Advice on failed attempts to mod drivers, lights, ect.

Flashlight Modding and DIY Parts
1

So I am fairly new to this hobby of modifying flashlights, but I don't really do anything halfway. I made a few UF-T20s burned a handful of emitters and a driver and switch or two along the way. Made a S2+ with one if those nice samsung high cri emitters and started working on my newest projects, the UF-1504 & 1405.

For these two I was originally wanting to take the qlite drivers from mtn and add some (4) more 7135s to each so my high mode would be 4.5 amps or so. My once non existent soldering skills had improved a pot since I first started and I had just upgraded to the Hakko 888d so I figured if I needed 2 drivers I better buy 4, and if I needed 8 7135s I better buy 20. I'm currently on board 3 with 4 chips added, 2 remaining and what do you know, it works. It turns on allows you to set mode groups and looks fairly... standard.

I put a plain board and emitter (osram CSLNM1.TG) in a pill for these lights when I first got them to compare t20 to 1504 apples to apples. And this looked the same after all my effort.

So I tried to test the amperage at the tailcap and while I know it is said here this won't be accurate, I also pulled the tailcap off the T20 to compare. Both read 2.4a it's disappointing because I expected the modded driver would read 50% higher even if it didn't read 4.5 it should have read 3.6.

I don't have a clamp meter, but my DMM is a Fluke77 IV so it's not junk, to measure amperage I extended the probes all the way out and shoved them into short pieces of 12ga ofc speaker wire.

So here is my dilemma, I want these flashlights working as one is for a friend of mine. I am going to put in an order somewhere soon for some other emitters and more drivers as well as more 7135s. I will eventually get this skill down, but I am wondering if there is a place I can order a board with added chips at the same time I am ordering the parts to DIY it? Also is there anywhere other than mouser and digikey where I can find the 2mm flat white and/or the other more robust version of the 1mm flat white? I forget the model now and would have to go reread the massive osram post for the hundredth time.

As for the 1405, which is a double 26650 light, I am making an adapter that will allow me to run 18650s because I already have a ton of them, but It's going to parallel them instead of run them in series so I can run 3v LEDs. I would however like to know where I can find extra pills for these lights so I can make a 6v version and a 3v version, as well as make a 660nm pill for night hunting and such. As much as I have looked and read, there isn't much talk of 6v leds which is understandable, but can anyone point me in the direction of the best thrower leds in 6v, or most efficient. I'm much more into seeing well and havi g decent run times, not trying to melt down a flashlight and burn my hand with a light that sucks batteries dry in 15 minutes. Though I wouldn't mind making a separate pill just for that in order to show off a bit sometimes.

I also purchased a SOIC 8 clip and usb avr reprogramming board in order to modify existing firmware and flash my own perfect modes on my flash lights. I haven't started this part of the project yet but like I said, I tend not to do things halfway. I am sure I will have questions but most of them I can probably find the answers to in that huge post where the repository is linked. That's an incredible resource and even though I haven't used it yet I am already grateful the information is out there and organized.

Last but not least, I have been trying to add an internal optic, I believe it would be a secondary optic but I may have my terms mixed up. Basically I just want to collimate the light at the emitter into a spot beam aimed at the back of the aspheric lens on these lights so it isn't wasting half of the available lumens. I ordered a few narrow spot lenses LEDil brand but they have these rings in them and loom aweful. I pulled apart these junky bell howell tac lights and put their plastic aspheric lens inside the head of one of these and it seems to do what I want but is terrible quality. Does someone make a small (16mm max would prefer small enough to fit between the wires on a 16mm mcpcb) aspheric lens preferably with some sort of holder already attached that can be modified to fit if it doesn't already? I can modify much easier than I can fabricate but push co e to shove I can fabricate too.

If anyone has advice or information on any of these topics I would be grateful for it. Also want to say thanks to everyone who contributes here for not only opening my eyes to the possibilities of this hobby but for taking so much time to keep the learning curve from becoming too steep. You guys take a complex hobby with some fairly advanced science and math behind it and break it down in a way that reaches and encourages people to take a shot. Thanks for that, sincerely.

