Modding my SP03, it has a Black Shadow terminator driver.

So far I haven’t done a whole lot. It was a real pain the back side trying to get the driver out but I got it. It was only partially glued down. I bridged one of the resistors and did a spring mod. It gained about 500 lumens. I’ll be de-doming and adding copper stars and heavy gauge wire soon.

I managed to kill the switch when I took it apart but I had an extra, no lights on it. But that is fine with me. I planned on getting rid of them anyway.

What was interesting was that it’s a blackshadow terminator driver. I’m hoping to jack this one up to around 3,600 lumens and get at least 220k out of it.

Once done, let me know if you can duplicate the results. Mine could stand to gain a a cool thousand lumens or so. :stuck_out_tongue:

The problem is that I have no idea how much glue they put on other people’s drivers. I was willing to rip mine out if need be and replace it with the three terriod driver from Wallbuys. I got lucky and it was only glued down in a small area.

Can you post more info about the driver mod?

Are you using the stock driver? How much current delivers it at stock and after the resistor mod?

Thanks!

Howdy, I have modded a few of them now and it’s a huge improvement. I don’t generally rely on current reading. But with heavy gauge wire put in, spring mods and three resistors bridged I was getting around 4,500 lumens.

Just a bridge? Do you remember which resistors or have any pic?

I don’t have a picture but if you take a picture I can point it out to you.

I don’t have, I’m just planning to buy this light to mod and have a nice thrower, but not sure if buy this model or maybe another better to mod, if there is any

Well the SP03 is one of the best in this price range. You could mod a TK75 but it would cost a lot more and I don’t think it’s really any better.

Then of course there is the BTU shocker. It can be modded up to beat the SP03 but it’s huge, I did a couple of them. Not exactly great for walking around with. The Trustfire J19 is super modded. I also modded up a bunch of them they are even heavier than the shocker but easier to carry because they are not so top heavy. Plus they take the 32650’s so you can get a ton of run time out of them. There is also the Lustefire triple that one I really like as well. It has one of the nicest beams around for a large triple. I have also modded a large triple marsfire that is really well built.

I guess it depends on the size and form factor.

Also if you are looking for just a thrower without the extra lumens and flood then there are other lights to consider as well.

The SP03 is a super light to mod and done properly it’s really a beast of a light and a light that should get a lot more attention. The only real problem is that some of them are really difficult to get apart without killing the driver or switch.

I actually have some extra SP03’s that I’ll be modding soon, two Lustefire 3xs and a marsfire that I would sell.

SP03 resistors

Here is a beamshot comparison thread with a modded SP03 vs other modified throwers. Check post 32 in that thread for my impression on SP03 vs some others.

I found I had an old snapshot of the driver before I modded it. Here you are:

Put a green line under the resistors where the magic happens. Put a wire over them, replace them with a wire or whatever your prefer to make the juices flow better. :p

Replace stock stars with Noctigon and copper braid emitter springs.

As for performance. The light is front heavy, not super comfortable handle, and not as efficient in terms of light output as a TK75 based on what I have seen and remember (emitter lumens vs OTF). I believe TK75 with modest increase to 3,5A to each emitter (stock is about 2,8-2,9) had fairly similar performance to the SP03 when it was driven to around 4A on Noctigons. I did not write the numbers down, but I was impressed with the TK75 or not so impressed with my modded SP03 when comparing them. I thought the harder driven SP03 was supposed to be a step up, but that was not the case. Maybe its only T6 bin emitters, or maybe its that plus the fact that lens and reflector are not as good.

Also worth to have in mind that the TK75 is regulated. So it will perform better once the SP03 gets lower on power. Its probably unfair to compare with TK75 though.

SP03 is a nice budget light, that can be modded to outperform a stock TK75 if the batteries in the SP03 are full. But the overall package is not comparable to a TK75 IMO. Ofcouse, a BLF DD driver and some high drain batteries would make the SP03 sing even nicer. I just did a cheap simple budget mod on mine with the stock driver. Makes the light perform nicely on PF cells, good runtime, still battery warning light, OK UI, and really compact without costing too much. Could also be really cheap to mod.

Personally, Ill probably get rid of my SP03 for a highly modified TK75, but that's a totally different price range.

Many thanks 18sixfifty, optntdr13 and also RaceR86, I think I'll hit the trigger and buy this flashlight and three XM-L2 with noctigon stars and see what happens.

Thanks again!

You’re welcome.

For it to hit the 4,500 lumen range you do have to use high amp batteries. Either the sony green ones or the Samsung 20r’s.

My SP03 from CNQG arrived two days ago. It reads 7300 mA at the tail with four Sanyo 18650s (from you) at 4.07 volts so it calculates to about 2861 mA per emitter or 2577 lumens OTF. It also reads 550 lux at 11 meters or 66,550 cd which calculates to 516 meters throw. For me its a good performance already by I just can’t help but want to push it harder.

I have already done the spring braids using AWG 18 wires and right now I stumble at getting the driver out. I seems to be ‘soldered’ to the body. I need to do the resistor bridging (which I call direct-resistor mod) and swap its MCPCBs with SinkPads. I’m not sure yet whether I’ll dedome its XM-L2s or not since I like its beam pattern as it is and I already have a dedomed BTU Shocker.

Any tips on how you got your driver out?

To extract the driver, what I did is to extract the switch and then push with a screwdriver from that hole, put some protection and be careful, use another light to see where to push without damaging anything.

The bad of doing this, is that I broke the silicone part of the switch and don't know how to glue it; but if I have a new SP03 I would do the same, because the other option is to drill the driver and risk to drill an electric component.

PS: On my SP03, I did the resistor mod, dedomed noctigons XM-L U2 1C, turnigy silicone cables, and extra copper inside. The output and throw is AWESOME!.

Pics:

http://postimg.org/image/6edjwwmu3/

http://postimg.org/image/5fx6um9i3/

Wow! Thank you FX-32! So that means I have to sacrifice something to get at that awesome output and throw. :_(