Sweet! Just in time to get busy on the clear L6 I recently got.

I sold my modified black L6 with the de-domed XP-G2 emitter, it’s 439Kcd was needed in Greece.

My XHP-35 L2 and the ready and willing clear L6 are still holding down the fort here, with some plans for the clear L6 that will require me to have time at the lathe to pull off. Let’s just say it should be a nice thrower in the end.

Looking forward to see what others are doing…

Well I already made a thread for this L2 mod, but I figure I’ll post a link here.

7x dedomed XPL, ~8500 lumens, 145Kcd. Doesn’t use the stock reflector of course, but the host is super solid quality and I wouldn’t want anything less for this mod.

Also, I replaced the forward clicky with the reverse clicky from an ultrafire F13. The F13 clicky pcb is bigger and just fits in the tail cap, but I had to file down the section near the soldered switch contact to make sure it didn’t make contact with the tail cap body and bypass the switch. Also, the button was a little short so I put a folded piece of cardboard on top of the button and it works great.

Hmmm might be awhile to post what I have already done to them….but here we go with the most recent…and one of my favorite builds!!

My black L6 has an FET driver with a premium XHP-70, it makes 7245 lumens with a ramping firmware from TK.

Since i have 2 SMO reflectors currently and several L6s one i modded with a sliced XHP70 driven at 6.5 amps( using the default driver), when fixed properly it would give 140k cds and about 4k lumens, its quite usable outdoors too using 2 good 5k mah batteries

The second one( for me its the L6 as it should be) is a single cell one , equipped with a DDed W2 emitter and driven by a FED DD driver with a modified momentary JonnyC firmware- 1900 lumens and 325mcds

Currently working on a dual 26350 setup plus a suitable driver, same emitter

This mod of L6 is maybe the best 2016 mod for me, the BLFest thrower ever prolly, quite easy to carry too

Olight m3x driver works like a champ in that host btw :), Also M22 one too( with some modding)- yet it aint a cheap modding, i have those as spares and leftovers

XHP35 needs lots of amps to reach W2 performance, prolly above 3, at 1.5 amps its throw is like 50% of the W2 one( about 180k cds)

subscribing…

Mitko wrote:

Since i have 2 SMO reflectors currently and several L6s one i modded with a sliced XHP70 driven at 6.5 amps( using the default driver), when fixed properly it would give 140k cds and about 4k lumens, its quite usable outdoors too using 2 good 5k mah batteries

The second one( for me its the L6 as it should be) is a single cell one , equipped with a DDed W2 emitter and driven by a FED DD driver with a modified momentary JonnyC firmware- 1900 lumens and 325mcds

Currently working on a dual 26350 setup plus a suitable driver, same emitter

This mod of L6 is maybe the best 2016 mod for me, the BLFest thrower ever prolly, quite easy to carry too

Olight m3x driver works like a champ in that host btw :), Also M22 one too( with some modding)- yet it aint a cheap modding, i have those as spares and leftovers

XHP35 needs lots of amps to reach W2 performance, prolly above 3, at 1.5 amps its throw is like 50% of the W2 one( about 180k cds)

Sure but i have to build the driver first… casue i am using a 1.5amp non el switch driver for the tests and the difference is huge , not in XHP35 favour ofc
Another problem is that XHP35 runs hella hot at 3 amps, even at the test bench( cooled with a huge Cu heatsink, plus i aint sure how it will work on a long term base and real conditions…those are 4 xpe2 cores, 3 amps are kinda high for them

Yet, as XPL HI i have found that a dedomed E2 1A performs 20%( at least) better than HI versions but its a fresh dedome and i still have too low exp and did only few tests so far

I have some 30mm Texas Avenger drivers on order, Gonna see what it does to an otherwise stock L6 with 3A tint with Narsil running everything once they come in.

Can’t wait to finally be able to try Narsil out for myself.

I will have some extras as well to see once they are built if all goes well.

I'm still wait'n on proper LDO's to arrive. Now that I know the e-switch PCB can accommodate LED's, and I have a transparent e-switch cover (came with the clear ano L6), no-brainer to enable  the indicator LED support in Narsil, but the problem in the L6 (any 2S+ light), i need to use the external voltage dividers and with triple channel, I'm out of I/O ports once again . So, something has to go - either drop the indicator LED or drop the 7135 bank... I believe the R1 or R2 value needs to be about 36K, or 360K, so I got the 360K and 47K installed already.

Also wondering if a UCLp will be an improvement to the stock L6 AR lens - maybe Dale tried, might order 1 to try.

I have gotten a couple of the UCLp for the L6/L2, but don’t remember the effect. Will have to revisit…

Edit: Big Surprise! Simon’s AR coated glass actually bests the UCLp lens! Not by a whole lot, and both have substantial losses as compared to testing with no lens at all, but still!

L6, clear, stock. Red Efest 3000mAh ells rested at 4.12V after testing.

No lens shows 4071 lumens
Stock lens shows 3836.8
UCLp lens shows 3808.8

L6, Black, modified. Basen 4500mAh cells rested and used show 3.95V after testing.

No lens shows 6513.6 lumens
Stock lens shows 5920.2
UCLp lens shows 5764.95

So there you have it, unless you’re specifically looking for a more shatter resistant lens, the stock AR coated glass lens outperforms the UCLp.

You sure you didn’t mix up those numbers? That’s the upset of the year!

