Well last night I finished my last touches on this headlamp. I spread some JB Weld in the zoom area and clamped the light with the head zoomed all the way back. Now it's nice and solid. I bet I also widened the flood by a few more feet (guessing about 23' wide at 12' back now).
I got this headlamp yesterday. My first headlamp and I wanted to try the mod in the original post!
First thing I did was replace the driver with a spare 3-mode Nanjg 105c (no strobe modes) I had laying around. My goal was to make a light to use for modding and detailwork up close…. so I can stop using my Olight S10 in my mouth. Since this is meant for up close work, I didn’t need a high-powered light. I removed 4 of the 7135 chips so the final light is around 1.5 amps. I also didn’t bother with upgrading the wiring or springs, though I did use a direct copper star as I had plenty on hand. For the emitter I used an 80 CRI 4000K XML2.
I tried to get the lens out but it seems completely stuck. Pressing it out from the top got nowhere… that sucker aint moving at all! :Sp This leaves me with a few options:
1. Attempt to “press” the existing lens out with a chisel and hammer. Risky as doing so will destroy the lens… but still might not dislodge it.
2. Drill out the edge of the inside of the lens with a power drill making multiple holes along the edge until the hole thing falls out.
3. Leave the current lens as-is.
4. Keep the stock lens but saw off the back of the bezel that holds the lens. This will allow the lens to sit further back giving a wider flood. It will make spot mode less focused, but it wasn’t really focused to begin with after I did the emitter swap. And since this light is meant for up-close work, the focus feature isn’t needed anyways.
Hmm . . . you must have more glue on your lens (or is a tighter press fit), as mine came right out with just slight pressure. What about placing a cloth over the lens and giving it a tap with a hammer?
Update: This is now one of my most used lights. I use it all the time, especially as it's now starting to get darker outside earlier. Great for up close hands free work! Everyone should have a floody neutral white headlamp.
I am still in the process of finding the ideal headlamp. For me it will be a single AA/14500 size one because I find 18650 headlamps just a bit too bulky. But I think a zoomie is what I want, and there are not many AA zoomies around.
Hi Garry.
(sorry for my english, I’m not native)
Do you think is possible to use a AMC7135*6 (NANGJ 105C) driver? What about temperature with your mod?
I want it to be use as headlight for bicycle.
Thanks
Hi Altex, welcome to BLF! I think the 105c should work, but you may have to mess with the center spring in the body where it will make contact with the 105c's center "+" contact (with 105c's spring removed).
Are you looking to use this as a helmet mounted light? This one is found on Ebay and might be a better option since it has a handlebar mount, but I don't know any details on it (i.e. heatsinking, driver size, etc. . .).
Hi again Garry, thanks for the link and for the welcome. Yes, I want it to be used on helmet but that one from ebay I think is too heavy for that (it weights 280 gr without battery)
Yeah, broke mine right off the little thing it was just stuck to with solder (maybe a cold solder join, not sure)
I did some tweaking on the spring to make it have a bit more actual physical contact and it’s fine after resoldering.
I did put a little sleeve around the spring so if it breaks again it won’t immediately short out to the metal around it, as it just pokes up through a hole and could easily do that if it bent a bit or fell over sideways — which would be bad.