Johnny Cash inspired parts bin build DBC LOC 5.3.18 Finished! :D

Flashlight Modding and DIY Parts
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Does anyone remember the old Johnny Cash song where he sings that while working in the automotive industry he took home pieces one day at a time then eventually built himself a car from the parts?

Well, I seem to have a lot of parts laying around and in the act of looking for something earlier today (be danged if I remember now just what I was originally looking for!) I ran across a few items that made me want to hobble them together into a flashlight. Is this so wrong? I have a Courui D01 outer head and bezel assembly, a Solarforce M8 finned pill section, a Convoy C8 battery tube, and a somewhat larger than normal oddball tail cap from an unidentified light. I also have Convoy L6 reflectors but too I have a Ledil Carmen optic that fits inside the Courui D01 head, so I’m thinking about making what adapters I need to get all this to go together and make something out of it.

While typing this up I also realized I have a piece of aluminum tube that’s anodized black that I got off my Benjamin Steel Eagle Pellet rifle that just so happens to be capable of housing a 21700 cell… hmmm, maybe the C8 tube is out and the air rifle tube is in… at any rate, might be interesting to cobble some stuff together, yes?

:smiley:

Will keep y’all posted on what becomes of this. If I can find a large enough diameter piece in the shop to cobble the D01 to the M8 pill I’ll be up and running here pretty quick. :wink: (otherwise I have to order or otherwise find something to work)

I’ll be back….

Wed., 5.2.18, I got the piece of aluminum I needed and set to work Frankensteining this light. So far so good! :smiley:

This is a Couri D01 head with an Illuminations Machines reflector cut down some to fit, the Solarforce M8 pill is threaded into the 6061 adapter and a Convoy C8 battery tube is threaded into the M8 pill. Gotta do a tail cap for it and then I can build it. :slight_smile:

5.3.18 5:45 PM The DBC LOC (Light-on-Cash) parts bin build (Thanks Zulumoose, nice name! :smiley: )
Finished! And some parts of this were just a pure D PITA! lol

I bored the Convoy C8 tube to accept a Sanyo 20700A cell, that took a while as it was slow going. Had to make the tail cap from scratch, including the spacer between the switch and boot and the retaining ring.

With the 20700A at about 4.18V, it makes 1818.15 lumens on level 7 (Turbo), level one is too low to light up so it’s blank, level 2 is 0.966 lumens.

I used one of the X6 FET+1 drivers with Bistro and it’s one of the problematic ones, it kicks back to moon when I get to level 5 trying to read amps. I know how to fix it, but don’t want to break back into the light to do so. Because of the way the Solarforce M8 pill is made I ended up gluing the pill into the aluminum adapter, also glued the Courui head onto the adapter. These area’s have o-rings but I wanted to be sure not to twist wires in the future, I’m bad about forgetting and tearing one up opening it up.

I need to address ground at the battery tube/pill joint, will probably get up over 2000 lumens if I get ground working better. The sliced/diced/shaved SST-40 is perfect for this light, nice big fat defined hot spot with very low spill.

Tired. LOL

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For the record…

I cut the air rifle tube and made a bronze adapter to fit on the end of the threaded barrel then used part of the original sleeve and some Titanium tube I had to make the barrel longer for easier cocking, it’s a break barrel. I also fitted their noise suppressor into the end of the Ti tube. :smiley:

Talk about hobbling things together… this modified Steel Eagle has a Weaver scope mount carrying a Hammers 3-9X 40mm adjustable optic scope. :slight_smile:

At .22 caliber and some 1000 fps I managed to bag a squirrel at 57 yds the other morning. Longest shot yet.

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Gotta watch this lol.
I was supposed to be getting one of them optics, but I guess the guy never came through or just said it to shut me up. I will have to check to see if they are readily available yet in the smaller sizes

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I doubt I’ll use the Carmen optic Pulsar, it’s designed for the big emitters like an MT-G2 and I would rather this one be more of a thrower than a flooder. Not looking to make it a 2 cell light as I like the idea of a short single cell tube with the fat Courui head. :wink:

Ooooh! Thanks for jogging my memory Pulsar! I happen to also have a rather large reflector sitting around doing nothing…… hmmmmmm…….

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Yeah, definitely watching this one! :nerd_face:

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Dale, don’t you still have a LUM 5-90 reflector lying around? Is that the “rather large reflector sitting around doing nothing” you were thinking of, or do you have another?

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I do have an Illumination’s Machine’s LUM 5-90 that I got from Justin actually, but I also have a smooth reflector that’s a little larger. :slight_smile: Maybe too big for this project.

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If I remember correctly, the car was a 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55 Cadillac with one tailfin, two headlights on the left, and one on the right.

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Hopefully I’ll be able to pull these flashlight bits together with a bit more comformity than that! :stuck_out_tongue:

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I don’t have a 2” piece of round bar stock to join the M8 pill to the D01 head. I do have a piece of thick walled pipe but it’s JUST shy of being large enough outside to fit the D01, and just a wee bit big for the M8 pill on the inside. I wonder if I could cut an inch off the pipe, sandwich it between a couple of solid bars of square steel, and slam it with a sledgehammer to get the tiny bit off to work for me? LOL

I’m laughing about it, but I might just try it before going to the machine shop and buying some bar stock. :stuck_out_tongue:

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Umm… are you off your meds? :stuck_out_tongue:

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Thanks Mr. Scott, prc8 that! :smiley:

Edit: Looking at the date on that, is my memory right here? Nixon resigned on my birthday that August… forever ago! (oops! Nevermind, 2 years earlier… still on my birthday though, lol)

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Went down to the local machine shop and acquired a piece of 2 1/4” 6061, ready to start Frankensteining some of these parts together… :smiley:

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When he turned on the lights all three lit up!

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I never appreciated Johnny Cash when I was young. Now with all the crappy music made today, I learned to appreciate artists I didn’t like when I was younger.

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Pretty healthy start, I’d say…

I had the M8 pill threaded into the block of 2 1/4” 6061 and flipped it around, made a pocket for the Illuminations Machines reflector to center into. Cut threads for the adapter to screw into the Courui head and I’ll be danged if I didn’t subtract the depth of the threads instead of add em! Ended up 1.81mm too small to thread into the head. Had to cut 14mm of threads off and re-do the reflector pocket and 20mm SinkPad inset and re-thread it. But it’s on there! Right at 90º in the shop. Fun fun fun!

Edit: I think the reflector is the XML-4-17, supposed to be 4.5º beam, 8.5º field with 55 Cd/lm. So if I can get 2600 lumens from an SST-40 then it in theory will have 143Kcd, don’t know, don’t think I’ve used one of these before.

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Nice!

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Looks good Dale. :+1:

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Cool :+1: