Thanks Ohaya. Looks good. I put that TIR in my FT wishlist. Will get some 15 and 30 degreers the next time I place a FT order.
The 1st two I got awhile ago have glass lenses (I double-checked). I have a couple of more coming in “someday”… so we’ll see what they have :)…
BTW, relic, I don’t think I thanked you for this deal… so THANKS!
BTW, at least one of the two lights has the emitter (apparently) glued or Fujiked to the “pill”. Are these all like that?
Yes
Ok, I got the emitter off. I decided to just unsolder the emitter wires, remove the driver, and then soak the pill+emitter board in gasoline so that’d get a “2-for-1”, i.e., remove the PCB and also dedome the emitter at once. After soaking for abot 2 hours, the dome came off, and I used a pair of needlenose pliers in the PCB notches and it just came off.
Then, just to test, I used a Luxeon 3up, wired in series, and wired the emitter to the driver board using the board as a contact board, i.e., direct drive.
I then ground the “corners” off of the star so that it’d fit into the head, put the Carclo lens on top, and shoved everything into the head. Screwed the retaining ring in, and Voila:
I’m currently using 2xEfest 18350 batteries. Tailcap current is ~0.52 amps.
I just hope that the new boost driver I have coming from CNQ works, and that should give me 1 amp to the emitters.
No need to use chemical warfare to remove the star. The adhesive is not very strong and there is just a tiny dab. A little prying and it should pop right off.
I tried that (prying) before resorting to the gasoline (which worked fine), but it wouldn’t come off, and I didn’t want to damage the pill because I was planning to re-use it.
Thanks,
Jim
So one of mine turned out real nice for very little invested in it.
I had a 20mm Sinkpad cut down very crudely to 16mm with an XML2 mounted on it. First sinkpad I could get so of course I made a crude but bright p60 drop in.
My worksmanship has improved a lot so that Sinkpad/XML2 was sitting in the junk box. Also one of the KD 3.6-18v drivers. The driver doesn’t fit in the pill, so I mixed epoxy with silicon carbide powder and filled the pill cavity with it and stuck the driver in there. Sticks out about 1mm.
Assembled together the driver pulls about 1.5A. Surprisingly there is zero loss in output after 30seconds :bigsmile: Never seen that before.
Nice job Ohaya. Looks real good. That is one heck of a hot spot.
Your mod sounds good bdiddle. You need to post a side by side comparison shot of your modded light and the J18 you have on the way. I think you will find that the J18 makes your modded light look dim. To fix that, you can send the J18 to me. Problem will be solved.
Hi,
For the emitter PCB (Sinkpad), after removing the original emitter PCB, you could make a small disk from a penny or whatever that fits in where the emitter was, then put the 20mm PCB on top of that, maybe secure it with Fujik or Arctic Alumina. That’s kind of the way that I have the 20mm 3up PCB situated (I did have to grind the corners off of the star a bit).
The way the pill vs. the head works with this light, when you put the pill into the head, and then screw the retaining ring it, that holds everything together, so the Fujik or AA may not be even necessary. Right now, with the 3up, I don’t have it glued yet.
Can you post some pics of the driver side of the pill to show what that looks like? I may have to do something like that with the driver I have coming from CNQ (20mm contact/driver board with smaller driver board).
Here is my pill:
Here are beamshots between my two. Wall is tan, not white, so it makes a cool white look warmer.
Left is my first light, swapped XP-E for an XP-G and boosted current to 1.35 from ~1.1. Also sanded the centering ring down to block less light. Roughly twice as bright as stock, but less throwy. Right is XML2 1C with 3.6-18V KD single mode driver pulling ~1.5A. Roughly %80 brighter than the XP-G one.
bdiddle,
Thanks for the pics, esp. of the driver side. So, now, the driver is basically glued into the pill (semi-)permanently, right?
As I said, that’s kind of what I’m envisioning for the CNQ driver, if it can drive my 3up, but it’ll still out of the back of the pill more, because there’re two boards. Plus, I think that I’m going to have to cut a channel on the side of the pill, to allow the driver-to-emitter leads to get through, because with the CNQ driver, the emitter leads are on the larger contact board rather than on the smaller board that will go into the pill. I’m still not quite sure how (or if) that’ll work out, until I physically get the driver though :)…
Oh it is def permanent. Going to give it to a friend who used cr123 batteries.
Ok, thanks. I was kind of doubtful about what I was planning, but with what you did, I’m feeling better about my plans now. The main thing I’m worried about now is whether the new CNQ driver will be able to drive the 3up at 9V and 1amp.
Hi,
I completed my build with the S5 and a Luxeon triple emitter, documented here:
Jim
Edit: I just took it outside tonight, and while I wouldn’t say that it’s a super-thrower, it was able to put “some” light on a treeline that’s approx. 100 meters from our house ;)!
Hi,
I also put an XM-L U3 on a 16mm star in one of these. I found an older driver in my junk pile, I think this one:
https://www.fasttech.com/p/1127403
and it’s now much brighter, and has a (to me) more useful beam.
- The XM-L U3 kind of press fits into where the original star went. This time, I put the pill in a vise, then used needle nose pliers in the notches and twisted, and the original star came out. I scraped the old Fujik off, and filled the depression in with heatsink compound, and pushed the new XM-U3 star in.
Note that the S5 reflector has a small white centering ring attached at the emitter end. That just pops out, and then hole that remains seems perfectly sized for an XM-L emitter!
- The driver was a very tight press fit. However, because the retaining ring that holds the pill etc. in place is thick, the battery contact spring was kind of too short. I used some magnetic disks (2 of them) on an 18650 worked, but was worried that it might short to the retaining wring, so I used a “20mm partition board” from FT:
I soldered the driver spring to the hole of the partition board, and then soldered spring from my junk box to the battery side of the partition board, and voila!
I am really liking these $2.99 S5s! So far 3 different mods (use a TIR lens instead of reflector, use a 3up/triple, and now, use an XM-L emitter :)!
Nice, 3 very different builds from just about $9 in hosts. Contrats on your new lights. They all sound much better than the stock light.
Looking for ideas for my next/last one and would like s small thrower. Any suggestions for making one that throws better than original?
I received my four now. They have a plastic reflector, which some said they got aluminum. doesn’t matter much. will do some emitter/driver swaps and give some away. seems like a decent mod host for $3.
Hi,
I’ve now modded the 4th S5 with a triple XP-E2 and a Qlite 3.04a driver from IOS. I had to reflow the 3 XP-E2s onto a parallel 3up emitter PCB from IS:
I just got some bare XP-G2 emitters from Digikey, and reflowed them onto a 2nd IS triple PCB, but am kind of stuck for a driver:
Already killed 2 of the supposedly DD drivers from FT on this, and like I said I’m stuck for now because of lack of a driver.
I have some 8x7135 drivers coming from IS, and will probably go with those. I may/will add a couple of add’l 380mA 7135s, as I’m hoping to get 4.5 amps (so 1.5 amps per XP-G2).
I anyone has any ideas for another different driver (I’m dreading trying to stack 7135s), please post!
Thanks,
Jim