I’m sure. I didn’t want to see the UCLp upset so I checked, jaw dropped, I checked again and then did the modified L6, same thing. I have all the cells on the charger and will test again at maximum output.

You know what this means, right? My modified L6 showed 7245 lumens before, with the UCLp on board… that means with the stock glass it’ll be higher, and I can’t wait to see what it shows with nothing in front of it other than the glass shelf in my light box.

In all fairness, Chris’s UCL glass lenses have higher transmittance than the acrylic lens, if only by that last 1% or so. Seems Simon found an AR coating that rivals the UCL legend.

According to your measurements :

Difference between UCLp and Convoy lens’es is : in stock L6 0.73% and in modified L6 2.92% .

It could be interesting to check with full batteries .

Interesting results. Thanks Dale! Yea, would be interesting to see the beast L6 you got there tweaked for a little more. I've seen more bad AR's then good, I think I've only seen the UCLp's beat them, but probbaly just in more budget lights.

I have one XHP70 P2 1C on a 20mm sitting around here, from back when Richard had them in stock - should have bought 1-2 more. Wonder if/when he's getting more - been meaning to ask him.

I dug out a stock L6 lens from my box where I put them when I get UCLp lenses in as replacements. It’s been my practice to place the blue protective film on the stock lens and write the lights brand and model number and the date on this film, for reference. When I removed the film from my L6 stock glass, (replaced July 1, 2016) it pulled a lot of the AR coating off the glass, ruining it.

So, while the coating might have nice translucence it is more easily damaged.

That said, I pulled fresh charged Efest Red 3000mAh 26650’s off the charger at 4.21V and did a replay on the tests, using the UCLp from my black L6 and the stock glass lens from my Clear L6. The results have me thinking I made a mistake on the first go round, much as I tried to get it right and double/triple checked. Oh well, I can only report what I just saw.

Clear L6, in stock trim.

No lens 4226.25
Stock lens 3815.7
UCLp lens 4081.35

Lest y’all think I’m nuts (can’t blame you, I do) the glass lens has sanded and radiused edges, and of course it’s glass, making it easy to see the difference from the Acrylic lens with laser cut edges that show microscopic ridges. Very easy to tell them apart.

Cells from the modified L6 are still charging.

Edit: The only way I can see that there could be such variation is in the order of testing, cells dropping after getting hit with the 4000 lumen first and ensuing test. I tested this time with the UCLp first, no lens second, and stock glass lens third. First time it was stock glass, UCLp, then no lens.

Ok, on the modified L6. Pretty sure the only real way to get accurate results is to run the light in the test then run it some more to knock the cells down enough for the charger to get a sense of balance on em, charge em up fresh after each run. Because the cells are obviously taking a hit and skewing the numbers.

Fresh charged Basen cells in the modified Black L6 showed, without any lens at all, 7693.5 lumens
I put the UCLp on it and it did 7417.5
Then I put the glass stock lens on and got 6589.5

Gotta be the cells taking the hit on the sheer power.

I’ll charge em back up and take a reading on the stock glass with fresh cells…

Take a reading on the modified light or the stock light?

Too bad you don’t have a bench power supply, it is great for things like this. You can set it to a fixed output and ensure that the cells are not an issue.

Dale, did you check the cells of your luxmeter recently?

I’ve thought about it before, but that’d be just one more thing for me to learn how to use, forget how to use, and leave plugged in til it burned up.

Have a $114 Sparkfun hot air station on the way, no soldering iron as I like my Hakko.

My lux meter is solar powered Mike. hahahaha

Yeah, it’s got a new 9V cell. Comparatively new, anyway. This decade or something. I remember putting it in there but can’t say if it was 1 month ago or 6.

Been taking care of it… the cell that was in my meter was at 8.1V, the new one is at 9.5V. So now I have to start over. Ugh.

On my luxmeter when the batteries start goin low, the lux readings go up. Testing mods, that can be fun - wow that mod was awesome! But when the meter gets to that point, the low batt indicator is always there.

You must have a lot of amps killing the cells - maybe also heat, if you were doing them close back to back.

So, here’s what I did… I used the modified black L6 with it’s 4500mAh Basen cells and I charged the cells fresh each of the 3 runs. I have a start number and a 30 seconds number for each of the 3 test runs. Before each test, I pulled the cells from my 8 bay Enova charger and measured the voltage. Each time both cells had stopped charging at 4.23V.

With No lens at all, I saw 7,590 lumens at start and 6,900 at 30 seconds.

With Stock AR lens, I saw 7,452 lumens at start and 6,762 at 30 seconds.

With the UCLp, I saw 7,279.5 lumens at start and 6,451.5 at 30 seconds.

So, with the cells at a common start value, fully charged, and with the light cool between runs, it seems pretty clear here. The factory AR coated lens outperforms the UCLp lens. At 172.5 lumens difference, it’s not a huge deal, but still. The factory lens is only dropping 138 lumens as compared to no lens at all. That is pretty remarkable.

Oddly enough, both with no lens and with the stock lens runs the light dropped 690 lumens in 30 seconds. But on the UCLp run it dropped 828 lumens. No obvious reason why.

It should go without saying that an unmodified light will show less difference than the highly modified light of these tests.

Essentially, it isn’t worth the trouble to change out Simon’s excellent quality AR coated glass lens.