Hello flashlight family! Still learning as I go but I need suggestions for a new build? Any ideas or thoughts from you? I would really appreciate them. I have stage 4 melanoma cancer so I’m trying to kill time without doing anything physical. I’m open to throwers or flood lights and any links you may have. I’m also open to ridiculous bad ideas also :sunglasses:
Do we have a section or sticky for builds that might help me?
As always thank you for your help in the past, present and future 
first of all, I am so sorry for your diagnosis. I sincerely wish you all the best. And I hope you and your family can find the spirit to move forward. As to ideas for a new SBT-90 build, I wish I had more experience to give you some solid ideas. maybe our other more experience BLF members can chime in? I am urging all members, to please step up, and give this man some ideas, and, or, leads. I wish you the best of luck, On both your build and the treatment for your disease. I will be interested to see what you come up with.
Thank you I appreciate it. I’ve made it a year longer than they gave me and between chemo and radiation I’m winning for now. I started with 7 tumors and I’ll know how many are left at the end of next month but the lung and lymph node are both gone. Chemo every 2 weeks and radiation has changed my life but I have faith it’ll work out. Anyways it doesn’t have to be a SBT 90 anything interesting or even something you would hope to do. I wouldn’t mind one with several LEDs in it. Thanks again
Sorry to hear about your health issue, wish you strength.
About your question: You can do something as simple as an emitter+driver swap of a “boring” flashlight or make a fun flashlight even funnier.
Maybe swap the xhp35 hi emitter of an Astrolux MF02/MF04 or Mateminco MT35 with an xhp70.3 hi or SBT90.2. Mod a Convoy S2, there are tons of different mods of this light on the internet. Convoy C8 is also a great host for some simple mods. You can bring back to life an old Maglite by upgrading the halogen buld with a modern led+driver and some heatsinking. Even just a resistor mod on some drivers that allow it can be fun.
If you let us know your moding skills maybe it will be easier to suggest something accordingly.
You can check the links from my signature, I have done some stuff myself that may give you some ideas. I didnt take photos from everything on the earlier projects so feel free to ask if you have any questions.
Oh my god that 4 x sbt 90! I may never be at that level but I do have the urge to buy a small metal lathe.
I do have a Astrolux MF02 I’m not sure what’s in it but I’ll find out
I do currently have a s2 plus and s11 host but haven’t decided anything
I’m currently working on a UF-1405 with a Osram W1 culnm1
Is seeknight, astrolux and Mateminco all the same company?
As always thank you for the help and support
I’ll probably get blasted for this but I’m just a tad disappointed in this forum. Perhaps I did something incorrect in my listing or posted it wrong. In my past experience I went in knowing nothing and came out experienced knowledgeable and useful. Once I had the knowledge I was able to help others that were once like me and in return this caused a cycle of helpful people. I’m not sure if that’s the problem here or if it’s something else. What I do know is that building flashlights isn’t rocket science. I’m sure without a doubt there are people here that have more knowledge than I’ll ever have and that’s what I had hoped to gain. I very much hope for the success of BFL but unfortunately I seriously doubt it can stay alive without newcomers to pass along the knowledge.
Hang in there. Brain tumor survivor here, and it was a long road to recovery (they didn’t expect me to make it), but I’m still here 19 years on. Keep the faith up and keep looking up!
That’s great to do a project light. There’s a whole section of the forum for builds, mods, ideas HERE
Theres a contest called Old Lumens where members build one-off, modded, or scratch built lights also. I’ve done a few light builds (one failed, look them up under my username), but there are some pretty wild ones on here. I will mention that modding has sort of cooled down in recent years since factory lights are getting so good and there’s not much need to make them “better” but the sky’s the limit of course and with the right tools and skills and patience, anything’s possible.
Your question is too vague. There’s a million things you could do.
You’ll have to figure out what you want to achieve, and then you can ask specific questions about how to make that happen.
We don’t know what you know or don’t know, or what tools you have. Building flashlights from scratch is somewhat complicated. Modding them is less complicated but there’s still plenty of things you need to know.
