small sun ZY-t13:driver swap, RED XP-E P3, reflector and aspheric test results.BEAMSHOTS ADDED

Flashlight Modding and DIY Parts
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i have built several ZY-t13 with red xp-e’s and a resistor mods to get the amperage where it needs to be for the red xpe. during the testing of Vf on one of them i shorted the the test lead against the flashlight housing frying the driver.
i don’t know of or don’t trust any of the cheap buck drivers and wanted to retain the the side switch function on the ZY-t13. After doing the research i decided on the TaskLED Lflex driver(not cheap). this driver has a momentary switch for mode selection function,it has a user selectable current selection, user selectable UI, and user selectable TEMP protection settings, and many other features that i have not fully taken advantage of yet.
since this is a 2X18650 light and a red xp-e with Vf around 2.6-2.7v at 1.5A the driver will have to buck off alot of watts(heat) so a custom copper heatsink was in order. the emitter selected is an XP-E red P3 bin flowed to copper SinkPad mounted in the light body with AAepoxy on edges of MCPCB and AS5 grease in the center. there is very little room between the MCPCB and reflector when the light head is screwed to the body so screwing down the star wasn’t really an option for this build.

original small sun ZY-T13 and ZY-T13 with crelant aspheric head(notice 1.5 inX.137 oring between aspheric head and light body)

driver/emitter housing, Lflex driver,original driver with original momentary switch and battery+ contact spring, copper heatsink and driver retaining ring.

original driver with all components removed and pigtail wires for momentary switch and driver+ soldered on

top view copper heatsink, heatsink made by using one inch holesaw and .250 in thick copper plate. notches hand filed.

bottom view with notch for +battery wire clearance.

driver on top of heat sink mock up, notice notch for +battery wire pass through.

mock up of driver, heatsink,contact board

copper heatsink soldered to contact board supplying thermal pathway to light body

driver attached to heatsink with thermal pad supplied by Taskled

wiring completed except for driver-

completed driver assembly

red xp-e p3 and copper sinkpad

copper sinkpad attached to housing with AA epoxy on edges and AS5 in center and pressure applied til epoxy cure

the results that follow are only relative to my own measuring methods and equipment. my lux meter is a DR. meter 200,000 lux( its reads about 10% less than a friend of mines cheap DX meter) and my DMM is craftsman made by ???

lux readings taken at 3m then corrected to lux@1M

results
with driver set to 1.5A

reflector
lux @ 3M 2950
lux @ 1M 26.5Kcd

aspheric w/front lens
lux @ 3M 7120
lux @ 1M 64kcd

aspheric w/o front lens
lux @ 3M 7620
lux @ 1M 68.5Kcd

2.8v @ emitter
1.48A @ emitter

i have no idea what i’m doing when it comes to photography and taking beamshots.
i’ll do my best to describe what i did. heres as much information as possible so the beamshot analysts may critique my methods and results.my camera is a canon powershot A470 auto everything. i have no idea what settings the thing was at when photos were snapped.

in this pic the light was set 37 feet from the wall. i stood approx 6-8 feet from the wall to snap the shot.it is daylight but not sunny and the shades are drawn in the room. i used macro and no flash. my walls are painted medium brown. in this pic, correct me if i’m wrong but there is some for lack of a better term “flashback” causing the photo to look brighter than it actually is.

in this pic i used macro with flash. this is a good representation of the color as seen by the naked eye, however this pic is not a good representation of how bright it is. in my opinion the brightness as seen by the naked eye is somewhere in between the two pics.

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NIIIIIIIIICE .

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WOW, nice job!

That copper heatsink much have taken some time!

Those throw numbers are great, especially since the dome is intact.

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wasn’t too bad. less than an hour. i used a one inch milwaukee hole saw. sunk it through the copper plate. leaving basically a fat washer. deburred it on the bench grinder. then used a course file to cut the flat and grooves. the clearance for positive driver wire was cut with a rotary file(die grinder bit) in a drill.

my dedoming skills have not improved enough to attempt it on this build.

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Holy cow!!! That is a nice build! Way to hit a homerun on the red light! That is also great numbers. I have never heard of a red xpe light or any red light getting over 30k lux. Congratulations and you are the red xpe king!!!

Have you got to use it yet? Details!!!

Dedoming is easy with gasoline!

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i will be field testing it soon. need to get higher mounts to clear the scope. bezel on the aspheric head is 71.6 mm dia. and as previously mentioned in other threads the lens isn’t that good. it will be fine for field use, but on the wall beam profile isn’t that good looking. i will try a different lens to see if it cleans up the beam. i will say it focused the XM-L quite good but not the XP-E which i have no explanation for.

my initial thoughts are it will be a pencil beam that will require some sort of windage and elevation adjustment to properly align with the sight picture in a rifle scope. And may not be practical for hunting use, time will tell.

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wow thats some nice work Kevin. i have done something similar with the t20 and 66mm crelant head and a Olson red and one with a olson black ir pill. both are great for hunting. the red is used as a spotter.

i agree with the lens, they do differ some good some very poor. dx have some good 66mm lenses
if you looking for some replacements later, they will clean the beam up.

great post thanks for sharing it with us .

do you have a link the XP-E red P3 please

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on first Question.yes, for the red version. not much experience with the other colors. the data sheets show very different requirements from color to color(amber, red,green,blue).

i don’t see the need to drive the red’s any harder. i think better gains can be made with improved heat management and electrical efficiencies.

no. on second question

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thanks! will definitely try making some red XP-E throwers inspired by this :wink:

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Impressive! Do you have Beamshots, good sir?

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link to the xp-e p3 red led http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/XPERED-L1-R250-00801/XPERED-L1-R250-00801CT-ND/2704528

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thanks kevin

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bump…beamshots added

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thanks for the photos

Sure does seem well focused. I wouldn’t de-dome it. With that much throw, you might as well have the higher overall output instead…

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Thanks for the update. I have red thrower envy!!!

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Very nice,what kind of distance do you reckon it will go to,

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impressive beam shots, what range do you normally shoot out to.

thanks for the pm, i have replied.

atb, mike

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Very nice kevin. That heatsink will do the job very well. It looks like your a dab hand at the electronic side off things as well. Just looking at all that wiring scares me.

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Thanks for the kind words

I am not that good at calling, so most of my shots are in the 200 yd range with an occasional shot in the 300 yd territory and sometimes I get lucky and call a fox or coyote inside of 150.

The wiring really wasn’t that hard. I just followed the wiring directions provided by task led. They were very thorough and easy to follow. The hardest part was routing and wire lengths. It took a couple tries on a few of those wires. The nice thing about the Teflon 22ga wire from illumination supply is that it holds it’s shape when bent.

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Good job, Kevin. You really have the awesome tools to improve the light of your FL.
:crown: