Mec-Army PT-16, Triple XP-G2 in a "Nutshell" (NOW a 3402 Lumen Quad!)

I looked at an 18500, much too long. Besides, where is there an 18500 that supplies the kind of power the Efest Purple IMR18350 will give?

I bought a few quad boards for a project that didn’t pan out, so …

Dale, just checking, did you do runtime with the 16340 and 18350? I’m just thinking since it comes with that awesome small form factor, might be good to keep to that form but with your awesome 1493 OTF lums to wow friends instead of ramping up to almost 18650 form, where most torches congregate.

That said, duration might be a whole PITA experience.

The light is making 2187 lumens from an 18350. It looks just like it did before. (Well, it’s a quad now instead of a triple) I have the charger working outside of the light, seems to be a nice little charger in it’s own right.

Haven’t done any kind of run-time tests, just got it done this morning and then my SP-03 came in and I spent the day building it with MTN’s SRK driver and a massive tellurium copper pill I made for it (all today, just got done)

Two fairly tough builds, one long day, I’m exhausted! lol

Update:
I now have the 10440 and 14500 variants of this light as well. With the 16340 being heavily modified I’m leaving the other 2 stock. Swapping in a better cell makes for a nice improvement and the built in charger still makes it a very nice EDC style light that can be recharged almost anywhere with the battery bank for back-up.

The 10440 is a bit on the odd side with it’s VERY narrow tube, the 14500 is sweet, a nice balance.

The 16340 is still amazing in it’s form factor, short squatty potent little light that easily fits in a watch pocket. Crazy small. These would make nice gifts to a flashlight noob, with the USB charger built in no extra bits and pieces required. They even come with a decent cell already inside, simply remove a plastic disc that is blocking current and you’re up and running.

The only thing to watch for is that you’re getting the new UI as compared to the original one. If I’d gotten the new UI in the 16, I probably wouldn’t have modded it at all. :wink:

Where’d you purchase your 14500 version from so that I’ll know I’m getting the newest UI?

I got it on Massdrop. Just pay attention to what they say the UI does, it should start on Moon with the first click to wake it up, a double click from off is instant Turbo (I’m blind now, had to actually do it to make sure I was remembering right)

Dale, did you ever figure out if the newer retaining ring without notches is threaded or not? Thinking about tearing into mine soon but want to get the switch cover off so I can put it in the vise to crack loose the bezel.

Yes, it’s threaded. I have one right here that I coincidentally just put on the charger… easily removed the threaded switch retaining ring with my fingernails. :wink:

Just did some modification to the PT-16 by swapping emitters and fitting the optic, I pulled the 1.5A XP-G2’s in favor of the new 3A XP-L W2 1D. The opening for the emitter in the optic is narrower than I’d hoped so I used a ball nosed end mill bit to fit the optic to these new emitters. While it doesn’t make a lot more lumens, it should be producing a lot less heat as the 3 XP-L W2 1D are running at such a low power consumption.

11.834 Lumens
81.42
337.76
1138.5

Slightly more lumens, nice tint, perhaps more heat efficient? At the very least I know I’m ready to turn it into a quad with one more emitter and then I can pull the driver and piggyback in a ramping firmware FET for what should prove to be some serious bumpage. :wink:

I have the pt18 and pt14 and I must say that these are my most luxurious feeling lights. Very nice lights! I’m not sure what I’m going to do yet. The tint is too cool for me. It washes colors out and reflects a lot of unusable white back at me when I’m trying to look for something I’ve dropped onto the carpet under my work area. (By the way, that carpet has to go! I spend half my day searching for all the things I drop and bump as I’m stumbling around working on stuff)

I wanted to try to reflow some of the nichia 219c 4000k high cri but I’m afraid the lower vf will result in less power. Seems to be the case with most high cri options. Any high cri options with a higher vf. In the 4000-5500 temp range though.

Ok, just because I could, I put a 15mm FET driver with ramping firmware in this PT-16, Quad XP-L W2 1D emitters under a Carclo quad optic. Doubled copper under the emitters.

It’s making 1801 lumens on a rested and partially used Red Efest Button Top 16340. :slight_smile:

Edit: The charger is still in the top of the battery tube, perhaps on a warmer day I will remove the charger and bore the tube for an 18350 and see if I can’t break the 2000 barrier. On the other hand, it’s nice to have the charger still intact…. :wink:

A close copy, the SR71, will take an 18350 and should be a great quad mod host as well.

For the price, the blackwater lights do not look as nice to me. I think it’s the pinaple knurling or something. But I’ve never held one so can’t say for sure. I do like the tail cap with lanyard hook option though.

I put a 20ga spring bypass through the charger pcb, it had small coil springs on each side of the board, I put a slightly larger one on the battery side to allow the internal 20ga wire to coil slightly under compression.

Fresh charge on the little Efest V2 16340 gives me 2294.25 lumens. Works for me!

(for now) I have some 1000mAh 15A continuous Efest 18500’s en-route, I’ll make a couple of copper or brass spacers ( one on each end so the o-rings stay covered…even aluminum would work) and bore out the battery tube so the 18500 will work and the lumens output should go up considerably. :smiley:

Will post when I get that done, probably early next week. We’re at 25 and dropping, supposed to have maybe single digit temps overnight, yuck!

Edit: By the way, it looks like the little Efest V2 16340 is delivering 5.5A at the tail. The 15mm driver has one of the little 3 legged MOSFET’s on it. I can’t expect it to perform like an SIR800DP or something, but it’s doing really well so far.

Brass spacers? I’ll be interested to see how this works out:)

Yeah, like, a threaded tube but thin and cut short such that one on each end would space the battery tube out and allow a longer cell to work. The margins are thin, trying to be sure the o-rings stay covered so it looks right and maintains water-proofness, but it looks doable. I’m more worried about the battery tube being pretty thin bored for an 18mm cell, might just make a knurled titanium tube to replace the stock one so the 18500 cell works perfectly and things aren’t “fudged”.

I like the titanium idea. My childhood perception of titanium has varied well on into adult hood:)

22 is my favorite number. :smiley:

I’m not a chemist but I did used to have fun with just #2 at birthday parties. You could read that a couple of ways but count me civil enough to know the difference :smiley:

When I was a kid I was small and quick. I loved watching Bob Hayes, #22 for the Dallas Cowboys, break away and leave everybody in his dust. Then it was Emmett Smith, also number 22 for the Cowboys, breaking records and becoming one of the all time greats in his own right. And some 20+ years ago I discovered Titanium. Lightweight and strong, #22 on the Periodic Table of Elements, and I became obsessed. I wear Titanium glasses, have had a Ti wedding band of my own make, Ti wristwatches, knives, pill fobs, key fobs with Tritium vial inserts, Ti EDC flashlights of my own make, you name it, I love it in Titanium.

Some 16 years ago my son talked me into joining Yahoo Chat. I was TiFreak2201, somehow that gave people the wrong vibe and I got a lot of comments. Go figure. For me it was innocent enough. I’m a Ti Freak, it’s PTE #22, and the year was 2001. In the end it all worked out, I met my wife within a couple of hours of getting online and we’ve been married 14 years now. :slight_smile: