I’ve been waiting for emitters for this light for a full month now, and they are FINALLY… still not here :zipper_mouth_face:
But I finished the rest of the work two weeks ago and took all these pictures last week, so I’m going to post it anyways
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I love the built-in chargers that the EagleEye ‘R’ models offer, especially in the X2R and X6R because they are still moddable. I had done an X6R for a family member about a year ago, and I decided I wanted one for myself. Personally I think it is much better looking than the “normal” X6. With every big mod, I feel like I need to top myself somehow.
The Parents:
- Convoy S8: This light is sweet. It has two white emitters and a red emitter on a triple Noctigon. I use the red moon mode even more than I thought I would. I was hoping to be able to keep a similar red moon, plus a big increase in output and throw in the X6R. I like the bare aluminum look and feel, but was hesitant to do it again because it was such a hassle with Greased Lightning cleaner.
- Supfire M6: This light didn’t even know it would be a parent, it just sort of happened. The headline of this mod was that I put a lantern-type flood emitter in a hole in the side, bringing the total emitter count to 9. This X6R managed to pack in a total of 12.
The Child:
The Skin:
This time I used Lye to strip the ano, like some others have done recently. It wasn’t instantaneous, but much quicker than the Greased Lightning and a much cleaner result as well. Here are pictures of before, after lye, and after a quick polish. It got more polishing later using a dremel, a drill-mounted buffing wheel, old t-shirts, newspaper, and Mother’s Mag. Also, if you look at a normal X6R there is a gap between battery tube and head because the driver retaining ring is too tall. I fixed that by sanding down both the retaining ring and battery tube a bit. I probably can’t use a protected cell now, but I wouldn’t anyways. My 30Q’s and Sanyo GA’s fit fine.
Up Front:
I really wanted to use the center pad of the XP32 Noctigon and put my red emitter there. But after some testing, I realized the optic throws the light out in a psychedelic pattern at all different angles, but nothing down the middle. Sad day. So in hunting for a place to hide a deep “photo” red XP-E, I remembered that I was planning to use Bistro to run this light, and I would have no use for the side switch. Hmmmm. As it turns out, the retaining ring for the side switch has the perfect inside diameter for a little optic. So I cut one out of a Carclo quad optic (frosted medium spot). It is a very tight press-fit, but I also used some silicone on the back to hold it in place. For the main optic, it is very popular to polish he CuteSS optics and that’s what I initially intended to do. Half way through I stopped and liked how it looked so I left it at that. My thinking is that the little bit of texture in the middle will give me a smoother spill, while still increasing the throw from the polished outsides. The emitters I originally ordered were XP-L V6 3A’s to be dedomed, but I got tired of waiting for them and just ordered some XP-L HI V2 5A2 from Richard. Whichever ones get here first will go into this light.
Out Back
Nobody should be surprised I put in an illuminated tailcap. This light will be taking over 24/7 nightstand duty from my mini 18650 L2M, so I needed it to be very dim and unobtrusive. I went with 3 red leds and 3 amber leds. If I turn it up brighter the colors are nicely balanced, but at the dimmest setting it is mainly red and that’s fine with me.
The Guts
I have a TripleStack 3-channel diver made specifically for the X6R. It has a cut-able trace to give control to a separate output which is what I used for my red led. It stacks on top of the stock driver board, a perfect fit. I have a single 7135 for the Red LED, and a FET+3*7135 on the white triple. Like I said it is running a customized version Bistro with a few “normal” mode groups, as well as a special “nightstand” group. That grop starts on the moon red mode, then goes to two white modes that both could also be called moon modes themselves, they are very low. Then it has 40ma, and 500ma white modes. In this group it goes no higher than that because I have a separate Convoy M2 that is used for “bump in the night” duty. From the first mode I can reverse into medium red, high red, battcheck, and then a special ‘off’ mode that I will use while the light is charging. The high red mode is limited to 200ma because it is essentially floating with hardly any thermal contact. I have switched all flashing to be on the red LED, like battcheck and the flash and stutter in the programming menu. The actual strobe modes are still on the main LEDs. I have them hidden in a mode group I would only ever use for kicks and giggles.
I have a 20awg wire soldered from the FET to the edge of the charger board for the best GND connection, then an 18awg wire bypassing the boards straight from the battery to the main mcpcb. The LED- from the main emitters will be 20awg. The red emitter is wired with 24awg.
Speaking of the red led, it took some work to get it in there. It would have been ideal if I could have mounted it in the hole like the originally switch pcb was, but the optic was too tall vertically. So it is essentially just floating where the switch was originally. I trimmed down the edge of the charger pcb to give some room, and chopped up a 12mm mcpcb to almost nothing. The bottom butts right up against the driver retaining ring (which you can see in one of the pictures). The side slots are to allow light from the charger LEDs to still shine through the sides of the optic. I have to be really careful disassembling the driver pocket because the risk of accidentally dedoming it is high. That said, it gives a great beam. I have actually been using it for 2 weeks on my night stand even though the main emitters are missing. I’ll try to get some beam shots later.
Beauty shots
First with her parents, then with a cousin
Here she is fully clothed with the SS clip and charger cover.
