Decided to get into the flashlight modding game with some S2+ as they seemed like good quality but yet still cheap hosts. I hadn’t built a flashlight yet and wanted to start with a well known host. Ill post all the pics at the end. All parts were ordered from MTN Electronics, Batteries from illumn.com.
Spent 4-5 hours yesterday working on these, some minor issues came up while building but nothing i couldn’t solve pretty quick. Having an adjustable benchtop PSU and good multimeter did come in handy for troubleshooting a few times.
Clear host light is a Tri Nichia 219C 4000k 90+ CRI powered from a Dr Jones H17F driver. Medium spot frosted carclo optic. This thing is insane, literal wall of light on turbo. Can only run Turbo for 30-60 seconds before light gets to hot to hold, even the max on regulation of this driver of 3A is to much for this host long term, only making it 2-3 min before getting to hot. Running it at 1.5-1.7A is sustainable as long as your battery will last. Good thing driver is fully thermo controlled and automatically lowers output to maintain the user set max temps. It gets hot fast because i didnt use the retainer ring for the pill instead for best heat transfer i soldered the whole driver to the pill, 100% circumference of driver soldered to the pill. This was by far the hardest part to solder out of the build for these 5 lights, not overheating the driver board while trying to heat that huge pill and driver outer ring enough to flow solder was very challenging. Having great flux helped alot to flow that solder. Also used thermal compound on the pill threads, so it transfers heat to the host really quick. I use a high drain Sony VTC6 cell for this light to get the most out of turbo mode. I also ordered a bypassed tail spring/switch for this light, knowing it was going to pull high current and not knowing exactly how to make one as my background is more lasers building which do not use as high current as flashlights so do not require spring bypasses this was new concept to me . Looks easy enough I will do my own spring bypasses in the future and I did a bypass on the driver spring as well to see if I could manage it and so far so good.
Red light is a Red Cree XP-E2 in a red S2+ host with a buck driver running at 1.5A 100% mode only driver, I stuck to roughly this current for all color builds because even though some of the color LED’s can take more i wanted them to be simple 100% mode lights that didnt overheat at all. I had to modify the tailcap spring to a brass button to fit a protected cell, as the buck driver has no LVP, i also used a shorter spring on the driver than the rest of the colored lights. Running a 3500mah keeppower 18650 protected cell in this one.
Blue light is a Royal Blue Cree XP-E2 in a Blue S2+ host running from a 1.4A linear 7135 based driver. Its got guppydrv firmware on it. Not much to say about this one love the blue color from the royal blue LED, was a easy build and running unprotected cells means no spring mods/brass button needed for this light. This driver has LVP.
Green light is a Green Cree XP-E2 in a Green S2+ host running from a 1.4A linear 7135 based driver. Its got guppydrv firmware on it. Not much to say about this either like the shade of green, similar to the old luxon star green. Again was a easy build and running unprotected cells means no further mods needed for this light.
Amber light is a PC Amber Cree XP-E2 in a Tan S2+ host running from a 1.4A linear 7135 based driver. Its got guppydrv firmware on it. Chose this over the regular amber because i liked the color better, i have a Amber LED on hand to compare to but like the PC amber better. This also allowed me to use the same driver as the green and blue builds instead of a buck like the red, as PC amber is 3v not 2v like Amber/Red LED. So yay no mods needed for this one either i just run unprotected cells.
All the colored lights are using a 45 degree TIR optic.
if anyone knows how to display the below images correctly please let me know, the fourms image tags “img” are not functioning on this fourms apparently.
