Had a Sunwayman C10R laying around. Purchased it a few weeks ago from Illumn on clearance. Sunwayman used a single head for many different lights including the 1x18650 C20C. The C10R is the 1xCR123 version. Nice shape, crappy output due to its low power driver and old cool white XML1 LED.
I wanted to turn this light into a small triple-XPL HI light. However .... 1x16340 just isn't enough power for me. I wanted more! I removed the guts of the light and examined the available internal space. I ended up performing the following mods:
- Mounted a new internal momentary switch in the button well. One side of the switch is connected to the head with conductive epoxy. The other side is soldered to a small brass strip that passes through the LED platform to a small wire and then to the driver.
- Added a 17mm BLF17DD FET driver with moppydrv momentary firmware from MtnElectronics.
- Mounted the driver on top of the LED platform where the LED star used to sit. The driver is not glued in place, but is instead held down via tension fit with a surrounding spring-loaded copper strip. A piece of a spring is soldered to the outside of this strip and presses into a small spot in the head where I ground off the anodizing. The strip then presses the side of the driver for negative connection.
- Added a 20mm triple Noctigon with 3xtriple XPL HI (2x5000K and 1x4000K). The star sits on top of the spring loaded copper strip.
- Added a Carclo 10507 optic.
- I soldered a small copper disk to a short piece of wire passed through a small hole in the center of the emitter platform. This wire is then soldered to the positive battery terminal on the driver. When the light is assembled this wire is folded up under the driver.
- I used arctic alumina to pot the LED positive and negative connections on the driver.
Essentially the driver, emitters and optic all sit where the original star and reflector used to sit. The space where the original driver sat is completely empty. The new switch is very flat so a longer battery slides below it. The light now fits an Efest IMR 18500 cell.
Powered it up and it works! Took a couple tries to figure out the best way to get positive and negative connections. Output is VERY high. At a guess maybe 2500 lumens with a beautiful neutral tint. Not bad for a light that in its stock configuration was rated by the manufacturer at 190 lumens.
However, this light has pretty limited heatsinking. The LED is not mounted on a star and I didn't use thermal grease where the sides of the star meet the head. I figure if it becomes a problem I'll notice when the star desolders itself. If that happens I'll add the thermal grease and learn to live with the hotter head.