Thank you for that link that’s exactly what I’m looking for. I don’t have a metal lathe yet but I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I’m just looking to build of a host for now. Thanks for the encouragement I’ll just keep going till I can’t. It’s all I can do…
Probably so although a million possibilities I certainly think we could narrow it down some. There is no wrong answer that’s why I asked. I’m not sure what’s complicated? I guess from scratch using a lathe etc. would be but for now I just want to use a host. I have a bunch of tools, meters, several soldering devices, microscope, dremels and heat gun. What tools would one need besides though? I was a welder for many years and also worked on diesel truck most of my life. I’ve built several computers for myself and others. I also cloned cell phones a long time ago so I would like to think I’m somewhat rounded of a person. If I asked for a single type of build that would have narrowed down the people that could respond.
Sounds like you’re pretty well equipped to mod.
Consider the form factor of the light. Do you want it to be pocketable, or so big that it requires a shoulder strap? A thrower or flooder or balanced beam? Lantern? This kind of stuff.
To answer that, you might consider: how will you use the light? What do you want to illuminate?
For a first mod, an S2+ triple is always fun. Or a C8, if you want a thrower.
I’d like to build a flood next as I’m almost done with my UF-1405 build. I’m pretty excited about that one. I have about 60ish flashlights now so my lighting needs are met currently so I’d like to build something on the beginner side of extreme. Flood or throw but I’m open to anything interesting and I think I may have a s2+ host I could do something with. Thank you much for the help and suggestions
How extreme? Like Acebeam x75 or Haikelite HK29? There’s a lot you can do with that with the time tools and money. A big flooder idea you can throw around is to find the floodiest LED you can (maybe a COB, Cree CXB3950) stick it in a big host (like a spotlight meant for a car headlight) on a big heat sink and drive it with a DC to DC boost converter off some 8S lipo batteries. You can find the hosts for cheap, but you’ll have to fabricate mounting hardware, mod the heatsink (use a solid chunk of aluminum round stock, PC heat sink meant for 150 watts, etc). You’ll need a switch, a reflector/diffuser/optic as well. It’s a lot of work. The ones I’ve done usually took 6+ months to finish.
Haikelite HK29 is somewhat affordable but I couldn’t do the acebeam is out of my reach with my current situation. I probably should take on a smaller project for a while but I do like the idea very much. Thanks for the input and I’m going to research it on it now
So by build you mean assemble. How can we know what you want?
Yes assemble. You could read what I’ve been discussing. I never thought asking an open question for ideas and tips for my next build would lead to so much uncertainty and confusion. You really couldn’t give a wrong answer other than ask a question I’ve answered.
If you’ve never built an S2 triple maybe you could give your old host some new life that way. It’s fun and not too expensive. If you search the forum for “S2+ triple” there are a few threads showing how people did theirs…quite a popular mod. You’ll need to buy a copper or aluminum spacer from Mountain Electronics for I think around $9 (copper) and pick the one that suits S2 or S2+, then an mcpcb for triple emitters (he sells a few options with mounted emitters if you don’t want to flow your own), and the plastic Carclo optic…and you’ll probably want a different driver if you want to burn a hole in your pocket, but several of Simon’s stock drivers will work fine, too. User Kiba-ru from Russia was also making some great copper spacers for this but given the current situation he was unable to continue shipping or taking payment…can’t recall who now but someone in Czech or Poland was able to take his stock and make it available to us with easy shipping. Mountain Electronics is the only domestic source I think. Fun build to try out!
I think I’m going to order the parts for it tomorrow if I can get them. I have a S2+ host already that I need to use so it only makes sense but I also have an s11 host I need to do something with. I think I may buy 2 more c8+ then install 2 different but similar setups in them so I can compare them. I see pictures online of setups comparing them but I’m sure it’s way different in person. I’m sure it’s probably even different between viewers as people do see things differently. Thank you for the ideas and tips I’ll try to come back show them off. God willing