Almost any flashlight shining on a piece of typing paper from behind and held under the camera will provide frontal illumination with minimal shadow for a much better and clearer picture of small subjects.
Amazes me how many flashaholics, with plenty of lights to choose from, take dark ill-defined pictures unnecessarily.
Changed the driver in my stock L2 to a Fet +1 driver, also changed the led to a XP-L HI on noctigon copper board.
Using a Keeppower 5200mAh 26650 I get 5.6A.
The original driver PCB is 19mm, so the new 17mm PCB wouldn’t sit nicely on the driver shelf.
I drilled out the retaining ring slightly to allow room for the driver’s components and soldered the driver to the cell’s side.
The result ain’t pretty, but no one can tell while the light is running!
Moving the driver means less space for a cell. A 65mm flat-top HG2 cell now extends 3mm past the tail end of a “long” D80 tube. This setup works fine, but a “short” tube or protected cell will not.
With Bistro UI (my favorite!) and no more PWM, this D80 will get lots more use now!
I have a stack of drivers taken out of Lucky Sun D80 lights. Every single one is 17mm. I don’t understand your 19mm dilemma. I was on the testing team on those BLF Special Edition D80’s, every sample, every light I bought, all 17mm drivers.
Amazing. I don’t know why I’m suprised, they changed stuff on Krono for a year before they finally shipped the BLF SE light. But geesh, a jump from a 17mm driver to a 19mm is a big deal! I double checked mine after I said that just to make sure I wasn’t remembering wrong (I have a knack for that) but I’ve got A17DD-S08 drivers in several and an LD-2 in one. All 17’s. And the stack I have in my kit, all 17’s. Blows me away.
Edit: Ok, pull the spring off that driver, put a bit of a solder blob on it, should work……
Send me the 20mm driver and I’ll piggyback an FET driver inside it, you’ll be able to put it right back inside same as before and it’ll look stock, but perform much better.
I can even put that particular driver inside, or build you a new FET+1 with Bistro.
19 mm here as well, but did not have any issues fitting 17 mm drivers.
Also managed to get rid of the beam rings and get decent focus (but not centering), on the one refitted with an XP-L Hi. Used a 0.9 mm gasket meant for an XM emitter with a 7 mm aperture reflector. (Think these are the ones: https://www.fasttech.com/products/1616/10001923/1581402 )
Unreal. I have 5 drivers here that are still completely intact (I rob resistors and brass buttons and stuff then throw em away) only 2 of these 5 are of similar size.
1 is 16.9mm
1 is 17.5mm
1 is 17.7mm
1 is 17.8mm
1 is 18.8mm and this one I absolutely know is from a newer BLF SE because I marked it when I took it out of blueb8llz light.
Today I built myself a Jax C8 mini with LD-2D 6Volt driver, XHP50 and two 18350s. It took some improvisation to get the 20mm driver with 13mm height into the 17mm pill with 6mm deep cavern! And I still had to get the two 18650s inside.
Finally everything is inside, the torch works and it pulls 2.6 Amperes
To be honest my replacement drivers overlap the shelf my very little, but I do not see them falling in. For electrical contact, the overlap with the retaining ring is important, and that is more generous.