Defiant 3C Armor Max MTG-2 mod.

Flashlight Modding and DIY Parts
1

I've had a couple of these lights for awhile now, accidently. My brother was holidaying in the US awhile ago when I had a brainwave that instead of paying you guys to ship me Defiant 3C's I'd email said brother and ask him to get a couple. What luck. He'd just pulled up for lunch in the hire car and checking his emails mine came through. He looked up and believe it or not he was parked outside a Home Depot and snagged a couple for me. To say I was excited was an understatement. On his arrival home he handed over the goods and to my surprise with a slight disappointment were these two lights.

They have sat neglected for awhile now while other lights got built and modded. I decided what the heck and drilled out the hole in the plastic reflector to see how the MTG-2 led would perform. Holding the reflector against my other lights led it was decided to give it a go. A lot of other reflectors I have tried this way I would not waste my time with.

This light is a tank. I reckon you could get away with using any part of the flashlight as a sledge hammer it is that heavy and the slight disappointment I felt has been replaced with a new found respect. The rubber caps if used would make this light pretty much indestructable. I think the standard led in this light is an XPE running of 3 alkaline C cells. I never used this light standard at night but shining it around the shed it left a bit to be desired.

The plastic lens still remains as the glass lenses have only just been ordered. A new pill was made up for the correct length to run 2 x 26650 Trustfires and maximise size. This was made from aluminium. The pill screws into the internal of the battery tube while the reflector housing screws over the outside of the battery tube sandwiching the pill. The reflector as mentioned was bored out to suit the led and the bottom of the reflector sits around the led. It may have a slightly better hot spot if it was slightly lower but I did not want to drill a massive hole in the reflector. The hotspot is not perfect as it has a few, very slight shadows in it white walling but outside it is not noticeable. The battery tube was bored out half a mm to suit the slightly larger diameter batteries. Led is 5000K mounted on a IOS copper star. The driver is from Lck Led.

http://www.lck-led.com/19mm-3000ma-driver-modes-p-501.html?cPath=135

Everything else is stock.

The light in question.

For comparison size wise. Left to right. 2 x 26650 HD2010, Defiant 3C Armor Max and finally Dream Trip.

The MTG-2 in its new home.

A shot of the two pills side by side.

And finally the pill screwed into the battery tube. The reflector housing screws up against the face of the pill. Heat seems to spread reasonably quickly.

A few night shots. Its raining tonight so these are about 20 meters to the windmill.

Firstly the Dream trip. This has an XML-U2 led running the identical driver as the Armor Max. The usable reflector diameter is about 47mm and is very deep. Even though it is a lot smaller diameter reflector than the HD2010 it has nearly the same beam profile. the hot spot compared to the MTG-2 is intense.

Defiant 3C with 5 amp driver on high.

Defiant 3C 5 amp on medium.

Armor Max on medium, approximately 1.45 amps at the led. Usable reflector diameter about 45mm.

Armor Max on high, approximately 3 amps at the led.

Edit. Mouseout 3C high 5 amp driver. Mouseover Armor Max at 3 amps.

Thanks for reading.

2

The Armor Max at 3A makes it daylight out! I like that in this kind of light, excellent worklight as you don’t have to try to aim it at your project as virtually everything is lit up.

Nice one, thanks for the write-up and pics.

PS: Please tell that rain it needs to vacation in Texas…

3

A couple of pictures have been added to the opening post of the pill.

4

Nice 8)

Thanks for sharing.

:beer:

5

very tidy work MRsDNF, looks like a monster!

quick Q - the threads on the new pill look a bit like ACME threads in that they’re square on the OD. Is that intentional or did you not need to cut them so deep?

6

There the same OD as the original pill. Its just that there very sloppy standard and this is as deep as they needed to be to screw in with a neat fit. I should of made them a slightly bigger diameter.
Run time tests for the driver used added here.

7

Great work as usual. You make the most awesome looking pills. Looks like a good tough general purpose light.

8

Sweet!

9

Sorry for missing your builds. I am sort of AWOL around here lately. As always, you do some interesting work with a lathe and it's always fun to watch the progress with your lights. Good to see you are still doing the mods.

10

No apology necessary. This light has grown on me a bit. The MTG-2 seems to like 3 amps in this light without stress still pumping out a flood of light. Its had about 5 hours of use now mainly on medium without missing a beat. The spring in the tailcap needs beefing up a bit though as if you knock the light it has auto mode change. So far so good. It will be interesting if the glass lens on order makes much of a difference.
Again thanks for all your comments.

11

The Defiant looks like you have done the right thing to it, changing from xp-e to mt-g2 is just what it needed. Nice mod!