this morning, after working on those tiny parts.

Nice work O-L. I have a Solitaire and have been wondering how I would go about modding it. I do want to maintain the head twist turn on though, so that should be a challenge. 1x7135 will be enough for my purposes. Should be about 30 times brighter than stock :wink:

Nice mod, 700mA is perfect for the 219 and the efest 10400. But is about time you get some copper boards, not because of the performance, but because they are solderable.

Very nice OL. You gotta love those twisty switches. If you dont mind would it be possible for you to do a video on how you join the likes of the round tube to the flat? I cant believe the small bead off solder around the join. Mine would look like it had been sitting in a chook shed for a week if I attempted that join. Thanks.

Can’t do videos at work, they frown on that kind of stuff.

  1. Set the copper round on something like a brick, which won't absorb heat or burn.
  2. Set the tube on the copper round, (centered).
  3. Take a pair of shears and cut two or three small lengths of solder, so that they will fit into the tube. (I use rosin core 60/40 solder).
  4. Drop the pieces into the tube.
  5. Heat the tube with a small torch. I use a small butane torch.
  6. When it heats up enough, the solder will melt and the rosin will allow it to flow. It will naturally flow into the seam and up the tube a little. Just heat till it starts to melt and flow and let off the heat. (If you use solid core solder, make sure you use flux on both parts before you set them together).

It's that easy.

Thanks OL. I would never off thought of doing it that way. Very clever.

I’ve recently did a rather large multi-piece solder job like this, but I used solder paste instead. It worked surprisingly well, even on the vertical joints. It allows you to put the paste exactly where you want it and it flows around the joints quite nicely. Just avoid direct flame contact (I used hot air reflow) as it might do bad things to the paste.

Updated the OP

Oh, I measured the tail cap current and with a fresh 10440 Efest, I got 650mA. Not bad at all...

Sometimes when soldering a cylinder to flat I tin the lip of the cylinder. When I heat the other part, the joint flows together. That’s how I did the laser mounts. Good when you don’t want to overheat one side of the joint.

Beam Shots are up!

Looks great as always! :slight_smile:

Amazing beamshot of the garagedoor, you turned the little Solitaire into a powerhouse!

Welcome to the toxic world of lithium OL. Its amazing how much light you have got out of this midget light. Thanks also for the hint on soldering. I put it to good use yesterday.

This thread says 2 x 7135 and the sale thread says direct drive. Do you mean current controlled but no modes? By the way, the efest 10440 will push 2A easily though not for very long. I mainly figure this mod for very brief use so I don’t worry to much about the heat but I do sometimes make or use a finned sleeve that fits over the head to help a bit.

That’s an incredible upgrade for this AAA host! IMR too!