Used longer piece (Than first Police Light mod) of 1/2" ID copper coupling to increase mass. Could have went longer, but this is a scrap piece I had laying around. Also have a very short piece under the driver (about 1/8" long).
Put as small peice of 1/2" copper tube to get the emitter base something to rest on and transfer heat. Could not go all the way to the bottom of the pill or driver would short on it.
Soldered in place. Mouseover: Filed sink pad slightly and pressed into place. In real tight.
Completed pill.
Filed down back of reflector so that bottom lip is about twice as thick at emitter's mcpcb.
Tried a reflector centering ring, but it created artifacts in the beam. Mouseover: Beam with artifacts due to centering ring.
I beam without the centering ring is real nice. Bright, tight hotspot with nice transition to wide spill. Light quit working before I got a wall shot. Can't fix right now as I need to go spit some fire wood. Over 200,000 homes are without power now and some are not expected to get power for at least a week.
Reads 1.4 amps at the tail. Seems to handle heat nicely with the added mass of the copper.
DIY orange peel - works great and almost free! I just used regular clearcoat spray. Very nice beam pattern for smaller reflectors. Courtesy of Old Lumens (thanks OL!).
Close Mr Floppy. Ice and snow, but primarily due to ice. Here in the southern USA, we have a lot of vegetation that competes with each other and grows rapidly. These trees don't take the weight of ice well. Also the power lines down here are designed to only take about 1/2" of ice. Finally, we don't get winter storms very often. So we don't have much equipment to clean roads.
The stock reflector seems pretty good to me. It's sturdy, decent finish, and good beam pattern. I haven't searched for other reflectors, but any 20mm TIR such as this one will work. Just file down the lip to get the diameter down to 18mm.
What I have into the light? I'm assuming you mean cost. I move components around so much in my lights, I don't really consider them "locked" into the light unless I consider the light finalized. But they unfinalize when new emitters or drivers come out. So I tend to buy may self so much of each type of emitter, driver, etc and then shuffle them around till I really like something.
Anyway, here is what is in the light as it is now:
Host - around $2 to $3 USD. Bought from BIC's a year or 2 ago.
xpg2 - $3.25 I should have used a old xpg, but I wanted to try out this tint
Sinkpad - $2 to $2.50 USD
Nanjg 105c - $3.05
Copper - $20 USD, but I used scraps. Could have fabbed the coupler and pipe for probably under 2 cents from this copper. I pay about $2 .44 for one foot of 1/2" copper coupling . I used less then 1", but lets just round up.
Total - $10.50 to $12.00 USD
Why did it quit? Don't know yet. I will eventually check it out and report back.
Thanks for the tip Pulsar13. No orange peel for this guy. It has a great beam pattern without the centering ring. Plus, orange peel would decrease throw.
Hmm, I would swap the cost off the copper as I can find that around the building sites here and put that on a reflector but I agree on the total. I’m sure you can buy a budget light for that price but this is more fun
Hmm, I would swap the cost off the copper as I can find that around the building sites here and put that on a reflector but I agree on the total. I’m sure you can buy a budget light for that price but this is more fun
Really didn't cost me anything since I have all this stuff laying around anyway and it all may go into other lights eventually. It's really more about learning and trying new things for me. I do kind of like this light though. I may end up fixing it and keeping it this way.
Not yet. I still haven't opened the light back up.
When I was talking to Ohaya during his recent AA light build he had a similar issue and told me that one of the LED leads shorted against the pill. I thinking it will that or that the pill lost electrical contact with the flashlight body. See, the only part that is available to make the negative electrical contact is a ledge in the head that a spring normally presses against. I tossed the spring so I could have a longer (and heavier) pill. The cell pushed the pill away from the ledge. When I do take apart the light, I will add a bur to the pill so that it cuts thought the inside anodized finish and makes electrical contact.
Thank you for asking Hank. I will eventually open up the light and report back.
