What did you mod today?

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:

Havenā€™t tested it yet. The negative wire contact is adjoined to one of the legs and I donā€™t want to risk soldering and removing test wires in case I desolder the leg. Iā€™m getting my triple Luxeon board tomorrow which may require three separate neg. and pos wires each. Iā€™ll test it then. I shouldnā€™t really be adding any extra chips with these rebels (750mA), 3A should be all a normal person would dare, but noooo, Ouchyfoot wants 4.5A.
If I damaged a couple chips in the process, Iā€™m not even going to worry about it. I donā€™t know if its pushing the envelope, or plain old stupidity.

Tomorrow I may need to epoxy a small contact board on top of the chips to attach wires. I always mix up to much arctic alumina. Is it okay if I paint the legs of the stacked chips with it for strength?

I have my cheap Amazon JM07 that I keep in the truck, I felt that it needed some love! So, I changed the LED to a Noctigon mount XM-L2 4C and added a lighted ring to the tailcap. I went with 4 reds and 2 oranges so it would be easy to see in case it were to get put down during a roadside event. I really wish I had picked up 2 of these, they really are nice lights!

Today I did an emitter swap on a Niteye EC-R16.

This is an EDC light that fits an 18350.

Driver and emitter removed from the battery tube side of the head. Pop off the black cover around the positive contact, then unscrew 2 tiny phillips screws holding the star to the backside of a shelf. The driver and star come out as a sandwich with the switch and micro USB connector between them.

The star is aluminum. I heated it up with a soldering iron while still attached to the rest of the sandwich. Then I removed the LED (cool-white XPL) with a tweezers and replaced it with an XPL HI 3D. With the smooth reflector this light is fairly throwy for its size.

I originally purchased this light with the intent of doing the same mod I recently did to a Sunwayman C10R: convert it to a small triple powered by an IMR 18500 and FET driver. Iā€™d still like to do that mod, but unfortunately, I have a problem: The Bezel is threadlocked on with what must be a ton of threadlocker and I canā€™t remove it with normal methods. Iā€™m thinking I might need a blowtorch to heat the bezel enough to melt the threadlocker, but am worried that may damage the anodizing. Iā€™ve never tried the torch method to remove a stuck bezel.

Get one of these and a heat gunā€¦