thats beautiful! thanks for sharing a photo
Gratefully received my order from rngwn and much like others started raiding my old stashes of button cell lights from years past and feverishly modding. It raised a question though…
I’ve been combing data sheets and extensively reading threads but maybe my brain is just uncooperative at present - anyone have any notion on what kind of current I’m dumping into a 5mm LED direct driven from x4 LR41 in series?
It’s down to the resistance of the LR41 but those little keychain lights do get pretty bright, maybe 50+ mA. You could always check with a meter. (Added: The current will drop very quickly once the batteries aren’t new, so don’t worry about overdriving the leds for long periods. The batteries just don’t have that in them.)
I have a nice little 1x LR44 light with an actual boost converter inside and I love it, but that format never became popular. If you want a very bright keychain light not much bigger, try the Lumintop EDC Pimi. I’m down on Lumintop in general for various reasons, but that particular light has attractions that are not matched by anything else afaik.
You can add to the list Astrolux TB-01 “Bullet”.
Got a few of them. Easy to mod, widely available and comes in a few colors.
Of original list I would say Peak Led is likely quite hard to mod because of epoxy potting. Arc AAA may be easier but I don’t think I’d want to mod any of mine, out of tradition or something. Princeton Tec Aurora headlamp should probably get a resistor change. Actually maybe a lot of these lights should get that, due to newer leds having lower Vf(?). The Aurora runs pretty hot as it is, as does the 4aaa original Attitude. The Attitude is likely a good mod candidate though.
If my math is right, the Nichia GS led used in the later Arc AAA, Fenix E01 etc. was close to 100 lumens/watt, not that far off modern leds, though its tint was awful. But that means the earlier leds were a lot worse. It might be worth going back and modding some of the old Tek-tite lights that were pretty bulletproof and therefore still of some interest.
Lights such as Dorcy were moddable but maybe not worth the hassle in this day and age.
I got some good leds from MtnDave and will try modding a few coin cell ights first and going from there. I didn’t get any of rngwn’s this time around. They looked great, but shipping costs from AU would have swamped the cost of a small order.
I have not yet opened up my Photon Freedom and would be interested to hear how to get it open. More ambitiously than changing the led, I wonder what it would take to reflash or change out the microprocessor in it.
Sofirn C01 at least in some versions has a nice high CRI led in warm white already, so why mod? They are just $4 each and are very nice.
Pak-lite, similar to Arc: it’s cool because it’s ready made, but if you want to substitute the leds you might as well make your own version of the light. Two leds in series with a resistor, plus a battery clip that you can scrounge from a spent 9v battery.
Thanks, numbers like that and higher gave me pause but the voltage drop does bring some comfort. My meter seems to struggle to take accurate readings under 500ma or so, I was watching +/- 300ma fluctuation across the 4 cells in series with wide eyes.
The Pimi is a looker for sure, I finally found a home for an e21a I had kicking around - olight i1r2 - so I’m presently set for my micro EDC needs… for now…
I see the zeroair.org review of the LR44 version of that Streamlight says initial brightness around 15 lumens, i.e. probably 30-40 ma, not too bad. I wouldn’t worry. People have been using 2x2016 coin cell lights for years. The ones with crappy LED’s burn out now and then, but the ones with good LED’s (LRI Photon lights with Nichias) seem to never have trouble.