What did you mod today?

I did the first of two red S2+ mods, and this was the more difficult one. Not because of what I did, but because of what I was forced to leave out. This is to be a camping/reading light for my girlfriend (birthday soon), and since she does not care one bit about flashlights, it has to be perfectly functional to please her: a soft floody and not too bright light for reading a book, and to find the way from the tent to the bathroom at night as well. Anything more is completely wasted on her :-(

So how can a flashaholic save his pride over this? By using a nice red 18350-size S2+ as a basis. By letting it have a butter-smooth floody beam by making it a triple with a frosted Carclo. By using three Oslon Square 3000K 92CRI leds. By using the simple elegant AK-47-C1 driver (no memory 3-mode, start in low), and removing a chip for just 700mA regulated leftover. By not telling her that with that triple Noctigon soldered to the pill and these leds that are inside her light, I would have had it run at 12amps if she only had shown a remote desire for that.

A nice feature of these S2+ lights that I got recently from Simon's store is that the threading inside the head is going (almost) close enough to the lens that a triple with Carclo optic can be used without needing a spacer (is this a new feature?), I just had to keep the glass lens in front of the optic to make it screwed tight against the front o-ring, and I did not flatten the top of the pill, just soldered the Noctigon op top of the rim (700mA is not going to cause much trouble, but I believe this could handle many amps anyway). A small (phosfor bronze) spring was soldered to the driver and the light was ready to go, an Efest 18350 battery fitted perfectly.

The grand performance , on a 700mAh 18350: 35mA/10lumen/20hours low, 175mA/54lumen/4hours medium, 700mA/165lumen/1hour high. The beam about perfectly illuminates a book from 40cm distance, while being directional enough to be used to walk by at night as well. And 20 hours is sufficient to read a book of 800 pages :-) (that is my reading speed, she reads faster than I do).

For the second red S2+ shorty (my copy) I'm glad that I will only be resitricted by my own shortcomings, the leds have not arrived yet but it is going to be a 18500 mod with grossly insufficient heatsinking on high setting :evil:

Very thoughtful of you Jos. We will hope sheā€™s so tickled with it, and your thoughtfulness in itā€™s build qualifications, that she puts the book away for a while so you can do midnight inspections with it. :wink:

Thanks all, Iā€™m baking my S4 tonight, will let you know the results.

Man djozz thatā€™s an awesome build. Where do you get those Oslon Squares? Iā€™d love to make a triple like yours!

You are such a sweetie djozz. Giving your girlfriend something she has no interest in but do the hard work on the gift anyway. Damn you sound like a few others here. Keep up the good work. Who knows, one day she may want a twelve amp output light. Not likely though.
I will have to mod the wifes lights to start in low. She turns it on and uses it whatever mode its on. :smiley:

Would you not be tempted to make the current a tiny bit more than 700mA? :wink:

These 92CRI 3000K Squares are, compared to Nichiaā€™s warm leds, a bit more yellow tinted but the red reproduction is still excellent, very incan-like
I buy the Oslons from rs-online. They do not sell to private persons but I buy there via my work (they let me do that every now and then). It seems that from the US this company is not easy to order from, which is a pity :frowning:

Nice light djozz . I will be building a couple simple light as soon as I get my ak47ā€™s back from mattlward, he is gonna try and make them 2 speeds.

Tonight I mobydrv ed my HO2 and gave in a 219c

My TMW-160F multitool :smiley:

Cheers

I built a triple using the X6 host.
3 X Nichia 219C, and the BLF A6 driver from Bangood. Having a time figuring out the modes though. They seem to do whatever they like.
The stock switch didnā€™t make it past soldering it onto the PCB. The heat from two quick spot solders cooked the spring, probably wouldnā€™t have lasted very long on DD anyway. Luckily I adapted a new one.

I also have this quad Ledil optic Iā€™d like to try in another X6. The problem is that itā€™s only 9mm tall as opposed to the Ledil Cute quad optic which is 15mm. This will require me to double the thickness of the heat sink which may make the whole thing to top heavy.


My first baking attemptā€¦ not sure why the tail turnout a more red-ish tone?

It looks so much better than before!

Nice Will! That should certainly stand out in an all black flashlight line-up! :slight_smile:

I wanted to try the Convoy S2+ with the metal button, so I bought a red one and converted it to a triple Nichia 219BT.

