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 don’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 1” 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 here….
These are not yesterday’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 wife’s new electrical oven. Warning: don’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 “bezel” than the S2+ so the longer pill+SMO-reflector combo leads to a minor “gap” 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, it’s how they did away with the depression on the underside. I know, I know, and I’ve talked myself blue in the face to them over at SinkPAD but whatreyagonnado?
That’s the exact reason I bought the last 200 SinkPAD ver1 they had in stock.
Ultrafire UF-T1 with 10mm FET driver, shortened polished reflector, magnetic tail, trit, carbon fibre pattern battery tube insert and XM-L on 10mm sinkpad soldered directly onto the tiny brass pill. Stepdown timer set to five seconds
Just over 3A on high mode, nearly untouchable after 30s even with the 5s rampdown to 50% so i have it set up to 2 mode - 10% & 100%.
10% is very usable and the 100% is for briefly being silly
Today I built an S2 shorty with a triple XP-E2.
I’m finding that XP-E2 is best for smaller cell lights such as 18350 and 14500 because of their lower current draw and more manageable heat output compared to XPG, XPL and 219C. Maybe not a walking the dog light, but for handy illumination tasks such as searching under things and poking around in a dark corner, the XP-E2 can’t be beat.
Because of their better heat management, XP-E2 triples can be run longer without getting smoking hot in 30 seconds, so I don’t bother with modes. Direct drive is perfectly suited to this set up.
Since I won’t be needing room for a driver, I just fill the pill with copper. Extra thermal mass is always good.
I got solder in the threads for the retaining ring, so I’ll just be soldering the contact board in place.
Here’s my thermal management set up.
Brass pill filled with copper
Aluminum spacer.
Copper disc. (I tried 2 discs, but impeded body tube from completely screwing in to the head)
Copper triple noctigon board with 3 x XP-E2 0D and
Carlco optic.
Z
Z
Soldered the neg. 20AWG teflon wire directly to the pill and brought the pos. through the contact board to connect with the spring.
Z
With a high drain purple Efest 18350 I’m getting 4.2A at the tail which is exactly the same reading I get from my 14500 light with triple XP-E2 “Torch” emitters. I can easily run it for 2 minutes without scorching heat issues. Two minutes is a lot of time to look for whatever your looking for, and 4.2A is a pretty conservative draw.
Don’t be fooled though. This set up puts out a lot of light.
Since I’m running this torch DD, I modified the tail to accept a fwd. clicky switch. Having the option of a soft momentary on is really nice.
Should be a nice little floody thrower with those XPE2 leds. I love these Leds in small lights at low currents. I’m building a quad myself at the moment with four XPE2 Torch Leds. Its only running a single NiMH though.
I compared these “0D” emitters against my “Torch” triple, and could see no difference at all. The tints were indistinguishable from each other, as were the beam profiles. I believe XP-E2 have the best beam profile of all in the Carlco triple optic. Beautiful!
Yes, great for small lights. I’m waiting to see your Quad. I’m searching for other optics and hosts to work with as I have 50 XP-E2 0D emitters I got from Mitko.
I’m going to change my user name to short. Every light I build these days seems to have a short that only appears when the lights assembled. I’m at the stage I’m going scream.
With 50 leds in hand you’ll have to try the Cutter quad boards. You have enough for 12 lights. Not that many when you think about it. PM me if you want any.
wasnt trying to make a light that generates sunburn… just using what i had on hand, light that needed a driver… had a driver left over from replacing another one… just a case of waste not, want not… silly to have a light kicking around in the dust on the shelf without a driver, when i have a left over driver laying around unloved on the OTHER shelf… so,
shrugs at least i did something, i guess. This might tide me over till my headlight and cheap zoomie get here from china… on the other hand, it might not if the boat is extra slow, LMAO. I might well get bored by then one more time, LMAO
It’s absolute garbage. VERY hollow pill with a fake LB emitter. There is literally no heat transfer. The threads are awful and already peeling apart. The oring got cut in half the first time the tailcap was unscrewed. There’s no o-ring on the front lens. The ano is the worst i’ve seen and looks like cheap paint.
I thought I’d try to polish up this turd.
A penny was the perfect diameter for the inside of the pill, so I soldered two pennies together, filed and polished one side, and inserted it in the pill to use as the shelf. All I had on hand was hot glue, so I squirted glue into the pill to hold the pennies in place. Then I added a spare driver I had from a thorfire C8, an XP-L HI, and some thermal paste. I also had to use hot glue to hold the driver in place since the cavity was so big. I soldered a wire to the ground ring and hot glued the wire against the side of the pill to make ground contact.
It’s honestly very, very rough/ugly, but I didn’t want to put so much time into such a badly made light. But even then, I put about 6 hours of work into the dumb light. Worst of all, I feel attached to it since I made it, so I actually like it now lol. It’s the first zoomie iv’e used and its fun to play with.
If anyone has better ideas on how to do any of this more efficiently, please let me know! I’d love ideas in case another situation like this comes up.
PM me if you want any.
