Unfortunately I didn’t take many pics when I started this build. I’ve had the parts on hand for some time. Initially I wanted to make a single emitter (mtg2/xhp) but there was a little too much head scratching for me to actually get it done. It was only per chance that I had a yinding clone bike light on hand and when I held the two parts together the light bulb came on :exclamation:
Here is the mechanical box mod
Notice the black ring near the top… it’s a plastic joiner between the cells/body and head. I don’t know if the head needs to be electrically isolated in vaping but it appears like that. Anyway that plastic just had to go as it also prevents heat transfer. This was part of the reason I couldn’t think of a good way to use the whole thing. That meant not using the cool looking switch on the ivago, oh well.
So the bikelight is only marginally bigger than the ivago. This is the one that ledoman reviewed only mine came with lattice bright leds.
I started on the bikelight by removing all the junk and cut out a heat spreader/shelf from 6mm copper plate. I used a 4” grinder and a file to shape it. Whilst it’s not an overly pretty job it seems to fit snug… very snug, I cannot push it in with my fingers alone. Next I mounted xpl hi ’s on sinkpads. The sinkpads needed a little filing around the edges to fit inside the head.
Now to mash them together. I cut a recess in the back plate of the bikelight to fit in the ivago body just as the plastic joiner did. To do this I used the lathe for the straight edges and a dremel for the curves. Unfortunately I didn’t tighten the one of the lock nuts on the dremel tight enough and it moved during the vibrations of use.
The ivago connected the head and body through a couple of long screws inside the body (don’t know how that worked for electrical isolation). I lined up the plate and drill the holes. Only after doing this did I discover that in the bikelight head there is a couple screw holes for mounting the led plate (screwed in from the back of the head thus facing the direction of the ivago body) and as luck would have it they’re near on exactly where I need them. So instead of fixing the body to the back plate which fixes to the head I used long screws to pass through the back plate and fix the body and head. This works wonders for strength.
The positive contact pad I glued in place with liquid electrical tape. I didn’t want to go permanent like epoxy in case I stuffed it up … and I did. With a bit of pressure I got continuity between the plate and contact pad. So I pulled it off put electrical tape on the back of the pad first and re-applied. I added a post to the driver to reach through the back plate and solder to the positive pad.
So that left the switch. I had a couple of goes at this. At first I made a CF cover plate that was going to use the existing holes in the head. It looked pretty bulky/ugly and when I stripped the top of the switch trying to push it into place I decided to scrap the idea.
Next I had this idea to use liquid electrical tape to glue down the rubber boot. That turned out to be a bad idea too. The button wasn’t so easy to push and it didn’t look or feel robust.
While playing around with a DQG light I found the button and (more importantly) retaining ring was just pressed in. I thought geez I could do that…
So the switch now looks the part, feels good and is easy enough to press while not being an accidental pocket burner
At the end of it I’m kinda proud of it. Has great output, transfers heat quickly, nice size and shape to hold… BUT ,there’s always a but, it’s not water proof by any means, can only fit unprotected cells, no lock-out feature and you need a screw driver (or the like) to fit and remove batteries.
The unused holes I ended up blocking up with black liquid electrical tape. I’ll get some beamshots soon (not my backyard).
Thanks for lookin