Solarforce Z1 - 1600 lumens on your keychain

Thanks. Now I know the secret to get an amazing mirror finish. I tried using mothers mag polish on a light, with a cotton dremel pad and I swear it looks nothing like the mirror finish you created. 600 grit is the key I see!

A triple in a light this small? I thought the Z1 was bright in stock form, I honestly never thought I would see a light this small pushing this many lumens. You are doing great things for this hobby. Please do us all a favor and sell us one of these.

Wait, jewelers rouge on printer paper after the 600 grit…? Do you mount the assembly upside down in a drill press and the bring the piece down onto a flat plate with paper and rouge? Or hold the piece upside down and do figure 8’s as with lapping a surface? However it’s done, the results are very impressive. A new gold standard.

Use the paper+jewelers' rouge on a glass plate, just like you would if you were using ultra-fine grit sandpaper.

Thanks, Comfy!

Keep these 219B, or switch to XPG2 4C?

well done

The only driver I have on hand that will fit into the pill is one of these things. Not bad, really, 5 mode with blinkies but it doesn't have memory and resets back to high after only about 1 second. Bridging the pad between the MCU pin and the ground ring switches it to 3 mode: high, low, strobe.

The little FET is awful, even with the resistor removed it only does 5.5A from a 20R, but of course a 20R won't fit in the light. The 16340s I have will only do about 2.75A. I have some AW 16340s on the way, and eventually the driver will be replaced with a BLF 15DD. I also have yet to polish the TIR before I make a judgement on whether shaving it down to ~17mm affected the beam. I think the Nichias are going to get replaced by some XPG2s, especially if the amps are going to stay in the please-don't-burn-my-hand-again range.

:open_mouth: very good work! is an amazing mod, I love it :heart_eyes:

Nice build! What are your expectations of amps on IMR and XP-G2s?
Looking forward for final results :slight_smile:

Oooh shiny, that's better

Don't know yet, I haven't used either the new-design driver or the AW IMRs yet. I'll have to experiment with it a bit.

I vote for Nichia 219b 5500K! The Vf at 1.5A (that is about what it is going to be per led?) is 0.15 V lower than the xp-g2, with the same output.

I used these: http://www.kaidomain.com/Product/Details.S022972

Well... what I mean is, the ones I used are whatever they sent me after I ordered that SKU and since it's KD there's not necessarily any relation between what it says there and what I got.

The 5500K version is this one:

http://www.kaidomain.com/product/details.S022877

And because of the lower Vf it is really going to give more light than the xp-g2 as long as you do not go over 3.5A per led.

Excellent build. You’re really doing some fine work with that set-up on your lathe end mill drill-press. Way to think outside the box, love it.

Ceiling bounce numbers...

100% stock Z1, fresh(ish) CR123 (2.93v OC), 1.59A (input): 12.4 lux

TR-801, 3x XPG2 R5 4C, FET driver, NCR18650 2900mAh (4.11v OC), 5A (input): this thing is crazy. At switch on it only does 33.x lux, but climbing rapidly - at around the 1:20 mark(!) it finally levels off at 61.3 lux, and hangs there for another 30 seconds, then finally starts to fall verrrrrrry slowly, 0.1 lux per about every 15 seconds.

The 3XP Z1, 3x Nichia 219B B11 SW45, crappy driver, crappy 16340 (only 3.93v OC), 3.35A (input): 33.4 lux at switch on, but falls rapidly (in line with the rate the current sags because of the crappy cell, it's not heat related). I need some real 16340s (it does 5.5A with a 20R, should do similar with an AW IMR, even if I don't swap the driver).

Beam profile seems fine even with the mutilated TIR.

I like the OTB thinking and finish work on that light. Pm me if you want me to mail you a couple 2502’s for the BLF15DD.

I’ll take 2. Can we get them signed by a good modder like Old_Lumens :stuck_out_tongue:

- Joe

There are amateurs, modders, tweakers then there are MODGAWDS…

Comfy firmly rests in the all caps category…no freeking way I would EVER be that good at what he does!