Hi,
I’ve got a couple B158 here to mod, but they have that stupid press fit ring for the driver. I am an amateur modder/assembler (only built 1 UF-T20 pill) and am looking for advice from those who have done it. What’s your procedure for installing the driver?
Welcome to BLF!
Thanks for the welcome.
That was the thread that turned me on to these lights. There was alot of discussion about LEDs and output, but not much on the assembly sequence of the pill that comes with the press fit ring. Apparently there was a batch of pills that were sized for a 17mm driver without the ring, which was shown in the video. Unfortunately my 2 lights and extra pills all have the press fit ring.
Maybe once my order of drivers and leds from Mountain Electronics I will find that I can solder the drivers without the band.
Welcome to BLF!
Can’t help you with your question, sorry.
For a followup: I used my vice to evenly press the band most of the way in. I was then easily able to seat the driver in the band and solder the driver to the band. Easy enough once I had all the parts in front of me to work on.
I’ve done that several times — Fasttech has a wide variety of little stepped rings, I use a 17mm to 17mm brass ring, press it very slowly and evenly with a vise into place in the aluminum pill as Superslack describes, which gives a good electrical connection, then set the driver in and easily get a dab or two of solder to ground it.
You might want to get a hobby vise with nylon jaw inserts or put some soft wood in place.