(left to right) 18650 Sgt Burkett K bin 4000k MCE, 120P Novatac w/ XPG NW, something C8 XML (with next mode memory! Ewwww)
MCE (4000k K bin) in 18650 Sgt Burkett light
The lights were all fine. The connections on the Sgt Burkett are now crappy and intermittent after I just took the pill out. =/ (I made it very early on when my soldering skills were even worst than right now. It was a 2 stage DD with a resistor for the lower mode)
So I had decided to not buy any lights for awhile and just update a few lights that I am not using. As I never had the need for a thrower in my stash (that has changed now) I never sought to owning one. I did make an exception and ask friends to pick up a DST for me if they saw it (yeah I know -> very late to the party. I can no longer drive and can check out HDs myself.)
As I just placed an “I’ll take it” in the thread for a few Nichia 119s -> I think I’m going to strip down the Sgt Burkett’s pill and perhaps run 2 119s in parallel. I just need decent output as I am looking for runtime b/c I used to use this light as a tasklight. Hopefully output won’t be noticeable dropped? Thoughts on this? Will I miss the output too much? Should I put an NW XPG2 in there instead? I’m thinking of making it a mule now too. In outta be able to bulk up that heatsink with some mass.
The Novatac I am not sure yet. I entertained the thoughts of an NW XPG2 (I also have the 17670 tube for this light) but am thinking that maybe I would always like a nichia 219 light and not be tempted to upgrade it again after that. Any suggestions?
The C8 light. I actually bought this on a whim recently before reading about it on BLF. I was just lucky that it happened to be a decent light. I am happy with it’s brightness and the the cheapo in me would leave the XML in place. However I can’t stand it’s next mode memory. I’m thinking that DD will work for me on this.
I also have one of those cheapo c8, I have let the stock led and driver in it(made no sense to mod a 6$ light if I can get a a lot better hosts for 10:money_mouth_face:
But I converted it to a “one mode” light, with a small resistor over the driver capacitor. Normal operation is always one mode I can lend it away and everything but I am still able to use the modes with a very short tap…
It’s kind of direct drive on high so it’s super bright even with a half ruined led…
Check this thread…
here’s a pill I scrapped up for the Sgt Burket light. As it will be a mule the added material will go right behind the star and above the pill. Originally it was meant to be a stack of soldered copper coins but that failed miserably (I had tried soldering that out on my deck and it was too cold [~30 degrees] for any soldering to occur.) Note: the copper piece on top of the pill just fell off. Here it is being thermal epoxied back into place. I’ll at least clean it up on the lathe once it dries.
Anyhow it ain’t pretty for something off a lathe but I’m going to more or less leave it as is. It’ll do the job just as well (note: the middle part of the pill is not machined/touched. I can’t part yet so chuck pieces that are the pill itself.)
I’m using these stock HSS lathe cutting bits and I really don’t think I will be shelling out anything for this thing. Maybe some measuring devices but that’s it (I only got the lathe 2-3 weeks before my stroke. Highly doubt I will throw any $$ into it now.) So I haven’t sharpened the bits yet but think I need to. I now use a 1” x 30” belt sander for all of my sharpening (too lazy to freehand.) The problem is that I normally do this out of my deck. It may just be like soldering for me -> wait until springtime.
My self imposed no soldering until springtime is sure a bore (b/c I’m too cheap to exhaust heated air out of the house.) I wonder if I can keep this promise all through winter (alas, the season is still young.) In the meantime it seems I’m playing around with the lathe some more.
Anyhow, here is the Sgt Burkett with the beefed up pill. Argh! as usually I made the tolerances too tight while measuring and don’t believe I left enough room for the emitter while having to head attached to the body enough. My pitfall? -> I had forgot to factor in the thickness of the lens and the ~1mm copper of copper I attached to the top of the ALU column.
Oh wellz. As this build is temporary (I’m planning on learn to thread later on and will make a threaded pill to go on this light) I’m just going to take off the lens in this build. Yes, of course I could elect to shave off the pill from it’s front or back but I’m choosing not to go this route. My emitters for this light will be 2 parallel nichia 119s DD. Later on? Yeah who knows what will go into it? For now, a decent CRI w/o specializing in high output seems handy to have in a close quarter worklight.
So with my self imposed no soldering rule during cold weather still intact I find myself playing around with other things much more. I’ve been using my bench grinder to sharpen up HSS lathe bits, messing around with the lathe, prepping some projects I had planned to eventually tackle…
A few months ago I had picked up a cheapo pop rivet gun to use on my planned undercabinet LED lightening build (whenever that happens. I mean geez I had picked up a bunch of LEDs to use in it… A year + ago!)
So today I used that rivet gun for the 1st time -> On a light bar that I’m making as a tasklight on the many DIY renos that I do at home. It has a mounting hole so can/will be mounted on an unused camcorder tripod that I’ve had for over a decade. I had picked up a bunch of rebel (4,000k) emitters to use in my undercabinet project (primarily b/c I had a few xitanium drivers left that only outputted 700ma) I’m now picked a bunch of high CRI LEDs to use in my undercabinet project instead so will use up the rebels whenever possible.
Anyhow my verdict on the rivet gun? I should have got one years ago. It’s so much better than mixing up a batch of thermal epoxy to mount LEDs to heatsinks.
Haven’t had much time to spare on hobbies recently but here’s a plastic lens I just scraped up for a ~$9 Amazon.com C8 from a CD jewel case. It’s about 80-90% done.
This is a light I strictly use as a bathroom light in the basement & it’s glass lens had shattered when it slipped from my hand and hit the tiled floor (~2 days after I received it.) For all these months I just had some sran wrap around the reflector :bigsmile: Thus I wanted a shatterproof plastic lens on this light and also buying a glass lens for a $9 C8 is also not really budget like.
I had just started using clear plastic CD cases for various things. This all came about when I was looking at the boxes of obsolete CD cases that I originally meant to dispose. I thought -> “…hmm… That’s not very green. Why not repurpose these guys?…”
After I roughly scored and snapped the plastic to a rough octagon shape I just dremeled it down a bit with a sanding drum. As I get closer to the target diamer I will most likely switch to sanding by hand.
2 pieces of thin paper were rubber cemented to the lens to give it some protect from all the clamping I put it thru. It also allows me to roughly trace the C8 head on it with a sharpie.
Thanks for looking
AZ
BTW: I haven’t tried threading on a lathe yet (will eventually get to it) but I think I will at least bore an opening on the pill and fit a length of solid rod into it. It’s a ~$9 light and normally there isn’t really a reason to mod it but it’s serving well as a test bed for me and humble as it maybe I intend to give it a purpose.
