Flood Hybrid Mod: 2 x MT-G2 + 2 x XM-L2 ...I can see your underpants!!!

Flashlight Modding and DIY Parts
1

2S2P @ 3 x 26650
Well, I'm at it again. After my TR-J12 mod where I incorporated one MT-G2 with four XM-L2, I wanted to mod another light where an MT-G2 would be wired in series with an XM-L2.
This four emitter Kinfire was just begging for a mod. At first I was going to run three parallel lines with an MTG on two of the strings and two XML in series on the third parallel string.
After thinking about it, I realized that if I ran two parallel lines with an MTG and an XML in series on each line I could use three cells instead of two with the same number of emitters.
It seemed like a straight forward mod, but as I started, I ran into one pain in the butt problem after another.
Let's get started and pull that reflector out.
Nuts!
The screw holding it on is ceased, and I stripped it trying to get it out.
This first setback does not bode well.
I drilled the head off and got the screw out. Luckily I had an extra one. A can of compressed air sure comes in handy for these messy jobs.
After I got the reflector out I came to the realization that the emitter holes were too small for an MTG.
Rats!
I've been looking at that light for weeks and was sure they would fit no problem.
Ain't that a pain.
I didn't know what would happen, but I just started grinding down two of the emitter bases on the bottom of the reflector. After they were flush with the bottom, I tried an MTG, and it fit.
Hallelujah!
Now I have a new problem. With the bottoms of two of the reflector legs ground down, the MTGs will be too low.
To prop up the MTGs I sanded the dielectric layer off a couple of Noctigons and soldered them to the bottom of the MTG Noctigons. I didn't take any measurements, but everything seems level.
Now I have another set of problems. With reflector ground flush, there's no clearance for the MTG wires.
Rats!
Nothing else to do but grab the Dremel and start grinding my own clearance. I hope that does it. I also used some Klapton tape to be sure nothing will short.
I made my own contact board out of copper clad circuit board. I fiddled and fussed about creating a mounting system for one of RMMs FET drivers. I don't know why BLF modders don't ever use this circuit board, it's really handy stuff.
Time to get this show on the road. Screw in the reflector, tighten that driver in and load it up with three 26650s.
Wow! It lit up my apartment like the Grizwalds Chrismas lights.
I'm getting a tail reading of 10.8A with three cells. With the MT-G2s in series with the XM-L2s, I have no idea how to break that down into Amps per emitter.
The only problem is, I have only one mode, and this light gets hot as hell, fast.
Looks like I'll have to tear this light apart and fix it...but not today.
Some quickie beam shots taken with an ipad.
Control
,
Control
Anyway, that's My mod.
I think this light may be the first to incorporate two MT-G2s running in series with two XM-L2.
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2

Looks like a fun mod, well done :slight_smile:

3

Whoah…awesome

hehe :slight_smile:

4

I can hear the auxiliary nuclear kicking in J)

5

Id love a light built with those emitters good job,!

6

Nice effort OF. Its good to see you have a win. Do you know the reason the modes aren't working?

7

You have mixed em well!
I am also interesting why the modes arent working.

8

Nice wall of light :-)

I have had that one mode thing several times, sometimes it means that something shorts and that the light runs direct drive bypassing the FET. A more complicated reason could be that the MCU does not receive the right voltage (higher than 5.5V)? I guess with your wiring the 10.8A at the tail is directly divided in two, so 5.4A each string (and so to each led).

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I’m thinking I might have cooked the MCU when I did a Zener mod on it several weeks ago. Would that cause me to lose modes and just DD?
At the time, I didn’t realize Zener diodes should only be installed one way. Once I found this out I reinstalled it in the correct position, but I guess it was too late.
Before I put it in this light, I tested it, just to make sure it was working, but didn’t think to try running through the modes.
Note to self: double check everything.
I have a BLF17DD all checked and set to go. I’m having some vision problems, so I’m waiting for a good eye day to swap in the new driver.

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I took this wall shot just to show the hot spot on this light. I know it's muted, but my ipad was blinded by all the light. It finally focused the light down to a level that it could accept. Even though all the surrounding light is muted, the hot spot is pretty true to life.

I was worried that the two MT-G2s would give an odd beam profile, but that's not the case. All four emitters are nicely focused.

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Well, I replaced the driver and now I have five modes. High is nice, but it can only be run for about two minutes.

My eyes are failing and it took me two days to replace the R200 resistor. When I finally got it in place, the capacitor had fallen off. I took one off a NANJG driver and replaced it and got the Zener diode on. Everything was making contact where it was supposed to, but it looked like a Salvador Dali painting of stonehenge. I goobered a bunch of AS Epoxy over everything to make sure it stays in place.

As soon as I have my eye surgery I'm going to get my eyes retested. I've had this prescription for three weeks and even went back to have them make the lenses over again, but I'm still just seeing blurry doubles close up. I hope I don't have to give up modding.

Another milestone. I just finished my first roll of solder since I learned to mod.

Edit: The way I mount my driver in those brass retaining rings, I'm always worried about losing ground with the edge of the driver, so I used RaceR86s idea of soldering a ground wire directly to the FET. I think that's the way to go.

12

Wow.
Very Interesting…

13

awesome work! those on-off pictures really do tell a tremendous part of the story. Thanks for sharing!

14

Fantastic mod!

That'll find all the loose change under the couch.

15

Congratulations on the first solder roll, givaway? ;-)

I really hope the eyes will be a bit better soon, it is no fun when the eyesight gets worse!

I can still see enough for modding but I recently started using lots of light and a loupe for a few things that were easy before. I'm still in denial!

16

Sweet mod!

How do you like it compared to your other powerful and large lights?

17

It’s bright, and it floods, but the current drops pretty rapidly. It gets mighty hot mighty fast on high.
I haven’t had them out side by side yet (maybe tonight) but I kind of like my Tr-J12 Hybrid mod. , mostly because of its more compact two cell form factor.

If it stops raining tonight, I’ll see which out floods (probably this one), and which out throws. The TR-J12 has four XM-L2, but smaller reflectors.

18

Thanks. Nice to see the lights side by side like that. Puts things into perspective.

Looking forward to hear more about how they compare.

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Bit of a necropost, but hope this helps anyway. If your light takes 10.8A at the tailcap, then assuming the two strings have roughly identical total Vf, each string will take 5.4A. As the MT-G2 and the XM-L2 in each string are in series, they will each have 5.4A going through them. So according to Match’s graphs, your XM-L2s and MT-G2s are making 1650 lumens and 2900 lumens each for a total of 9100 lumens!!!

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BTW, anyone know what host this is? Googling didn’t help.