I bought a Trustfire A9-2, a 32650 light which has a plastic pill loose in the body. I have a variety of tools but no lathe.
Is there a way to get a new pill made of aluminum/copper? Anybody making them at a price less than purchasing another light with metal pill?
Thanks.
If you have any machine shops aluminum should be easy and cheap (usually scrap laying around). I would think copper depends on how often they work with it whether or not they have any scrap anywhere.
Lot’s of members here can do what your asking, only thing is shipping cost to you. You can probably find a local machine shop to do this for a pizza and 12pk of beer, (I do that all the time for little one-off parts). They’ll probably even have a piece of scrap to start from so no charge for materials.
Your other choice is to file copper disks to size them solder them together if you want to DIY.
If you don’t want to find a local machine shop (where ever you are in the world I’m sure, even if you don’t realize it, there is a small machine shop near you. In my experience places like this are one of the most likely places you’ll be able to barter at) then PM member here Bucket.
Edit (Bugsy posted while I was typing) FYI copper is notoriously harder to machine that aluminum and the performance gains don’t really justify it. If you ask for aluminum they’ll probably do it for free / very little money and they’ll probably have a piece of scrap to use, if you want copper know they’ll charge you higher labor and they’ll probably have to source the copper meaning you could potentially be forced to buy a whole foot of it (or whatever their supplier sells it in).
Thanks. I’m in sweden and all labour costs money here. Anything actually costs money here, hence I Diy whatever I can. I’ll try to find a machine shop, if only to get an outrageous quote 
Ok. I do not know what you have for tools but here is a cheap way out.
Cut with saw as close to size needed. Drill center hole to insert bolt. Mount bolt with aluminum to drill. Sand until close enough.
To quote the great Ron Swanson: “typical socialist Europe”
If you just call up the first shop you find and ask how much to make a part X x Y x Z yea you’ll probably get a pretty high quote, what you need to do is find one, get the light all apart, make a good mechanical drawing of the part you need (with dimensions) and take that and the stripped light down to the shop with you and a case of beer and hang out with them and shoot the shit (American for talk about random crap) about 45 minutes before closing time, this is what I’ve found to be the best way to get stuff done for cheap / free.
oh a nice idea! I have all those tools available.
however, I just took apart the Trustfire A9-2, and although the pill is metalic, not plastic as I have read - the replacement pill that would make a press fit into the body would have to be of a strange shape which is somewhere between a circle and a rectangle. So It would require quite some manual work and hundreds of tryouts to produce manually, for quite less than my regular hourly wage so it’s ineconomical for me.
so thanks for the advice, I’ll take it on with another lamp & pill.
yep, good tip. Asking for a quote officially here usually results in many smiles and an outrageous quote.
regarding the “socialist europe” - I’ve been around the world, US, Canada included, and Sweden is #1 place I’d like my kids to grow up. I’m not Swedish or scandinavian, don’t speak the language much yet, or particularly like the Swedish “don’t bother me too much or make me step out of my comfort zone” - attitude. What I haven’t seen elsewhere in this amount are human and worker rights, safety, parental benefits, “just enough” attitude towards materialism. The life here is the closest to “Star trek” merit based society I’ve seen. I find them easygoing and flexible at work, but quite responsible. What might jeopardize this, is heavy burden they are putting on their budged by allowing many refugees from around the world to come in. However the country is very large in surface so if the immigration is well integrated and utilized, they might even benefit from it.
Fyi, Ron Swanson is a character on the television comedy show, Parks and Recreation. His career goal is to make government run as ineffectively as possible.
You can make permanent pills with:
JB Weld
Copper Powder
or Aluminum Powder
Mix the JB Weld and add 1/4 of copper, aluminum or both. You can add up to 1/2 and still have a good mix, but it will be more of a paste vs. more liquid with less.
hmm… this is interesting. Any idea what the thermal conductivity will be? In my case it should be more than it was when there was no contact between the pill and the body.
Don’t know, but it works really good for odd sizes.
Just modded my security lights to add more mass to the pill, and the body heats up nicely from the mix. Went from 3x xp-g2 - 800 lm to 1x vera 10 - 2000 lm. 7w vs. 20w. The LED maintains a stable vf, so I am assuming the heat is dissipating well.
I just received the same light also. I purchased it spur of the moment during that AliExpress Carnivale Sale. Later I researched the light and was disappointed to learn that same bit of news. I pulled the light apart enough to verify it does have a plastic pill. Really amazing given the quality of the remainder of the light.
My preliminary intention is to make the pill from copper sheet. I've done this in several lights and it works well. I'll document it in a thread when I get there, but it won't be anytime soon unfortunately.
well the pill looks plastic, but when you scrape it a bit you should see that it’s actually black anodized aluminum. So it’s not that bad after all, but it makes no sense how the pill is not connected with the body - not screwed in or tight fit. There’s about 0.5mm clearance from the body to the pill on both sides.
A combination of solid metal and JB weld might be a workable compromise. I don’t know exactly what shape you need but a short piece of copper pipe soldered to a flat piece(can be made from pipe as well) and use the JB mix to fill in the odd shape. If you coat the pill area of the light with a thin layer of wax it should slip out after warming it up.
Oh man. Vex_zg, you just made my day. That is great news (as opposed to plastic). All that should be needed then is to wrap the pill in thin copper or aluminum sheet. Do they sell flashing for roofs in your area?
It would probably be overkill, but removing the anodized finish would help in thermal transfer. I probably will not bother though because there is a good amount of surface area and it prevents a galvanic reaction with copper.
Thank you very much for checking that out and reporting it. :)
EDIT: Fixed typo on vex_zg's name. Sorry.
thanks for the tip, i think I’m gonna reuse the original pill and use the JB or similar with copper powder to fill the gap. The pill itself has got quite some surface which will be used to transfer heat to the body so it should be OK. I don’t plan putting in more than cca 12W through one XML2 so it should be enough. I was more into capacity of an 32650 when I purchased the light, not the lumens, I find high lumens often not usable outdoors in the night because it’s just too much light destroying your night vision and blinding you.
Glad I could help:) I was quite disappointed with the pill design, bought it without due research, since the rest of the light is quite well made.
what do you mean by flashing for roofs? metal sheets? Would wrapping it in kitchen alufoil do the trick?
Btw, If you want to remove the anodizing, just use oven cleaner. Do this outside though!
Yes thin metal sheets. You can get them in very small individual rectangles here. Probably about .021" (.5mm) thick. Aluminum foil might work but it is so thin that it is fragile. Flashing is thick enough to press fit.
Copper tape would probably work quite well. I've done it it works great. Expensive stuff though.
Thanks for the tip rjorge. I haven't tried that yet, but I will because sanding anno off is no fun.