Yes, I’m going to try the much speculated amazeballz sbt-70 aspheric. Be warned I’ve done some pretty dodgey stuff here.
I tried to look around the web for other people who have done this and it seems the price (mainly) and inefficiency (partly) has kept most people away from this concept. I did find one beamshot done by vinhnguyen54
Initially I wanted a regulated light so I could run 2x 26650 and also I seem to have a few direct drive lights already. There were a couple of reasons to go back to DD. 1- It’s easy! 2- regulated means lots of space for the driver which possibly means custom parts 3- actually there is no #3, the first 2 was enough for me.
It’s a fivemega 26650 host with c2m and m2d adapters. I didn’t think to take a pic of it but I did a little work on the c2m adapter so it sat deeper onto the copper insert of the host. The m2d has been cut down and the threads ground off to press fit into the head. I used a vice (again) for the press fit which I really shouldn’t have because it squeezed the m2d adapter enough that it didn’t screw onto the c2m adapter :Sp I eventually got the head and 2 adapters altogether but it is now considered a one piece. Kind of sacrilege/blasphemy to cut up fivemega parts but I’d rather do it to the adapters than the host. Of course, a lathe and skills to use it would come in handy but alas I make do with what I have.
The three parts that are viced together -
Led reflowed to copper star (no dialectric) , star soldered to copper heatsink -
I also needed to make up something to stop the battery from pushing the pill into the head since there is no reflector to hold it in place -
All the parts -
Handy size -
More to come. I have a few things I need to do to it before I can take it out for beamshots.
Love your backyard work pinkpanda. You have gone to quite a bit of effort to achieve what you have, a nice light that may be just like its builder, slightly warped.
That looks great and the round spot from the SBT is especially attractive. Is there a white wall shot of that light? It looks like there is a good amount of tint shift across the emitter but it could just be the target.
Does the head zoom or is it fixed (“zoomed in”) focus?
The beam shot is V54’s not mine. Ultimately a zoomie is what I wanted but I couldn’t figure out a neat way to do it. So unfortunately it’s fixed.
@ MRsDNF - hehe backyard warped creations are my specialty. Hey, and what are saying about me? Is it because I like the vice a little too much? Is it because my forum name doesn’t fit with the hairy paw in the pic above? Is it because I ask too many questions? You’ve lost me 0:)
I got some more work done today and I think it’s about done.
I don’t know if anyone noticed the rebate I had cut into the head -
It is to fit a wavien collar. I had 2 collars… HAD. I fumbled and dropped one on the work table. It fell about 200mm onto a solid bolt and broke into 5 pieces. I tell you I didn’t hold back with the expletives |( All I can say is I’m glad I ordered 2.
Last thing I had to do was replace the clicky with a tofty. You can see the spring in the clicky didn’t handle the one or 2 shorts that happened during the build.
Only thing left is beam shots. I’ll charge up some batteries and take a few other lights for comparison sometime this week.
OK I got some shots done the other night. I found out the camera has more modes than I understand but I tried my best :~
I see much more detail than pictured in the wall shot. I can see the horizontal lines within the die. There is also an obvious ring that follows the circumference of the die. I’m not sure if it’s brighter but it’s definitely a different colour as Cereal_killer noted. That ring is actually the biggest negative about the light, somewhat irritating. If I can get past that one point I’m actually reasonably happy with the rest of it. On a fresh battery it pulls 15 amps on start up. The wavien collar works though I’m not sure how many ‘extra’ lumens I’m getting out of it. I guess it’s like most things that are high performance - you can spend big $ for marginal gains. Anywhoo…
You can send it to me and I’ll get some good pictures of it, beamshots and such. I’m fairly slow this time of year with weddings and summer travel and such, but I’d get it back to you by December or so…
LOL, Okay, so I send it to you for good pics and then what? you send it to one of your mates to measure lux? and he sends it to his mate with an integrated sphere? and he sends it to…
It’s hard to say since I don’t have anything to test lux and cannot setup a side by side comparison. I suspect the gains are not a great deal. Mounting to copper and overdriving an led would yield higher results IMO. Was it worth the money? Well, I’m the type of person who just had to give it a go. Now I have tried it I think the much suggested mag reflector is probably not far behind the wavien for a lot less $. I won’t buy another (even though I broke one of the two I ordered). Main reason being I have bought about 3 aspheric lens over the past year and they are all rubbish. So I’m done with aspherics I think.
Really dig that round hot spot. Are you sure the lines are not the camera picking up PWM? If you see the lines with the naked eye (can use sunglasses, etc), then it is the lines in the die.
The lines are definitely in the die. The lines in an sst-90 are even all the way across. In these pics you can just make out the lines are not even thickness all the way across the die. The affect it leaves kinda looks like a bite has been taken from each side of the die.
I can measure lumens and lux and take pics as well. I’d not share it around, might have to mod it as I’m a bit addicted that way but it’d come back making more than I got it.
Reason I ask is because I may be about to take on an SBT-70 mod of my own. Love the looks of the die and find it difficult to resist. Just trying to figure out if I’d like it at 3A in a small light, or at 5A and pushing limits in a small light, or at 15A and pushing limits in a big light. The SST-90 I put in a Convoy C8 surprised me with a 16A draw on the BLF17DD FET driver. Inefficient as all get out, not making anywhere near the lumens I’d have thought with that current draw, but I still like it.
I also put an SST-90 in a FandyFire Rook, like it as well.
