I have this flashlight sitting on my shelf already for a while without any usage since the SLA accumulator is far gone and thinking of modding it into something useful without any major impact to chassis (if possible), but more reliable (Lithium? instead of SLA) and foremost more efficient (LED). It has a plug for external 12V charger and direct power supply to the bulb from car lighter (12V). At beginning I was researching on simple option just to change the halogen H3 bulb for LED version to find out it might be a bit of a problem since it might not acting correctly given the shape of the reflective cup built up for halogen bulbs.
So my question is basically what are your thoughts about this mod, can something useful be done with it and if so, what would be your (most reasonable) “to go” path of modding this light? What bulb/battery type/electronics would you go for? Suggested parts with links are welcome. Purpose for this light will be as usual, use in emergency situations to illuminate area around the property (not EDC) with throw up to 100m (yards). Reliability (long shelf life of the whole system, hold charge…) with price range within reasonable limits.
The real problem with converting to LED is cooling. LED bulbs have a big heatsink on the back, sometimes with a fan. There needs to be space or you need to make space if you’re to convert it to LED. Then you’ll need a way to get fresh air into the body of the light. If you can get it to work, the output may be greater if you get the right LED bulb, but from what I’ve seen, the CRI and tint is pretty bad…personally, I’d have to swap the LED’s.
Unless battery life has been an issue, you’re probably better off leaving it halogen. It already has good output, the CRI is inherently 100, and the throw in these lights will probably be better with halogen vs LED. You might install fresh batteries, and if you want those batteries to last, then get a battery maintainer for it. Clean off the contacts with contact cleaner and maybe upgrade the wiring. If you upgrade the wiring, you might upgrade the halogen to a 130W bulb.
Another option is converting to HID. Like LED, you’ll need to find room inside the body of the light, but it’s more flexible with HID. HID motorcycle kits typically come with smaller ballasts. You’ll need to focus it to get the best throw. There are plenty of threads about modding the Thor-X light to help guide you.
If you need help, PM me. I did an LED and lithium ion retrofit to one of these and it’s definitely not easy or straightforward. If you’ve never messed with high power LEDs or drivers or lithium batteries I recommend doing some research and reading up on it. I did a build thread on mine you can find on here that will help. Trust me when I say it’s a lot of work! Start to finish mine took 3 months and maybe 150 hrs total work.
Some things to consider…
An equivalent led to that 100W incandescent lamp will be the Cree xhp70.2. It’s a 6 volt led that runs at around 5-6 amps. It will generate a lot of heat at that current so you need a heatsink. Mine has a fan to cool it.
You need a driver for it, either a Zener diode modded fet driver
for 6 volts or a boost driver or a buck driver. You also need a way to cool the driver as it has to dissipate heat and figure the electrical connection. I combined the driver to the led cooler.
The reflector HAS to be modded or you need to put the led on a pedestal to raise it inside the reflector to focus it. An incandescent reflector won’t work well with the led. That fact alone might be discouraging since it’s very time consuming.
The batteries need to be able to handle the current demand. If running a series configuration like if you use a buck driver, you need battery monitoring circuitry and a balance charger. I recommend a single cell boost driver for your led so you can run parallel lithium batteries and for ease in charging.
If you want a challenge, go for it! You will learn a lot.
Look where the filament is situated inside the reflector, probably a good half-inch up inside it, not sitting flush with the hole like LEDs in flashlights usually are. So you’d need to either stick the LED on a pillar (solid Cu would be best) and stick that in the hole, adjusting for best focus, or start chopping down the reflector, making the hole bigger and bigger so that the LED would eventually sit where it should be for best focus.
Either way, up close the beam would have a huge doughnut-hole in it.
Lookit LED replacement bulbs (H3) and see how they’re done. It might be as easy as buying one and sticking it in the reflector. Pull the guts (driver) so that it’s just the LED making the connection, and use your own driver to regulate current from the Li cells (buck, boost, modes, blah blah).
I recently threw an old Panasonic light away, with similar proportions, perhaps a bit smaller.
The reflector was not too bad, but indeed, positioning the LED is a challenge…
And so is cutting off the right amount of the base of the reflector.
It needed to have a new lens too, so i decided it wasn’t worth it.
But another thing about reflectors like this is that they’re very shallow compared to modern LED reflectors.
This would give a very wide spill, which can come in handy perhaps, but as a consequence much less % of the LED light will be reflected, because of its shallowness.
However, if you mod it into an LED light, the efficiency will be around 10 times higher than with a halogen bulb (10 Watt LED light = 100 Watt Halogen light)
But you need a heat path to the outside for an LED.
Halogen bulbs radiate their heat together with their light, but LEDs only radiate light, but they conduct the heat away through their thermal slug (soldered onto the LED board).
This heat then needs to be dissipated to the surrounding air, which is not a problem with aluminium flashlight bodies, but a challenge for plastic bodied lights.
Ah, i should have clicked on the picture right away.
The reflector already has a flat (disc shaped) base.
That makes it a little bit easier, i guess.
If you manage to cut out the flat base without touching / damaging it, you have room to play with, like putting a 10mm (?) thick aluminium disc under the LED board.
But frankly i think you’re better off buying a decent LED flashlight…
What about a car led headlight replacement? Fairly cheap, integrated fan and heatsink, 12 volt lead acid battery compatible so the battery and charging doesn’t need a retrofit. Of course if there isn’t room between the battery and the reflector that wouldn’t work.
I looked into those when I was considering my mod and for what the price was for a good one of those (you have to buy a pair) like $60 plus making everything fit it wasn’t too attractive. I also considered HID, but again, making a ballast/driver fit, plus not much better output and cheap components I dove into the full mod with the Cree led. HID is good for crazy throw and good beam pattern, but the warm-up to full brightness in cheap HID ballasts is not good.
All, thanks a lot for valuable comments. From what I have read, it will be indeed a challenge. I was basically curious about main differences in design of halogen vs. LED flashlight and from then on planed to decide whether go for mod or pass. So, from what I learned so far, this mod does worth it only in case if I have time to play around and learn more about build like this.
@Sirstinky, thank you. I will check your mod and see if I am dare enough to go that path
You bet. Incandescent vs LED is quite different. LEDs more efficient, last longer. The only thing keeping them from becoming mainstream is cost and simplicity. Leds are still more expensive than a incandescent lamp. This was totally worth it for me. Something unique that you can’t find anywhere else. Plus, I learned a lot.
