SkyRay King 4 Led Mod

Flashlight Modding and DIY Parts
1

So I ordered a SkyRay King with 4 Leds for 30 Euros. The idea was to buy it just to mod it to get more juice out of it. After it arrived, RMM was so friendly to let me know how I can mod the driver. He said add another resistor, or just short the resistors. I decided to do the last one, but for that the heat sink needs to be improved. See Skyray King 4 Leds Driver modding help please for further info.

I’m a Software Engineer, so I don’t have very much tools at home, and my experience with metal is also not the best. It was clear in the beginning, that this will become an interesting mod, which basically everyone can do.

First I went to a hardware store to get some 0.5mm thick copper sheet. Then I used a marker to draw lines where I need to cut it.

These were the first parts I made with a large diameter. I used a Dremel to make one of them a round shape, and fitted it into the flashlight. After I had one template I used it to draw the exact shape on the other pieces so that I can cut them out more precisely. Unfortunatelly I didn’t have a metal scissor so I had to use a normal one. Ouch my fingers, but it worked.

The next step was to solder the parts together so I can get a solid body. I placed some solder on one of the plates, then placed the other plate on top of it, and pressed both parts together with a plier. Then I used a blowtorch to heat everything up, and the parts fit well together.

I joined three parts of the large diameter together, which is exactly the same thickness as the original part had (The silver thingy in picture no. 4). I soldered together some more parts with the small diameter. Then I used my dremel to make the small and large parts fit perfectly into the flashlight. One more final step, solder both parts together. This was a little bit tricky, because they need to fit perfectly. I decided to temporarily glue them together with superglue, fit the part into the flashlight, and then after the glue is dry draw the outline again along with a few markers. Heat the parts up again until the superglue combusts so I could add solder again. As I couldn’t wait until the glue was completely dry I was able to draw the outline and get the parts apart without heat. I added solder to both parts, used my pliers to push them together and added heat. Unfortunatelly the whole thing slipped out of my pliers and I ended up with this mess:

I kind of had to start all over, but it wasn’t that bad. After that I had this wonderful piece:

Time to put a hole in it so I can use the original concept where the parts where screwed together. Oh boy, I almost never drilled before, at least not metal, and not without a vertical drilling machine. I tried a few of my dremel tools and ended up with a nice 2mm hole (Insert success picture here). But the screw was 4mm so I had to drill again. But that’s not bad, it was a great idea to start with a small hole anyway. So I looked around for a 4mm drill, and all I could find was one for WOOD. Well … why not give it a try. I didn’t have a drilling machine, but a cordless screwdriver. I set everything up and drilled the whole, and … it worked. Besides some copper colored shavings there was some drill colored dust :smiley: Anyway, the drill didn’t look so bad. Therefore: add greater success picture here :slight_smile:

As you can see I also added a cut where the wires will go later.

As the original screw wasn’t long enough I digged through my granddads old storage and was able to find one. It was too long, but that’s not an issue for a guy with a Dremel :slight_smile:

Now I was able to put all parts together:


Old head for comparison.


Because Of the accident where the parts slipped out of shape I had to use my Dremel again to fit it into the lamp again.

Then it was time to add heat paste.

Heatsink in flashlight with paste, and on top the leds with paste.

Added some new wires.

Soldered everything back together

Now it was time to make a tailcap measurement how much Ampere this thing draws without the modified driver. I got a lot of readings, but the 3.6A reading seemed to be the best one. Then I used a part of the old wire to short out the resistor

After that I got a reading of 4.6Amps … Job done.

Result: Successfully created a new heatsink for my SkyRay King with a limited amount of tools. Unforunatelly I only have a smartphone so it doesn’t make sense to make beamshots. Now this thing is as bright as my Trustfire TR-J18 with kaidomain driver. And it gained some additional weight because of the copper heatsink, maybe I should have used alluminium :smiley:

Injuries: Only the bleeding ones count - A small cut in my index finger from the drill.

Parts required/used:

  • 0.5mm copper sheet
  • Strong scissors (subject for trash afterwards)
  • blowtorch plus quite some gas
  • 2 Pliers
  • Ideally metal drill, along with an electric tool
  • Multitool (like Dremel) highly recommended
  • Thermal paste
  • Soldering iron

I guess that’s it, hope my English isn’t too bad.