2

Please tell me the 935 word post I just typed isn't blank and it's just my phone being weird. I fixed it. Had it all typed into summary instead of body. My bad.

3

As far as the separate pill goes your best bet is Ali. But they currently don’t sell just a bare DIY pill. They only sell it complete with LED and driver. You could buy one and depopulate it. I am not that familiar with the other asia www retailers though. let others direct you better.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32633389519.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.0.0.75a975323fmgff&algo_pvid=9a0ac2d8-d2dd-445f-a781-95397f7048be&algo_expid=9a0ac2d8-d2dd-445f-a781-95397f7048be-4&btsid=0b0a556e16180759770542339e4cce&ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602*,searchweb201603*

I just get my stuff at MTN. I am terrible at 7135 stacking, I gave up on that long ago… hahaha. I just use one of their FET-DD / 7135 drivers in my 1504 with an XPL-HI. Its not going to be as tight-beam throwey as your build. MTN has the option to add 7135 chips to their QLite driver for a fee. I am pretty sure they bench test it 100%. Maybe get one of theirs if nothing else, use that as a base line for your DIYs…?

I dont have any experience with adding an internal pre-optic to the 1504. I just run mine with the main 65mm aspheric…. Yes lots of wasted lumens when set to focus.

4

Thats weird how both of your boards pull exactly 2.4A. I wonder if theres something else in the circuit throttling the current?

You mention meter probes… don’t under-estimate the importance of good probes. I have a fluke 179 that was giving me all kinds of inconsistent readings. Turns out it was faulty probe wires. They were around $15~20… IIRC. I splurged and got a better set for $35, worth every penny. I was going NUTS trying to figure out my various circuits with those bad probes.

5

I mostly buy everything from MTN and thought the first time I ordered from there they had an option to add chips, now the only option they offer is removal of chips. Also saw the populated pills for sale but am having a hard time spending $16 when the 1504 host is only $10 more at mtn. I also hesitate to buy more of these simply because I would rather spend my money to see/try what else is out there. I have a XPL-HL in a T20 right now, I originally bought a Nichia 319AT for it due to the hexagonal die shape but scraped all the phosphor off while trying to slice the dome. Bought another and will use a spacer washer this time, but it's another of the emitters I really want to test in this big light. Also just want to say I appreciate the response tremendously.

6

Bit rushed so apologies for the answers being ‘short’ but first off, kudos for attempting modding, it’s always a learning curve so don’t be put off by any issues you run into or if anything doesn’t work as intended, asking here is definitely the right way to go :slight_smile:

If you’re just shining them next to each other indoors you’re not necessarily going to notice any difference, you’ll either need to measure them on a light meter or get them outside and light up objects in the distance. Eyes are not very good at seeing small differences between bright lights, they just look bright. And by small i mean 30-40% increases.

It’s not about accuracy it’s about the cables and the meter adding resistance into the circuit which limits the current that can flow. 2.4A is probably accurate, it’s just that the DMM and cables are limiting the current to that and more will flow without the DMM in the circuit. Clamp meters don’t get inserted into the circuit and hence don’t limit it which is why they’re better.

Kaidomain have the 2mm, the only place i know to get the CULNM1 (the 4040 1mm) is LED4POWER, although i get the impression Convoy may have them but don’t quote me on that.

Is there a specific reason you want to run a 6v LED? Because if it’s just that the batteries in series are 8.4v you can use a buck driver to drop that voltage to 3v.

What’s happening is what’s expected. You’ll need to do some reading on here but as far as i’m aware there’s nothing like that that exists, i don’t kow why but if it did i think it would be very popular!
Another way to utilise the light being lost to the sides is a collar, which is basically a reflective hemisphere with a hole in the middle that reflects light back to the die for the phospher to recycle. Obvs far more complicated than that as you’ll see from the threads on here.

