What's for dinner? Baked UltraFire!!

Flashlight Modding and DIY Parts
1

Got bored and decided to toss my UltraFire LZZ-F15 in the oven. :bigsmile:

After stumbling on some pics of baked flashlights, I decided I wanted to give it a go on one of my ‘lesser liked’ torches. I decided to use my LZZ-F15. It really is a decent light, but its kinda too big for an EDC, so it mainly sits on the shelf. I have actually never used this light, apart from the day I got it. Anyway, I gutted the torch, and turned on the broiler on my oven (500F). I carefully placed the pieces on a baking sheet, and just let it do its thing for roughly 45 mins.

Here are some pictures…

Before:


And the results:


Kool! Now this thing is a looker, but we still have an issue! It’s not that bright, and it has a crappy 5 mode, next mode mem driver. Hmm, how about direct drive!
I bypassed the driver, and beefed up all the contact points on the springs. I also lapped the bottom of the aluminum star, and smoothed out the base in the pill for better contact, and added a tiny bit of AS5 (did’t get a pic of this, sorry.) It now measures 3.4 amps at the tail cap on a Efest IMR 18650, and ~3 amps on a 4Sevens 26650. Woo Hoo!! Better than the ~2 amps with the stock driver. Also, I removed the original led insulation gasket, because it covered the led up quite a bit, and was blocking a lot of sideways light. I used a normal style instead, and this improved the output quite a bit, but gave it somewhat of a dirty beam. I plan on swapping the emitter soon anyway. Probably to a XML2, something in the 4-4500k range. Too bad 26350’s don’t exist, or I’d put a MT-G2 in this baby, one can dream though…

Pics:


Didnt get any before shots, but here are some beam photo’s:

Wall is roughly 5ft away

Barn is roughly 55-60ft away (zoomed photo)

Cheers

2

That is a beautiful job on the coloring

3

That is a nice color!
Too many black colored lights are getting boring. I have to do this sometime.

4

Very nice mod. Love the color. Is the switch boot pink?

5

Haha, pretty close I guess. It’s a real light red.

Thanks guys!

6

Thanks for the unintended bit of nostalgia.

7

+1

If you’re going to swap the LED anyway, might try a dedome in gas first.

8

LMAO my goodness. Haven’t seen RvB in FOREVER.

Thanks!

Yeah, Gottazoom, I do plan on doing that. I dedome everything I can. lol. I am just waiting on some emitters to arrive, I am tired of ruining stuff, with no replacements.

9

45 mins seems like a very long time . i think it helps if you use the top rack and get the light as close as possible to the heating element . i tried the toaster oven and cooked a light forever and couldn't get it to turn but in the regular oven I think mine did it in about 10 mins or less .If you want a deeper brown you have to pull the light quicker .If a light is real thin metal it will turn brassy almost golden very fast . Don't overbake .

don't try it with this >

10

That’s great, love the color!

11

You can get even a bit more current out of it if you solder some copper braid from the top to the base of the two springs, those pieces of iron are real bottlenecks. I'm not sure if the led, being on a conventional alu star, will still be happy though...

Nice bake job!

12

Yeah, I figured I should probably keep it where it is for now. Once I get some Noctigons in, I will beef up the path.

Thanks for the comments guys!

13

Very nice on the bake job! Does this work only on HAIII or any anodize? Looks pretty cool, definitely no longer boring black. :slight_smile:

Anyone know if this affects the strength of the anodize? Harder, softer, same? What if the light is blue to begin with? Grey? Gold?

Might just have to try this. Hey, they test fire rockets about 15 miles from here! Wonder if I could toss the light through the rocket discharge and have it come out blazed on the other side? :slight_smile: Hold it in there like a weinie roast? Have it come out a 1 piece unit, blob shaped and dethreaded? We hear what sounds like continuous thunder, sometimes for 5 minutes or more, with a very distinctive rumble in the ground that vibrates the house a bit. It’s pretty cool, can’t imagine living closer though!

14

Haha, yeah, under a rocker is probably not the best idea :stuck_out_tongue:

I have seen folks use stuff like butane torches, and even on a gas burner on a stove. Also, I have seen in a thread where someone hung one over a campfire.

From what I read, shiny black HAII has the best overall outcome. Its a nice smooth even color. HAIII, as seen in the photos, produces a sort of sparkle/crackle look, which personally I prefer. Not positive if any other ano color would work, but I bet it would. Someone needs to try it and see :). And if you want as close to one solid shade on the whole torch, be sure to keep the parts assembled. When baked apart like I did, the different densities in the various parts will all heat up and change differently, thus producing multiple shades.

15

Careful though with fire or butane, too high temperature will leave black traces like it did on my BTU shocker.



Tiger stripes. :party:
A friend now have it polish.

16

That almost looks kinda neat though! Sorta looks like faint smoke. :slight_smile:

17

15-20 minutes under the broiler…

18

Is it really as simple as stripping all parts that heat will damage and putting it in the oven? Clean it good first? Man, I think I want to try this!

19

Yes is is really that simple! I completely disassembled the light (removed drop-in, glass, o-rings, plastic spacer, tail cap parts), washed all the pieces with soapy water, and put them under the broiler. The main body pieces were a bit darker color than the bezel and tail cap, I suspect because they are thicker and take longer to heat up, so I put them back in for 5 minutes more.

20

My two 502b look awesome since I baked them !

As the temperature rise the color will change to red>orange>gold but you can get different part color from the same flashlight since the anodise process might have been different.
The more it is baked the more it weaken the metal surface so it should be more sensitive to damages.