Nice, classic 2010 build!
Also a nice, classic 1999 host! I have always liked the look of that one.
These days you could upgrade the light with an SST-40. It would produce similar lumens, but way more throw becaise the DIE is a little little less than half the size!
BTW: did you mount the LED on an aluminium star? In that case you could greatly reduce the temperature of the LED by using a copper DTP pcb (the SST-90 fits on the pcbs for MT-G2 LEDs).
The LED lumens you calculated are only possible with a dtp pcb or direct soldering onto copper heatsink. Olight had this problem with their SR-90 back then (the first ones did maybe 1200 otf lumens, later ones 1750 otf). Custom light maker lambdalights showed this with his modded maglites (called Varapower 2000 etc.).
Here are some sphere measurements that bigchelis posted of his Varapower lights back then (same build, one with aluminium heatsink and star, one with copper heatsink and LED directly soldered onto it, both direct driven off of four c nimh cells with some resistance from spring, usually 15A at turn-on, same LED bin on both):
Lumens after 1s: 1840 vs 2110
After 4 minutes: 1282 vs 1715
I don't know why the aluminum one starts off with less lumens, but it definitely drops off more.
I agree with Lexel - an XHP-70.2 would cause more wow effect. :D
I was just searching on here for posts about this emitter the other day lol.
I have an SST90 DD 3D mag that I built around 2010. I have been thinking of upgrading it since it kills the NIMH batteries. Its no fun turning it on and seeing a dim light… Once it nukes the last set I will have to figure out a plan for it. So many more options now than back then.
You could try the new 15A buck driver from the texas ace. In theory it’s perfect for this LED, but nobody has actually built and tried it yet (should be around 30:money_mouth_face:.