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I can't say they pull exactly 2.4 amps, one may have fluctuated a little higher the other a bit lower. I don't know how old my leads are but they are fluke leads, I traded a guy a brand new set of pex clamp ring pliers for this multimeter a few years ago and it's always been good to me and reads accurately on things that I know the voltage and such on.I haven't done any testing or checking amperage of anything before though. I have been looking for a new set of lesds lately just because I'd really like some mini grabbers and such

8

You need a clamp meter for current measurement. Even a $600 Fluke won’t help you when you measure current in series.

9

So reading on here is what gave me the understanding that aspherical zoomies lose a lot of light, and somewhere someone had the same idea as me, I either read or dreamed I read a post where someone did what I am talking about and it increased their CD and doubled die projection size both which would be fabulous. I've been reading up on edmunds optics about all the different variables involved and something on there mentioned a light pipe which I have seen, but as far as I can tell nobody makes one as a small directly above the source TIR basically it seems like. The collar you mentioned is a patented thing though right? Wavian collars? And the company that holds the patent is either not sharing the product or it's extremely expensive and either way it is not optimized for such a small die iirc. If I am remembering incorrectly that would be great and I hope someone could point me in the proper direction.

10

Yup, Wavien collar, that’s the one :slight_smile: Everything i know about it i read on here so can’t add anything.
I haven’t seen the first thread you mention though, may well have been a one off as there are talented people here who custom make their own stuff but i’m not aware of anything commercially available. Doesn’t mean there isn’t one.
The light loss is right though, all those lumens wasted! And quite a few of us wishing they weren’t.
I bought something like this once:
http://kaidomain.com/Flashlight-DIY-and-Tools/Lens/optical-lenses/S022552-6mm-Plano-convex-Collimation-Lens-for-532nm-Green-Light-Laser-Module
just to see what it would do but i damaged it before being able to test it, i don’t think it was the shape i was expecting but it was too small for me to tell!
There are other interesting little optics on there such as this one:
http://kaidomain.com/Flashlight-DIY-and-Tools/Lens/optical-lenses/S020652-9mm-LED-Lamp-Glass-Lens-1pc
but the specs on them are somewhat lacking…

11

Thanks, I am unfamiliar with kaidoman so will give them a browse. The post I was talking about was definitely a one off custom mod, that iirc involved hesvy modification and fabrication

12

So, an update for those interested, I had originally replaced the spring on the driver to. Thicker and slightly longer spring because I felt the battery was loose inside, and because this light is log enough to use protected cells and mine aren't I assumed this would be a reasonable thing to do. I didn't bypass the tail cap spring due to my previously melting a t20 tailcap switch it worked out because I wanted to put a remote switch on that light anyway for mounting on my 10/22. Earlier tonight I decided to give it a whirl and it worked quite well. Okay, so originally I puta bigger spring intending to completely eliminate the button and spring combo and realized as I was attempting to put the retainer ring on that it was going to short out, so I wrapped it in some 1/2in dual wall marine grade heatshrink where just the end was exposed but it was too fat to fit through the retainer ring then. So then I put the original setup back on and bypassed it. The moment I turned it on I thought I could tell a difference but went outside to test it and indeed there was a pretty good increase in brightness. The other day I could easily see deer standing on the back of our tank dam 200 yards away and they were back again tonight only this time I could see them and tracked them to the wood line 350 yards away. That is the furthest distance I have an open line of sight though.

One more question I had is how do you bypass a tail spring with desolder braid? I tried twice and it would soak so much solder down it that it pretty much turned into flat metal that had no flex and ended up breaking right away. I also had this problem with some cheaper 18ga wire I had. Ended up taking some extremely high conductor count 12 gauge speaker wire, took maybe 25% of the conductors, twisted them together and somewhat followed the twist of the spring tacking it in the middle as well as top and bottom.

13

Well, desoldering braid is made for sucking solder, some (most ?) are coated in flux to increase that capability.
I use wires, small ones, 1cm of 24AWG is already below 1mΩ, and with a proper iron it can be soldered in an instant so that very little solder sips in the wire.