i almost finished the mod of a Roche F8 in desert yellow.
The light got a heatsink with 18mm height with 4mm hole. The heatsink is screwed to the pill with two M3 screws. I plan to fill the gap between heatsink and head with Fujik for better heat transfer, but that is a separate step. The 3XP MCPCB is soldered to the heatsink.
Fully assembled. The light uses a Carclo 10507 optics but i will try 10508 later, because i think the beam could be i bit broader. I don´t need much throw from this one. The light is powered by a MTN FET Driver and a LG HE2 battery.
Here in comparison to 2x BLF Ti (XP-G2 S3; Nichia 219B) and a Sinner (Nichia 219B dedomed). Multicolor
I measured lumens via ceiling bounce and got 2800 Lumens at startup The light gets hot pretty fast but not as fast as i thought. My multimeter can only measure up to 10A but i think here are flowing more than 12A. Based on Dale´s Quad Nichia this was the plan on mine I really like this light! I am still a bit scared about the tiny little tailcap switch to melt …
Same here. Just added one to a C8 (replaces an DD XM-L2). With a stacked 7135 driver (~2.7A) its pushing around 35K lux (XP-G2 in S4 bin should be around 38K with the same setup). With the linear driver its still pushing 2A with the battery down to 3.5V (1/3 of capacity left) so looks like the low voltage will help it stay in regulation for quite some time. I think I will be adding these to a number of Eagle Eye X6s and Convoy C8s for friends and family.
Can’t same I’m blown away by them (was hoping for a little more throw) but they are a nice alternative to XP-G2 and would be excellent for headlights, worklights etc. Cheap to.
I got the bare LED's from Richard, so I had to reflow.
I had a spare board that was the same diameter & thickness as the original, so I just flowed the 219c & it was a straight swap over, although I took the opportunity to replace the lead wires with 22awg silicone wires. I re-used the original thin insulating gasket.
Note that the board is very thin (1mm*14mm), compared to most boards (~1.5mm). With such tight clearances in this light, using a thicker board might be an issue if the cell is on the long side.
I couldn't say if a 16mm board will fit - there was plenty of clearance for the 14mm board, but I didn't test a 16mm on the pill.
The led will be no problem, remember it easily survived 10 amps. The Efest 10440 are great but will not deliver 10A, my wild guess is 4A at start, skyrocketing down from that. The led will be fine but the battery may protest..
Ok, I hope that is the case then… I was worried about initial spikes in the current. Thanks for your opinion djozz. If the battery protests - that’s fine! Rather the battery than the LED. I’m only receiving my 219Cs in a few weeks time. I’ll test and give feedback then… maybe somebody else will jump the gun in the meantime
Thanks finges… It should probably do over 10 amps with the 25R. For now, Im planning use the 219C only with smaller cells, 18350, 16340 (regulated drivers at around 4 amps) & 10440 (direct driven). For 18650 and up, I’m still sticking with the XP/M range… The 219C with its low forward voltage makes it quite practical with the smaller cells.
I have one from Cutter in a CNQ zoomy host, with 12 x 7135. It’s my brightest one cell light, accept possibly for my BLF A6, and probably my best flashlight now. The spot is not much smaller than that of the same host and lens with an XM-L2, and is bigger than it was with a de-domed XM-L. This is not a small die. I hope someone finds an easy way to dedome it.
I tried a 219C on a FET driver with spring bypasses and it hated me! Tint changed in seconds and dimmed, I got it shut off before it died but it just didn’t like my set-up… I was showing around 9A in that first few seconds but the meter was climbing.
A PanPD would run it around 7A and all was well. Just can’t use the top cells.
Edit: Tried again. Showing 8.55A it ran 12 seconds and the tint suddenly warmed and started shifting erratically and I killed power. This is in an A6, bare, with TK’s firmware and pulling off a 30Q.
Thanks for sharing that Dale, that’s good to know. After the tint changed, did it return back to normal or is it permanently altered?
I just put together a A6 with a Nichia 219C (on Noctigon) with a LD-1. I like the results but is gets super hot pretty quickly. I’m not sure how practical it is in a light with so little mass to draw heat away. Then again, I don’t think it’s any worse than a BLF A6.
The hot spot is smaller and more defined than the XP-L and it is more intense. It seems to throw a little further but I don’t have a way to measure. Tint is pretty nice as well, but not as nice as the XP-L 3D.
I’m going to remove the LED and try it in either a S8 with a SMO to see if I can get a little more throw.
Put together an A6 with a 5000k 219C and I have to say I’m pretty disappointed. Compared to my other A6 with a V2 3C XPL-HI the 219C seems inferior in every way. On a NCR18650GA it pull 5.5 amps, 1 more than the XPL-HI, to produce ~10% less light, ~35% less lux at 5m, and has a cooler tint.
The lower output isn’t unexpected; it’s the lack of throw and tint that got me.
I just did this combination in my Tool build, my multimeter says 2.8A, however I know it’s more as it’s visibly brighter on shorting the leads. My guess is 3.5-4A. The 219C can take it but requires a DTP star as it goes blue if fed that much on a “normal” star. The efest gets quite warm if left for 30+s tho, but seems OK.
I have both the 4000k and the 5000k 219C now. I prefer the tint of the 5000k as it’s more neutral to my eyes, whereas the 4000k is leaning towards warm. The 5000k is quite similar in tint to the famous 92 typical CRI 4500k 219B, however the reds (in both the 4000k and 5000k 219Cs) are visibly more subdued than the 219B.
Hence Nichia’s guaranteed minimums (lower than typical values) of:
219B: Ra 90, R9 50
219C: Ra 80, R9 0
Ra being the aggregate score of the 8 colours used to calculate CRI and R9 being the colour “Natural Red” which is sadly not used in the CRI calculation. R9 values of 50+ are extremely useful in surgical lighting as many tissues and blood are shades of red.
In case you didn't see them, I posted some comparison beamshots in "My Bike Light Thread" post #46 & $47. I modded a Nitefighter BT40S that came stock with NW XP-G2's (which I had compared tint with other lights and found to be 4C or very very close) over to Nichia 219C's. I then compared these Nichia's to my favorite XM-L2 5B1 tint.
(So I did get around to using them without letting them sit on my workbench for months!)
The light gets hot pretty fast but not as fast as i thought. My multimeter can only measure up to 10A but i think here are flowing more than 12A. Based on Dale´s Quad Nichia this was the plan on mine 
I really like this light! I am still a bit scared about the tiny little tailcap switch to melt …