I have the F3X on the way, ordered it about a week ago. Nice to know it takes modding wellâŚ
The 60mm catodioptic is a PITA. I have one, played around with it some and havenât gotten around to machining a head for it. Or spacer/adapter, whatever. Seems like itâs going to be a waste of time.
Got the copper pills in from Hoop today for the Convoy S2+. So I built a new driver, FET+1, A6 firmware, SIR800 MOSFET on the driver with 20 ga Teflon coated wires. Reflowed the Noctigon to the copper pill and used XP-L W2 2B emitters. As of the last reading I got 13.55A from a Sony VTC6 making 3667.35 lumens. Wicked little Blue tube light!
It might seem that way, but I did the C8 with XP-L W2 2B at 2028 lumens, Iâve built several XP-G3 lights and Nichia 219C, small lights that just needed a better emitter and a power bump. Lights like the Eagle Eye X7, the Nitecore MH20GT, the Nitecore TM06 was fun, I swapped the XHP-70 out for an MT-G2. Havenât modified the SRT6. All single emitter lights.
So much has been done here, I donât necessarily post something that was just a simple emitter swap, like the MH20GT getting a Nichia 219C.
I modded the L2 with a sliced XHP-35, the L6 with a de-domed XP-G2 S2 0D and Buck driver with 2 cells, and rebuilt the Courui D01 with the copper pill and SBT-70 when I sold it. Got that one doing over 1900 lumens after it was sold.
After a few hundred it gets to be about mo powah I guess, and thatâs easier with big Quads and Triples.
Always doing something, yâall donât want to hear about all of em. lol
Received today mentioned Olight SR90, this poor baby is in rough shape let me tell you, DB you better sit down before clicking on this photos
SST-90, after misuse
looks to me like it was not soldered properly
after SST-90 someone thought to use this emitter, this one went thru hell also, literally
butchered centering rign:
at the moment, âworkingâ led, XML2, placed about 5-6 milimeters under the reflector opening surface, shape of the beam was just garbage
too much heat and you get lifted copper pads from mcpcb
and now the biggest joke, this is just sad
hopefully, original driver should be alive
On other hand battery pack is dead, charge indicator does not light up, ~0V on contacts, when charger is connected It reads 8.48V on LED side contacts but as soon as I disconnect the charger that drops to ~1.4V and then slowly to 0.4V. I removed locking rings from both sides of the battery pack but it seams that battery PCB-s are either tightly pressed in or glued so I was not able to push it out.
Btw. I spared you of greasy fingerprints inside the reflector :person_facepalming:
This light did not have happy life, but better days are coming
I bought 4 of them to test out too, I was hoping to be able to use it with an XHP70 but the dome didnât fit in the lens since the light entrance is actually shaped like a cone.
I shaved the dome off my XHP70 and it worked a lot better, but the lens still sits about 1-2mm above the LED due to the layer of material still on top of the LED.
Currently it gives a fairly nice round spot with little spill, but nowhere near the concentration I was expecting, my aspheric lenses are still better.
The catadioptric however collects a lot more light from the LED than the aspherics do, so it might make a decent mid-range flood light rather than thrower.
With smaller LEDs like my XP-G2 and XM-L2 that do fit inside the cavity the projected image is much smaller and more âsquare shapedâ like the LED die, but still not as good for lux as an aspheric.
Not sure if I will end up using this for a flashlight, but it was a cool experiment nonetheless and now there is more information about them on the internet, since before I had not seen anyone try to use one.
PS. I was the one who asked the owner of MTN electronics to try to get some in stock, I had pretty high hopes
TLDR: higher light efficiency than any reflector or lens, almost no spill unlike reflectors, but beam not as tight as an aspheric lens.
Sirius, my SR90 is using a secondary battery tube with 2 32650âs in it. I remove one of the pcb retaining rings and lift the board to get the cells out to charge them. I have an 18ga Turnigy wire coming up from the base to bring ground to the top. Itâs a bit of a PITA but I get more capacity and more power than the stock battery pack. I never had the charger, only the 12V car plug, and it was horribly slow anyway. I still have that original battery tube/pack, the charge indicator lights work and all that. Might have to send you a package after allâŚ
When you tried the XPG2 or XML2, did you happen to look in the front and did it have that dark ring near the center?
I had high hopes for this also. If it canât be focused properly with the LEDs we use that will definitely kill the lux. Also there are two reflections instead of one which will hurt the efficiency some; manufacturer estimated the efficiency at 70%.
It wonât beat an aspheric of the same diameter in lux because of the metallized circle in the center (reduces effective area), but maybe it gets close? Did you measure the lux with this optic?
No I did not look in the front, maybe I should review it some time and record the details and measure lux and all that stuff. I know with the XHP70 the whole reflector was filled.
Modified my s mini, nothing major, just a new led. Stock led board is DTP which is nice, used T6 4C led. I think i like it, it is a bit warmer than i expected but i think ill get used to it.
Hi DB, how did you lift the pcb that is on top of the batteries? I tried today with something like suction cup without luck, I will try tomorrow with very strong double sided sticky foil (I am out of the foil, have to get some first). Do you have any pictures how it looks inside? Maybe I could drill a hole in the pcb and to use it as a pulling point but I donât want to destroy components on the other side of the pcb if there are any.
Hey I did an S-Mini too! My copper S-Mini got a XM-L2 5D1 on the factory mcpcb, and I also swapped in a set of polished trim rings instead of the blue.
Same way I (and you) did the bezel. Took a very thin razor blade and hammered it down into the space between the ring and the body. Youâve gotta orient the light so that it can take the hit without rolling though, so it took me a minute or two of fumbling around to realize that I needed to tailstand it, extend my razor long enough to stick out past the body of the light, and baton the blade in, then flip it over and headstand it to do the same. It actually popped right out after that, no need for thicker blades, because the ring is so much thinner. In fact you should be really careful doing this because it would be very easy to lose the ring. I almost did.
When seating it back on, I took the extra step of finding a socket with the right diameter (pretty sure it was 7mm) so that I could hammer on the ring and not the switch. Iâm not sure thatâs really necessary since all the working bits are well below the level of the light body in there and the silicone switch should be unharmed by the hits, but I didnât want to take a chance on pinching it or something.
By the way, the blue bits from my copper light went onto this brass light, which is where the polished bits came from:
I didnât do anything else to this brass light, just swapped the trim bits from one to the other, but I really kinda like it more than I expected to. I think the blue complements the yellow brass much better than it did the reddish copper, but maybe thatâs just me.
Thank you emarkd, I was thinking about swapping the blue bezel of my alu S1 to the Ti polished one.
This idea didnât leave my mind since I saw a pre-production sample on google :
For the record, on the photographers color wheel (and fashion designers as far as that goes) blue is the compliment to orange as itâs on the opposite side of the wheel. (blue to copper, best contrast according to the industry)
Since we all see colors somewhat differently, interpretation is key.
Nicely done removing those small pieces without damage or loss. Tedious stuff there!
I was surprised to see the brass SMini, I thought the Olight site said they were in copper or Titanium, with coatings for variation in color? Interesting.
