S3 host, Red XP-E, QLITE 7135*8 3.04, Noctigon XP16 copper MCPCB from Mountain Electronics

Richard put it together for me. Red XP-E is rated at 0.7 to 1 amp but because of the copper he bumped it up to 1.9 amps, he dared not go further :slight_smile:

I was itching for a red light, this took care of that! 5 mode: 2, 25, 100%, strobe, beacon……

just putting it out there for those interested in red emitter.

YouTube video is set to “Private”. Very cool light!

Nice!

Secret video. :bigsmile:

apologies, should be ok now. It is not easy to find where that setting is on Youtube! The video is terrible, you might be sorry :slight_smile:

I’m interested in seeing some beamshots. Since the S3’s shallow reflector usually produces a floody beam, does the throwy XP-E give it a combination of a decent throw with a bit of a floody beam? This could be intriguing.

Richard does good work. He built an S2 for me. It’s one of my favorite lights.

You got me thinking after reading about your hard driven red XP-E. It got me wondering how red a light could get.
I had a triple 4x18650 Yupard I didn’t have any plans for and 3 red XP-E. I added some chips so the driver would put out 1.9A per emitter and reflowed the emitters onto Noctigons.
Wouldn’t you know it, I killed the third emitter while reflowing and don’t have any more. It could have been a very interesting light.

how much was it if you don’t mind me askin?

Hello Ouchyfoot. Red is really something different, especially a bright red. 150 lumens is a lot for red. 18sixfifty offered me a light he built - a Unique Fire UF - T20 with a Phlatlight PT-54 red LED ran at 3 amps. This is an aspheric. Good throw but the zoom lights up the world he said! He mentioned something less than 300 lumen. If I had not bought the S3 I certainly would have bought his offering. He was asking $55, that’s most likely a steal.

Like I said, a red light is different. I don’t think I am interested in any more of them, but had to try ONE anyway! The beam is definitely red, but I would prefer a deeper red.

take care,
patrick

don’t mind at all:

S3 host - $18.00 (includes him building it)
QLITE driver - $4.20
Cree red XP-E - $3.89
Noctigon XP16 copper MCPCB - $1.99
shipping - $2.39

total - $30.47

(the pronounced yellow hotspot isn’t really there)



Those are nice looking hotspots. You should still get a good amount of throw. Have you left it tailstanding for any length of time on high? My S2 is only running at 1.4 amps on high. It gets quite hot when left tailstanding on high for more than 15 minutes or so. I wonder if mine is getting too hot, but then again I’ve been told that mine can run for extended periods on high at that amperage without damaging the light.

At 1.4A you're not going to overheat an S2. Even at 2.2A it might get uncomfortably warm but it probably won't damage the light unless left turned on in direct sunlight where the light would be getting hot anyways. At 3A it is probably possible to damage the light depending on ambient temperature.

Also, this emitter seemed to be real picky about where it wanted to be in this reflector to get the hotspot looking good. I tried a few different combinations and ended up with a clear XP-G gasket with the XM-L centering ring on top of it. I tried just the clear gasket, and an XP-G butterfly gasket as well. Most of these do really well with the emitter about as far into the reflector as you can get them but this one wanted to be back out a little bit more. Pretty nice hotspot actually for an S3, I had never done one with an XP-E before.

RMM, thanks for the confirmation about overheating the light at 1.4 amp.

Out of curiosity, I attached a temp probe to the head of my new S2 you built. I turned on the light and left it tailstanding. After half an hour on high, the temp was stable at 141 degrees Fahrenheit. The light felt hot to the touch, but quickly cooled down when I picked it up and held it. The ambient room temperature was 75 degrees. Looks like my little test shows that what feels hot to the hand is not too hot for the LED.

141F isn't a problem at all. Most of the electronics in these can take around 250-300 degrees Fahrenheit without immediate damage, although higher temperature probably degrades them a lot faster. General rule of thumb is that if you can touch the light without getting burned then it's probably alright on the inside (unless the light has very poor heatsinking).