Well its been a really really long time since I last modded a flashlight or posted here but it is time to mod my A6.
I have a half dozen DIY flashlights and a few non DIY units such as my FenixLD22 (sucks), Nitecore t4k, Convoy S2+ etc etc. However my BLF A6 from early 2016 is still stock and well I feel like its long overdue for some modern BLF modding love. My Convoy S2+ was configured with a 5000K XHP50.3 HI R70 and 6V 4A boost (12groups) using a Molicel P30B battery and I really like it, but it blows away my A6. So I am thinking in order to bring my 3V A6 up to par I would use its A17DD-L FET+1 and a Luminus SFT40 emitter on a 16mm mcpcb for a lot more throw and cd. I see here in the forums that others were successful at this exact mod so I want to try it as well.
However, I’m not sure if I got the correct parts or not. So I purchased two 7mm 5050 butterfly gaskets (just in case) and two 7mm 5050 round gaskets (from convoy) as the replacements because I doubt my current reflector gasket will work and I’m not exactly sure what will, so I got these two in the hopes they will do the job. Are all these gaskets the same thickness? My current gasket is exactly 1mm thick and snaps in a 7mm reflector hole, according to my measurements. I also got a new P30B for my A6 and going to retire my old 2016 LG High drain brown battery.
The hardest part for me was to open the head of my A6. It was glued by devil himself…
I just replaced the LED with a LHP513 (and the 5050 MCPCB) and the 5050 7mm butterfly gasket you mentioned.
This works really well with the original FET driver.
Yeah my quest is to try to produce about 7-8 amps out of it on the SFT-40 because I don’t want to make it too hot and I want it more throwy. The SFT-40 will give me more throw to compliment the form factor as I find my S2+ to be floody enough already. If you know what I mean. Two flashlights, same size, same’ish lumen but different characteristics. The S2+ = Broader, floodier and the BLF A6 SE = Tighter, throwier. My A6 already has a OP reflector so it’s going to spread out some anyway. I just fear that the 42R would give me an unusable turbo and possibly harm the A6 or my bare hands. The SFT-40 is still a massive upgrade over the stock emitter and I think it keeps it useful within its reasonable thermal confines.
However, I’m more worried about how the 5050 footprint fits in the head in the first place. Until I get the 5050 gaskets in stock I just won’t know. I assume it’s just going to fit since I have not seen any evidence otherwise. Right?
There’s a good chance that this combination will fry the emitter. If you’re dead-set on a FET driver, I strongly suggest a lower-discharge cell, or an emitter with better power handling. SFT42R, SFT60, and LHP531 are all great candidates in the 5050 class; former 2 for throw and latter for flood. I’m still a bit doubtful whether the SFT42R can take the direct drive.
It definitely fits by visual inspection, taking the diagonal of the 3535 XP-L to be the edge length of an 5050 emitter:
In fact, the reflector looks more or less identical to a standard S2+ reflector, so the 5050 butterfly gasket should fit. This gasket is also very flexible and tolerant of slight dimensional mismatches.
The correct gasket thickness depends heavily on the choice of emitter, but is very easy to modify with either tape (to pad it higher) or sandpaper (to lower it).
Hmm, interesting. The head on mine was quite easy to remove and I found no glue. But I did add some tim to the heads threads to help with thermal expansion. It’s a BLF A6 Special Edition from Dec-2015/Jan-2016 time frame. I purchased four gaskets just to have extras in stock, but I just guessed that the 7mm round 5050 gasket from Convoy would be what I needed to replace the one it has now. But thankfully my instinct told me to get those butterfly gaskets as well. My math says this 5050 led is going to fill the reflectors 7mm home fully, like FULLY, lol. So I’m guessing these gaskets are high enough temp rated and should protect my reflector from melting? Is that even a concern?
Anyway, thanks for letting me know how your A6 upgrade went, this is exactly the kind of info I needed. Surprised I didn’t try this sooner.
Worth noting that modern emitters generally have much lower Vf than oldies like XPL, which means the same drivers that worked for those old emitters are likely to fry the newer offerings unless they have much better power handling, like LHP531 (which can take 20 amps without issue).
If you’re planning on pumping some extra amps through that bad boy, it’s probably not a bad idea to do a bypass on the tail spring while your doing upgrades.
Hmm, crap. I was going by this post back in 2019. But I just assumed he would have been using a high drain battery as well. He did the same mod I am planning to do, but I didn’t think my battery choice would be of concern because g_damian only measured 6.8 amps after his SFT-40 mod.
Should I still be concerned? I want to turn it into a more throwy light without turning it into a hot rod. What driver/emitter combo would you recommend?
I don’t know if failure is guaranteed, but I would be concerned for 2 reasons: (i) newer high-discharge cells are performing better than previous generations, widening the gap between battery voltage and emitter Vf, and (ii) Luminus sometimes silently upgrades emitters, with one feature being much lower Vf.
If you want a lot of throw and not a hotrod, then a FET-based driver is essentially the worst possible driver for the task: it is inefficient, unregulated, and incapable of maintaining a stable output required for emitters with low power consumption (which is what you want for a throwy non-hotrod).
If you prefer a lower CCT, another emitter+optic option is W5050SQ5 paired with the 15deg flat optic here, at a slight reduction in performance compared to the SFT25R.
It is essential to use one of these TIR lenses instead of the stock reflector (or even Convoy’s own smooth reflector). The reflectors don’t quite have the right shape to correctly focus a throwy emitter, resulting in a loss of throw.
Then I would probably change out the driver with a 8A or even just 5A one since the A6 has not much thermal mass or surface.
Look at the prices at Convoy, you can just buy a couple of emitters and try them out.
519A, SFT25R, SFT42R, SFT40, W5050SQ5, F45R - you get all of them just for change.
Plus a 5A and 8A Buck driver.
Great suggestion. Normally I’d argue that you can simply use lower modes on the 8A driver to reduce heat, and only use 8A in brief bursts when needed, but the 5A driver has a much more usable moonlight if that’s important to the OP. The 8A driver’s 0.1% mode is hardly distinguishable from 1%.
Hmm, I did some research and this idea is actually sitting very well with me. That might give me “slightly” less overall light, but far more concentrated and throwier it appears. I will buy those parts and play around with it. The SFT40 can go into another flashlight I have as well. Thanks for the recommendations.
The SFT42R is a strict improvement and drop-in replacement for the SFT40. In particular, the 5000K version has a slightly larger round die, equal throw at equal power (despite the larger die), better tint, and much higher peak output, compared to SFT40. It’s not quite as intense as SFT25R and doubly as power-hungry for the same throw, so I won’t recommend it in the A6.
I’m glad you like it! The SFT25R has gone through at least 2 (unannounced) revisions since its initial release; now the 5000K SFT25R outputs 90% of the lumens as the 6500K SFT40, at the same power, but offers over 40% more intensity. At 5000K, the SFT40 performs noticeably worse, achieving less lumens than the SFT25R!