I hope my treatment of the exterior doesnā€™t upset too many members! Those who are squeamish should certainly NOT click to supersize:






This was my first attempt at weathering/stonewashing and Iā€™m pleased with the results. Hereā€™s what I did:

  • remove innards, leave metal button in place
  • replace lens with circle cut from credit card
  • stuff head and body with plastic wrap and reassemble with o-rings in place
  • sturdy bottle with a handful of clean gravel, drywall screws, broken glass, few drops of dish soap
  • wrap bottle with towel and secure with rubberbands
  • tumble in dryer without heat for 1 hour
  • carefully rinse flashlight, be careful of glass
  • scuff lightly with 400 grit wet/dry sandpaper to remove ā€œchalkyā€ feel
  • wash with dish soap and pat dry
  • disassemble host and clean the threads, o-rings, button, and interior

Hereā€™s a part list from Mountain Electronics:

The cigar ring is a slice of rubber chair tip labeled for 7/8ā€ to 1ā€ chair legs. The resulting ring is tapered on the outside surface and fits snugly. I got the idea somewhere on BLF but canā€™t find the source.

This Convoy is a bit of a ā€œrat rodā€ or ā€œsleeperā€ now! :smiley:

I like the ā€œstonewashedā€ finish :stuck_out_tongue:

Nice mod!

goshdogit thatā€™s pretty cool!

Looks like a kids EDC, few years old. :wink: (with a new lens) :stuck_out_tongue:

(I just toss mine out the window of the car @ 60 mph, similar look, far less trouble)

Bought a Jax Z1 Host from a member on here. Finally got to put it all put together.


I went with a XP-G2 S4 2B on Noctigon from RMM. Dedomed it in M.E.K. I also used a FET driver with the guppy v2 firmware. The pill is hollow so I ended up potting the entire thing with a combo of Fujik and Arctic Alumina Thermal Adhesive. I also used the Arctic Alumina to hold the mcpcb down.

Unfortunantly the stock centering ring wouldnā€™t work since it was for a XML emitter. Luckily I had a bunch of centering rings left over from all sorts of lights. I found one that fit perfectly. Couldnā€™t tell you what it came from, but Iā€™m glad I had it! Ended up using a Sharpe to color it black. There still is a little bit of the red from the top of the Noctigon showing through, but I donā€™t think it is going to make all that much of a difference.

This is probably my new favorite light. Itā€™s pretty much a tiny light saber now :beer:

Goshdogit,

Wow, love the look of that L2+ it reminds me of my Granddadsā€™ tools from the ā€˜30s. It has a ā€™care-worn and well-usedā€™ appearance.

I made a polycarbonate plug to aid in working on a light that has issues, I need to fill trit slots at the base where ferric chloride ate through but I donā€™t want the white Arctic Alumina Thermal Adhesive to stick to the pill for future removal. So the polycarbonate plug will be installed in place of the pill for the trit installation. I figured if the epoxy sticks to the threads the polycarb will break free easier than aluminum or copper would. As it so happens, the 1ā€ polycarbonate acts as a pretty cool diffuser wand on an 18350 Blue XP-E2 light. (solid bar, not bored to fit the light)

Now if my rainbow array of trit vials will just get hereā€¦.

These are not yesterdayā€™s mods, but the result of a week of (dis)assembling and lego-ing of UV-lights. From left to right:

1/ Convoy S2+ replaced standard emitter by 3535 Intl.Outdoor UV-emitter, 3*7135 = 1.00A with a 4.35V Samsung 28A
2/ Convoy S2+ host with short pill and SMO reflector from 3/. and Semileds 3535 emitter from member led4power.
A standard 3*7135 gives an easy 1.00 Amp from a not so freshly loaded 18350 Efest
3/ Originally a grey Convoy S2 with the old UV-led from Simon. New pill and TIR. Emitter from 1/. And a tail-cap light.
Driver from first BLF EE X6 = 3.59A with a Q30. The colour on this former UV-light is the result of 45 minutes baking at 300 degr.C in my wifeā€™s new electrical oven. Warning: donā€™t do this (while she is) at home.
4/ The emitter from 3/ went in a SK68 that had too much spare time anyway.
5/ Convoy S2+ replaced standard emitter by 5050 Epileds UV-emitter, 8*7135 = 2.71A with a KP3400.
This is a 400nm UV-light, and it gives you alotta purple!

The S2 has a bit longer ā€œbezelā€ than the S2+ so the longer pill+SMO-reflector combo leads to a minor ā€œgapā€ in light #2. The fact that a ZWB2 filter and a Noctigon are a bit thicker than their original counterparts does not help either!!

I have to ask here (concentration of moders here is higher than in other threads):
is it normal for SinkPAD to be like this, I am not sure if this is usable product or I received reject:

Normal, itā€™s how they did away with the depression on the underside. I know, I know, and Iā€™ve talked myself blue in the face to them over at SinkPAD but whatreyagonnado?

Thatā€™s the exact reason I bought the last 200 SinkPAD ver1 they had in stock. :wink: