This thread is made possible with the true BLF community spirit, with special thanks to member Chibim, Gchart, Oweban and last but not least Lumintop!
I was dreaming for a while to own a GT90, but since i am frugal (which is why i am member of BudgetLightForum) I did not want to spend 300$ on a flashlight.
Texas Ace mentioned in the GT90 thread that he could get GT90 conversion kits, but they were still 120$, whith additional shipping costs, which was a lot more than i had hoped for.
Another minor point was that i actually sold my original GT last year, so i still needed to get a GT.
So that left me with three options
- Get a GT and buy a TA/Lumintop conversion kit
- Get A GT90 with a good deal
- Get a GT and try to buy parts from Lumintop
Frugal as i am, i tried to PM some BLF members asking if they were willing to sell their GT (for cheap), some people were willing to sell them but i was looking for the best price, so i decided to wait
I tried to get a good deal on several places and even begged Lumintop, they could give me some discount but the grand total was still 280$, so still not the success i was looking for.
I have asked Lumintop if i could buy i GT90 conversion kit directly from them, but that was practical impossible. I could buy a driver and LED but the carriers were a problem.
Since i have much contact with member Chibim, Gchart and Oweban, they were willing to help me out, Chibim sold me his GT for a more than fair price, Since the carriers could not be bought from Lumintop i needed to find another solution. Member Gchart was willing to design the PCB’s for the GT90 carriers, and member Owen helped him out with the design and dimensions. With the design i was able to order the carrier PCB’s, which I ordered from JLCPCB, and they were actually quite fast and not unimportant, cheap
Lumintop offered me the MCPCB with LED and driver for a good price (actually Member Chibim already ordered the driver) so with all that sorted i was able to mod my GT!
So the first thing to do was to disassemble the carriers and unsolder the springs
Solder them onto the new PCB
Assemble it back again
(And made a new brass pad for the driver, since it did not come with one, and i did not want to take it off the old driver, because you never know if it will see any new future use sometime. I made it from an old brass water tap valve, where i used my hacksaw to cut off the flat end of it. Some serious elbow grease)
Number 1 finished
Number 2
Carrierss assembled
Check functionality
Unsoldered the leads from the XHP35 and cleaned the shelf
Unsoldered the leads, since they need to be transplanted
Put some thermal grease in between and put it back together
driver side
voila
One stupid thing, the hole diameter for the screws is larger as with the original XHP35 version, so they do not hold down the MCPCB, they’re probably only there for aesthetics
since they do have zero function now. As mentioned by Kawiboy (over here) it still acts as an anti rotating feature
It shows a sign of life !
From the outside it’s still a standard GT
But experts know the difference
i like it!
Really would like to test it out in the dark now, but unfortunately it started raining and there’s thunder as well, so that will have to wait
Also thanks to Henk4U2, who was hesitating to sell his GT, and sent me a message after 2 months that he had to think about it and was willing to let it go. The only thing was a bad timing, since i just bought Chibim his GT the day before!
Thanks again all guys, really appreciate it!
As mentioned before, that’s true BLF spirit
For those interested, here are Gchart’s carrier gerber files:
GT carrier negative
Good stuff Yokiami!
edit: YokiamY
The Eneloop 2005-2021 info thread
Looks great, and I’m jealous! Have fun to night, it is dry now
link to djozz tests
Yeah, i’m jealous already for your GT4
Awesome mod, yokiamy!
Wow, that is some modification.
And the best part of it (for me), it is hardly visible on the outside.
It is like a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
But since the original GT was no sheep at all, one might call it a dragon in wolf’s clothing.
But to be honest, there is a vital thing missing: beamshots.
For the proof of the pudding is in the eating.
Which brings me to another (food) expression: you can’t have your cake (GT) and eat it (GT90).
So you definitely need an other GT for a side by side comparison.
You are a flashaholic if you are forced to come out of the closet, to make room for more flashlights.
Just so happens that you have one for sale?
Terrific work on the mod Yokiamy. And to boot it works. Even better.
I love reading about mods like this where members come together to help another. Nice work all round.
djozz quotes, "it came with chinese lettering that is chinese to me".
"My man mousehole needs one too"
old4570 said "I'm not an expert , so don't suffer from any such technical restrictions".
Old-Lumens. Highly admired and cherished member of Budget Light Forum. 11.5.2011 - 20.12.16. RIP.
Thanks for getting the measurements to me, oweban!
Hm, coming to think of it ….
You are a flashaholic if you are forced to come out of the closet, to make room for more flashlights.
Sweeeeet!!!
I don’t have use for one of these, but I’ll be happy to see your beamshots when possible!
Nice “community work”
MY REVIEWS THREAD /// My Flashlight Collection ///
Mods: 1 / 2 // TIR: 1 / 2 // Others: Biscotti 3 + 1*7135 / Triple TIR w/ XP-G2 /// My Review's Blog (PT) /// OL Contest 2019 /// OL Contest 2020 /// GIVEAWAYs: 1 / 2
Great job on the conversion mod! Does anyone know if Lumintop will make a GT90 mod kit in the near future? The GT90 is to rich for my pockets as I am sure for many others.
Doug S.
It’s a crappy phone pic, but ITS AWESOME !
It feels like firing a bazooka (at least, that is how i’d expect it to be, i’ve never really fired one)
I felt like a deer hunter (spot the deer)
That looks amazing! The spill and beam are incredible
Doug S.
That’s a nice community effort and result.
You can gain more output if you take the lens off STB90.2. Vinh54 has a how to guide
For anyone that might be interested in doing this mod, I would recommend doing that yokiamy did and using the Gerber files he linked to over at JLCPCB or PCBWAY. I like Oshpark but for larger boards they can be expensive. But if you’d like to get a view of what the boards look like, here are Oshpark links:
Nice, what was total build cost?
100€ for the GT, driver and mcpcb with SBT90 65$, PCB’S for the carriers were 6$ (+ additional shipping costs)
So around 180
Looks good and well done. That’s the cheapest GT90 ever!
Impressive
The deer must have thought he was going to be abducted
MY REVIEWS THREAD /// My Flashlight Collection ///
Mods: 1 / 2 // TIR: 1 / 2 // Others: Biscotti 3 + 1*7135 / Triple TIR w/ XP-G2 /// My Review's Blog (PT) /// OL Contest 2019 /// OL Contest 2020 /// GIVEAWAYs: 1 / 2
“ yokiamy “ Very impressive !! You guys are showing that “ Old Lumen Spirit “, just what BLF is all about. Nice to see TEAM work
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There is something about a “ hands on modded light “ that is so much more fun to use. Enjoy
Water Cooled MT35 PLUS RE-MODDED---------MT35 Plus with SBT90.2 mod ( GT90 kit from Texas Ace )
7th annual BLF/O-L contest Haikelite MT07 upgraded--------8th annual BLF/O-L contest “SKELETON”
Water Cooled 20K lumen POT LID LIGHT------Think outside the box too long , cannot find your way back in.
Very nice Yokiamy! Thanks for sharing, must be fun.
Great mod
Regards Xandre
Excellent job on the mod!
I converted 2 GT's with the kit, have 1 more kit to go, but still need to upgrade 2 more GT's after that. Just emailed Lumintop if they would sell me two sets of the driver and LED/MCPCB, so waiting patiently for them to respond. If they are able to sell me the parts, I'd be very much interested in downloading the Gerber files for the carrier boards and getting them made, maybe with OSHPark but I may give JLCPCB a try. I'll have to price compare - OSHPark is probably a bit more $$$ but free shipping.
JLPCB for me, with shipping, was $12.06. However, there were several options that I couldn’t select for the boards at checkout. It would give the same warning, that the options selected were an uncommon combination, and they would have to do a custom run, and it would both take longer and cost like $30 extra. So I got everything default except red solder mask on the positive and black solder mask on the negative (those options were free).
It’s also worth noting that it got me like 5 of each, and I only need one of each for my mod (MF02), so I could send a pair of each to someone for the cost of shipping.
agTac D25C Ti | L6 XHP70.2 P2 4000K FET+7135 | Jaxman M8 | MF02 | Jaxman Z1 CULNM1.TG | Blue S2+ w/ ML Special |
What did you do about the driver and LED?
http://budgetlightforum.com/node/74120
I’m putting a TA 46mm FET+1+15 SRK driver in my MF02 and I got the SBT90.2 from Hank.
Sorry I don’t have any ideas about the GT driver. All you really need is something with a FET in the correct size, though. No idea what the size is for the GT. I was curious about the GT90 driver itself, but Yokiamy didn’t post any pictures of the topside of the new driver
agTac D25C Ti | L6 XHP70.2 P2 4000K FET+7135 | Jaxman M8 | MF02 | Jaxman Z1 CULNM1.TG | Blue S2+ w/ ML Special |
You know when you think about it, I had options for the driver - could have piggybacked in a FET+1 for example. The $120 for the full kit is pricey for what you are getting, but there's was no option for me for the LED, MCPCB, and centering piece.
This driver came with the kit, but swapped in a SIRA20DP for the SIR800DP and added the red jumper in an attempt to improve flow. Also swapped the 20 AWG LED wires with 18 AWG because why not? 18 AWG fits fine - plenty of clearance.
So I modded the mod kit
Kit parts, minus the screws and carriers not shown:
The GT90 driver is 45.5 mm in diameter and 2.2 mm thick, stock GT driver is 46.0 mm x 2.2 mm. 1.6 mm is pretty much the standard driver thickness, so dunno if it would be an issue using an OSHPark SRK 1.6 mm driver.
Yes, that’s the standard GT90 driver i got. Pretty cheap though.
I contacted Victor Zhou from Lumintop, great guy, pretty responsive and helpful.
Also i do have some spare PCB’s for battery carrier conversion for anyone interested.
How did you contact him? I got no reply yet from the email to service@lumintop.com, but probably need to give them a couple more days.
After 2 Chinese biz days with no response, I'm now trying sales@lumintop.com. Even if I could get only the LED, MCPCB, and centering piece - that would be fine.
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