The Album with all pictures

2

Great Job!!!

3

Nice work. :beer:

My 5* ‘SRK’ clone I bought from a recent GearBest deal came without the shelf, & the mcpcb was held to the reflector with two pieces of thin paper masking tape……

4

Well done, especially with the limited amount of tools you have!

5

Your English is great. Nice job getting the job done with what you had available. That is one beefy copper LED shelf. Congrats on the new modified light. :)

6

You give hope to all cheated SRK owners everywhere. :slight_smile: [Also hope to me as I want one of Gearbest’s dark brown 4-up SRK clones).

The heatsink/shelf would actually be an ideal application for Fujik. It will stay anchored in, but the surface area between pill and body is great enough that the reduced thermal tranfer of the Fujik doesn’t matter. At least as long as you’re not building one of Richards Retard-SRKs. _

7

Good job! That's probably a much better heat sink than even the stock factory aluminum thread in pieces.

8

Thanks for all this positive feedback, I really appreciate it.

9

Very nice job. I know where I'm sending my lights to now that need modding.

10

As not promised :), here are some beamshots from my smartphone

On both images, Left: SkyRay King modded, Right: original

Left: Trustfire TR-J18 with kaidomain driver, Right: SkyRay King modded

Didn’t upload the reference shot because it was just a black image :smiley:

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i know this blog posted since 2014, and im the one that still excited to mod skyray king… would u mind tell me how to short the resistor? i bought 3 skyray king and move + cable into the right side of resistor and they’re all short… flashlight wont even turn on… so maybe u can help me to give me a picture or something… :smiley:

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There are a lot of different drivers in them now days. You would need to post a picture of the one you have to know what to do with it.

I also have some fully built drivers for the SRK that are setup with a far better UI, contact plate, thermal management ect that I no longer need if you want a drop in option.

13

Wow, amazing that this is still interesting after two years.

Can you see the little piece of silver wire which goes across the two soldering pads? That shorts out the two R220 resistors right next to it. Therefore these resistors are “ignored” and the current is no longer limited I guess.

But as Texas_Ace mentioned, you might have a different driver board. Just take a picture with your smartphone or camera, you can upload it on imgur and then post it here.

Oh, one more thing. Now that I have this flashlight for 2 years I had time to put it to extensive testing. At least during the last power outage it was a great help. Just put it on a table and let it shine to the ceiling, and the whole room is lighted. But be careful when touching it after half an hour. It gets really hot. That means the heatsink works, but the overall cooling is just not given for a flashlight with this size. If you ask me it was a nice thing to do, but for the next flashlight I’m probably deciding to take more LEDs instead of putting as much current as possible into less LEDs. The amount of extra light you get when you drive LEDs at their maximum is just less than another LED would give you.

Sorry for the messed up aspect ratio, it’s late and I’m too lazy to fix it

14

i have the same board as yours… but mine just have 3 led emitter…, i was thinking if i can mod correctly, it might has more throw than the 6 and up version. but im not sure.
ohhh it actually really easy to do, i just wasted my 3 flashlight by removing the resistor and connecting +wires to the right side and they’re all dead.
if i putt more wire on the r3 ( between the 2 resistor) and another wire on the bottom side like u did, will it give me more current?
i contacted texas, and he has pretty well mod skyray… but i think im gonna fix the 3 flashlight first before i tried his flashlight…
thanks for the picture :smiley:

15

Hmm, it’s hard to follow your explanation. Can you make some pictures showing what you did?

16

sorry for my bad english :smiley:
u did connected the r1 spot by soldering small wire right? if i connected another cable in the r3 spot…, will it give me more output amp?

17

here’s my board… where should i solder the small wire? r3 or r4? or both? :smiley:
if i solder both (r3 and r4) will it give me more amp?

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You just need to solder a wire at R3 or R4. One is enough. Shouldn’t make a difference if you do both.

Make sure you’ve got protected batteries when you turn on the light after your changes

19

It looks like you mixed up the wires or something, something just doesn’t look right in that picture.

How are the wires connected? The e-switch wires should be on the pads for the switch, they appear to go to the LED outputs though?

The LED wires appear to go to random vias?

Also your driver is close but is not the same as the one in the OP. There are dozens and dozens of different drivers for these lights, all slightly different.