jmpaul320's skyray king upgrade thread UPDATED 1/12/13

Will u add a medium mode to the light. the king so needs a Med mode.
I hate mine just cuz of that.
Interesting mod will subscribe to this. :nerd_face:

I donā€™t think I will add a medium mode. Beyond my skill level and I donā€™t really need one myself.

Can anyone confirm this is the correct resistor?
http://www.mouser.com/Search/m_ProductDetail.aspx?Xicon/288-0603-10K-RC/&qs=sGAEpiMZZMvmogu7fABzFiZJTnmIDHuL

And there should be 3 correct? One for each led?

Thatā€™s 0603, I think the size in the King was 0805 but not that sure.

If youā€™re willing to wait, just spend $2 here for everything you need:
http://www.fasttech.com/products/0/10000028/1005200-0805-39k-62k-smd-resistors-value-pack-270-piece

Piggyback 30k on top is much easier IMO, and will actually add wattage rating. And yes, you need 3 pcs.

EDIT: I opened up mine and confirm the original resistor size is 0603. But for the purpose, I find size 0805 still fits, so you still can use the fasttech resistor above.

I donā€™t mind waiting. Thanks for the link. Someone posted the size as 0603 in the other thread. Can someone confirm?

Iā€™m trying to dismantle my mimic, and Iā€™m not getting how to get that driver board out. I took the button off, but thereā€™s no leverage there to get to the board that I can see. Am I just being to gentle in my prying?

It really depends on your light builder, some, as in mine, are really epoxy-happy. Mine was overflowing with epoxy on the inside! I had to use NAILS and pound them on the sides, I think it required 5 nail points to finally break the driver contact with the body.

Please donā€™t try with 2 inches nails though :bigsmile: just use proper reasoning for nail size

As far as a ucl - I bet I can get a mag ucl to fit.

King - 54.86mm x 3mm
Mag - 52.1mm x 1.83mm

Might be a little small and rattle but I think I can jam an o ring in there.

Pounding nails in there eh? Yeah, I guess Iā€™m being too gentle :stuck_out_tongue:

just to keep all the info in this thread.

message from pulsar:

ā€œI just opened it and can confirm the original is 0603, not 0805.

However I tried putting an 0805 resistor, and it can sit just fine on top of the 0603 with enough space to solder for piggybacking.

I guess both sizes will work.ā€

So i ordered the above link from fast tech with launch coupon for 1.89$ As soon as they arrive (about 1 mon or so) I will upgrade the resistors first to see how much of an improvement JUST the resistors makes.

in the mean time i will keep my eye out for xml2s stars :slight_smile:

Thanks jmpaul for the update. :slight_smile:

The one reason I havenā€™t modded my King with the resistor mod, is that Iā€™m actually waiting for my light meter to arrive. I need the king in original condition to calibrate the meter and get its ceiling-bounce lux reading. Original CW King gives around 2250lm in general and donā€™t stray too far from this number, so Iā€™ll just use that as a base for other lights.

Iā€™m going to take stock measurements of mine tonight.

UPDATE 1/12/13

I have retitled the original thread and will be updating the first post with results from here on out.

Today I did the following:

Remove stock lens & upgrade to UCL

The stock skyray lens has a diameter 54.87mm and thickness of 3.03mmā€¦ I noticed that this is very close to the UCL size that fits Maglite - 52.1x1.90mm. And it just so happens that I have one in my 6d Mag. (I believe I bought it from Lighthound.com for 6.99)

The mag lens is smaller and it rattled a bit even with the stock o-ring in place. So I went back to the mag lite and pirated the o-ring off the mag headā€¦ which just so happened to ALSO fit nicely on top of the ucl in the king head. (Just for reference - the stock o-ring was placed under the ucl, then the mag o-ring was placed on top of the uclā€¦)

It took a few tries of screwing the bezel down carefully without having a small section of o-ring bulge out, but it really was less of a pain that I thought it would be! AND NO RATTLE whatsoever! You cant even see the black mag o-ring unless you look at the light at a sharp angle.

I updated the title thread with results of a ceiling bounce test I did before and after. It appears to have made a 5% increase in light output!

I suppose you COULD argue that this really isnā€™t a budget upgrade, since the UCL will run you 6.99 plus shipping for a total around $9ā€¦ which is around 15-20% of the cost of the light itself. And if you donā€™t have a Maglite around you would have to hunt for an o-ring. But I already had all of this on hand. So it only took me all of about 5-10 minutes to do this upgrade.

Resistors just shipped today from fast-techā€¦ resistance mod is next!

pics below (cell phone qualityā€¦ sorry)


o-ring on top of the ucl to prevent rattle (bezel not installed yet)


stock lens (thicker) vs mag ucl (thinner)

stay tuned for more updates!

I have changed my KING's original LEDs to "XM-L U3 1C", the beam pattern changed a little bit, the tint is my favourite and that was the only improvement because I measured the output and it's still the same than with the stock LEDs!!

I bought the LEDs from intl outdoor, and also replaced the original wires with Turnigy Silicone AWG24 (great wires, I like them very much!).

I'm waiting for the resistors to arrive and try the resistor modding (ordered them on December 3th, they should arrive now).

Did you have a cool white king (u2) before?

Maybe you had a high bin u2 and then ended up getting low bin u3sā€¦ theoretically that could happen i guess.

thanks for posting your results!

It was CoolWhite T6

thats interesting info fx32ā€¦ i wonder if its worth the time and money to upgrade wires/emitters thenā€¦ i would think you would have seen SOME improvement

I took a stock TrustFire 168A-T6 at 2.5A, replaced only the emitter with a U3 1C. After the mod, I could not get that stock driver over 2.3A for some reason (??). Before @2.5A T6 1A/1B I got 525 lumens, after @2.3A 575 lumens.

Maybe with the SRK driver, there is a similar drop in amps when the emitters were updated?

im going to hold off on upgrading to xml2 for a while anywaysā€¦ maybe some other members who have tried this (if any) can shed some light on this (pun intended)

for now, im going to see where the $2 resistor mod gets me :slight_smile: once they arrive

I think the only explanation would be that the replacement U3 has much higher forward voltage than the original T6.

Still, itā€™s nice that your light has higher lumens but using less current nowā€¦ still worth it IMO.

Isnā€™t it a constant current 2Amps driver? Anywayā€¦ I have my favourite tint right now [1C], that worth the money (~USD20).