After just building fourteen red XP-E2 lights for other people (hunters), I figured I would build a special one for myself. The deep red Luxeon rebel has always intrigued me, and I needed a change from the XPE2s. This is the first rebel I’ve had mounted on a direct thermal path SinkPad II. These little rebels are rated for max 750mA, so I had to drive them at 1.5A per emitter. As already posted, I stacked a Qlite drive for 4.5A to run my triple. SinkPad triple boards are set up for easy series hookup, but not so convenient for parallel. You also have to remember to grind the edges, or it won’t fit in a 20Mm tube.
I started by building a little contact board to run the 22AWG Teflon leads from the driver pads. This mod wouldn’t have worked with silicone wires as they are twice as thick.
Attaching the 26AWG Teflon LED wires.
I had to expand the hole in the SinkPad, and still barely got the wires through. It’s a good thing I thought to stick an insulater disc to the roof of the pill, as there is no more room left inside. It’s jammed in tight. There is no room to store any slack wire. A real tight fit.
All the wires had to be sized and stripped to the exact length at the emitter. Time to add a Carlco optic and screw this baby into somethin.
A red triple should always be installed in a red host. That’s class.
Yep! It’s red alright.
Still red. My cat seems to like it.
Still red
Here’s the 18350 version for those who prefer a shorty.
Q: Why did Ouchyfoot build himself a red flashlight?
A: He has absolutely no idea.
I “modded” the new Trustfire TR-J20 and gained 1000 lumens plus a few. Easy peasy mod, as it were. My Trustfire 32650’s came in from Richard, they bested the BASEN 26650’s by that 1000 lumens. Sometimes the right cell choice is HUGE, taking this one from 17.64A to 21.71A at the tail.
The UCLp lens gained me just shy of 400 lumens as well. So for a lens swap and the right cells I’m up 1400 lumens. I’m taking it!
Must admit I’m really liking that yellow gold tailcap. Todays mod was another s2+. This one with A6 driver, triple CU spacer and triple V2 1A. This was a first in that the triple was huge. I tried the carclo and multiple hosts all nogo. First glass only triple. A little too cool for my liking but it certainly fills a room. Heading outside now. Also finished one that did nothing but cause problems.
Yesterday was an all out blitz on the lathe to complete 7 lights with heat sinks for a friend. 7 hours on the lathe, then I came in and re-assembled the lights. Each light had cooling fins cut and some additions to aid grip on the tube. Even made my first cutting tool from an old (some 70 years) High Speed Steel planer blade.
I wanted to increase the current transit, but I also wanted that the change was fully reversible; so I removed the spring at the base of the tail and replaced with a spacer, realized by compressing the aluminum foil. The compactness of the spacer is such that even the front spring is compressed up to touch, between them, all the coils.
I got a good increase in current flow, I think a good 25% (When I can I will make the instrumental comparisons).
And now I can use the protected battery, both 26650 (test with protected Soshine 4200) and 18650 (test with different protected batteries).
The spacer for unprotected batteries is 10mm thick; for protected is 6mm thick.
i also have a red flashlight! and i even know why i built it! :student:
I haven’t used it much neither. but since the host was called torpedo, and looks like one, i thought about submarines and red light, so i put a red xp-e in it…