What did you mod today?

Since I so royally screwed up the TR-J20 yesterday evening, I woke up this morning with it heavy on my mind to fix it.

Now it makes 11,040 lumens on partially depleted Basenā€™s. Gotta get some new XM-L2 U4 1Cā€™s on copper and replace those old XM-Lā€™s on aluminum. :smiley:

Edit: So if Iā€™m running 3 26650 Basenā€™s in series, and pulling 18.03A, isnā€™t that over 200 watts? :partying_face:

Did my first mod work in a couple of months. Finally added an illuminated tailcap to my most-used light, my Thorfire TG06.

Three Yellow/Gold LEDs, 1k bleeder, 50k pot.

Very Nice !!
Love that colour :slight_smile:

Try putting a thin layer of arctic alumina epoxy on the base of the reflector. Itā€™s much more secure than kapton tape.

Well, I had managed to get an FET driver in the big TR-J20 and saw 11,400 lumens with Basen cells at 4V. I put a spring bypass on the big OEM spring up top and charged the cells only to blow emitters. :frowning:

So, back to the drawing board. This time I figured to go with something robust, and beautiful at the same time. Three 9V Cree MT-G2 under 35mm Illuminations Machines reflectors. Works like a charm! 11,419 lumens of the renowned MT-G2 illumination! :smiley: Edit: 17.64 Amps at the tail under the 3 Basens.

Iā€™ll have to create a cover panel for the top of the reflectors to sit under the lens, but it works and looks decent enough as isā€¦

Dale if you have some spare time , some pictures would be great :slight_smile: (But not a big deal if you canā€™t).

Cheers

The TR-J20 is a beast of a light. VERY heavy construction, loads of cooling fins, itā€™s a chunk! It came with 12 XM-L emitters and was making 4285 lumens (I think thatā€™s right) Then I messed it up. So I put an FET driver in it and saw 11,400 lumens. Then I messed it up again. A spring bypass and fresh charge on the Basen 26650ā€™s blew the 1st emitter in each of 4 strings of 3. Too much! So, I started over and rebuilt it once againā€¦

I happened to have on hand a few of the 9V variant of Creeā€™s MT-G2 fat boy. And I also happened to have on hand some of Illuminationā€™s Machines diamond grid 35mm reflectors. So, I put them to good use in this light that is so very capable of handling it.

One of the reflectors twisted a bit in itā€™s bed of Arctic Alumina Thermal Adhesive, and Iā€™m out now, so Iā€™ll have to fix that later. The emitters are on 25mm MaxTOCH copper mcpcbs.

I notched corners for the substrate to ensure nothing shorted out, it just took a little bit in the aluminum reflectors to ensure all was well. :wink: The 17mm FET driver is on an MTN board, has 12V low voltage protection, and is soldered directly to the positive via pad of the OEM driver board. I removed everything but this pad, literally even removed the traces on the board so all would be clear. Then I grounded it with a short piece of 16Ga Turnigy. There are short leads off the driver also of 16G, with the leads from the emitters at 22ga. Iā€™d change this to 20ga but the joint is sealed in JB Weld, the driver is also heavily potted in JB Weld. I used a Vishay SIR404DP MOSFET on this one.

Another look with the bezel removed (reflectors are glued in, sorry)

I got lucky, the IM reflectors are just about the same height as the big aluminum 12 pot reflector that came out, the difference in height is due to the lack of centering rings now. To make up that difference, I merely cut a piece of the black 16ga Turnigy to use as a spacer inside the bezel, on top of the glass lens, and it works perfectly. If I donā€™t make a cover for the reflectors, Iā€™ll simply solder the ends of the fat wire together and put a bit of silicone glue between the ends of the silicone insulation so it will be water tight. :wink:

Wow! Thanks Daleā€¦
Very nice work . Everything you touch , turns to goldā€¦

Oh No! Fraid not! Iā€™ve messed this one up twice getting here, was actually going to leave it very close to stock for the run time. I just got it yesterday afternoon, couldnā€™t leave well enough alone. lol

Just a few pictures of the parts used in the ZY-T08 to convert it to series.

The stock pill is on the left.

The switch has been replaced on both these items to known good ones. The stock set up is on the left of the modded ones.

This part sits in the battery tube at the head end. The battery tube was machined 2.5mm deeper to accommodate the thickness of the board.

A couple of thing went pair shape on this mod. The drivers low voltage kicks in at to high a voltage so a driver swap will be needed. The locating dowel holes for the end board drilled through to the outside of the battery tube. Whoops and finally if I was to do this mod again I would purchase double sided bread board. This would make the mod a lot quicker to do and look neater.

Very professional looking work there Steve, nice job!

Thanks Dale. I just need one of your built drivers now. :stuck_out_tongue:

Great work as usual Steve. Itā€™s been so long I canā€™t remember how I rewired the back end of mine.
Iā€™m not sure what you mean by ā€œbreadboardā€, but I use double sided copper clad circuit board. Itā€™s really great to have for making contact boards and such. Pretty inexpensive at Aliexpress.

Built my first triple from a convoy s2+. Got parts on the way to give it a nice lighted tail cap. May even baked it to see what kind of colors I can coax out of it.

Dale that is Bad Azz!! :wink: Steve thatā€™s Ingenious! :open_mouth: Great ideas! Where do you get double sided bread board at? That is very handy stuff to (must) have around, boy the creative juiceā€™s are flowing today! :beer:

The single sided I bought along time ago from Fasttech thinking it would come in handy one day after watching the likes of OL use it. Hopefully the following will be double sided.
https://www.fasttech.com/products/3810200

Cool, thanks! :beer: This stuff could make things a little easier! :wink: Now just have to wait 2-3months to get it! :frowning: :rage: :smiley:

I wanted an S2 pocket thrower. I dedomed a XP-G2 S4 2B from mtnelectronics and put it in an S2 with FET driver and smooth reflector also from mtnelectronics. With a 30Q at 4.13V, I got around 4.0A and 39,800cd measured at 6.05m with Tondaj LX-1010B. Big improvement over the stock S2 OP reflector at 23,400cd. In both cases I used the stock S2 centering ring and the focus seemed good on both.

I stacked another driver with four chips today. This one looks neat and tidy. I think Iā€™m getting the hang of it. Before I started, I epoxied the chips on top nice and even with a dab of Arctic alumina. Pre tinning the little bent legs with flux and solder has the effect mascara does for lengthening lashes. After the chips were glued in place, most of the legs were already making contact. I barely had to touch them with the iron for a secure bridge.

And the current reading was, insert drum roll here, :question: