Today I built a triple using XP-L V6 2C’s with Wights A17DD-S08 driver. I didn’t wait for Nitro’s sinks, but instead made another aluminum one. Geesh these are a pain to make! The Quad is very time consuming, don’t think I’ll be making another of those…I’ll wait for Nitro and his guy.
A short Video Library of some shots showing the sink and triple optics with the Noctigon going in. This time instead of sanding off the part of the legs from the Optics that protrude through the Noctigon, I drilled shallow holes in the heat sink for them to fit into. I kept the sink big and had to hammer it into the head of the X6. But now the optics and emitter/star don’t turn when you put on the bezel.
I must be jaded. I feel disappointed that it only makes 3800 lumens. 12.79A from an Efest 35A Purple cell. 7.5 lumens at the lowest setting, 7 levels with the 1st 4 being under 1A.
I used 20 ga in this one. I’ve used 18 before, the one that is doing over 4000 has 18 ga. This one has a 20ga bypass at the driver, as well as in the tail. 20ga all around.
The only issue will be with a 2 sided board you will have to modify the brass retaining ring. The brass is easy to work, a small round file will do nicely. Rotary tool makes it faster and exponentially more dangerous.
It doesn’t need a whole lot, just enough to clear the components on the board so it doesn’t push em off or short the positive LED or something.
Richard has a couple of versions that will work well, the BLF17DD Ver 3.1 works fairly well, the components at the edge are small and it doesn’t take much to clear em. There’s already a bevel cut in the ring so it can act as a guide to make it easier.
I have used a butane micro torch to reflow drivers, but I’ve never done an emitter either. I think I’ll try the frying pan method. It should be interesting. XP-L’s are too expensive… Makes me nervous.
Dang Nitro! You converted my entire payment into 32mm Noctigons! lol
I don’t know how many Hank has left, the site has been showing 168 since he restocked em and I know that can’t be right. I got my 9… figured even if I don’t need em now, who knows where they’ll come in handy later on. Right?
I have a 6” circle of 1/8” thick 304SS that I picked up for free at the welding shop. He’d cut it out of a plate on a project he had recently completed. This sits perfectly on the 6” small burner on our induction stove top. At a setting of about 4 1/2 I let it heat up for about 5 minutes, then place the star on it and watch the magic! The big thing re-flowing emitters is how little solder paste it actually takes. If you don’t have paste, you can touch the pad with some solder on your iron and let it “tin” that way. The emitter sit’s all wonky on top of the hardened solder but when it heats up on the stove it magically jumps into place.
This was experimenting with the bigger XHP70, putting it on a copper pedestal so it’d fit the XM-L star. The magic happens at the very end of this short video (solder starts melting at about 39 seconds) if you don’t care to hear me talking about it and the phone ringing…
But now the optics and emitter/star don’t turn when you put on the bezel. 
