I built this for JohnnyMac while in the process of building my own so I thought I'd do a build thread on it since I'm still waiting on parts for mine. I sent my reflector to comfychair for some milling (which it turns out tho I'm sure it would of made it easier I managed to do JM's without touching the reflector) and it got lost in the mail on the way. Comfy is going to make me a totally custom 3-up reflector out of some SST-50 reflectors I ordered but they're taking their time to get here from DX.
The driver is a 6*7135 (per ch) driver I designed based off a DrJones chip which he customized to not use a white channel, instead replacing everywhere there was white with RGB. I've done lots of RGB / RGBW stuff recently but all of it using one of my own UI's or MELD purchased on chips (for drivers I design) from tterev3, this is my first experience with DrJones' RGBW FW and I quite like it, I like how it allows brightness adjustment on the colors as well as a mode with fully customizable color (by ramping each die one at a time). It is a little harder to use, and a little less intuitive to pick up on (tonight when I was testing I had to have my phone on the description page and I still dont have all the multi-clicks figured out so I'll give a point to MELD there.
Anyway the build was a lot of fun and its without a doubt some of my best work to date! I especially like the copper writing on the driver, it didnt turn out quite a perfect as I hoped but I was able to lightly scrape the mask without doing to much damage, what I should of done is extended the bottom copper circle out and just trying in bStop instead of trying to type in both copper and then bstop right on top of that.
some images are mouse overs
out = driver top, over = driver bottom. A surprisingly easy to build driver and it fits with zero filing!
One thing you probably notice is the mix of 7135's, Some people complain about the narrow band white saying it doesnt render white objects true enough to tell whats white (thats definitely not the case and I invite anyone who feels that way to build one of these using this mix of bin's, the hardware is all open source and DrJones sells the chips for very cheap), I've been doing this RGB stuff a little while now any I've found what I feel is the most ideal mix of .35 and .38A 7135, minute differences in current can really help even it out. I have all 6 .38's for blue, 5 .38's for green and only 3 .38's for red
Usually I use all XP-E2's but I decided to do this one a little different and use a blue XT-E, I was hoping a new 32mm triple noctigon would fit but it was just barely to small , the XP16's had to be filed to fit along the I.D. of the head. One thing interesting is JM's host was apparently a newer version (it originally had XM-L2's,vs my XM-L's) and it had a thicker emitter shelf, cant complain there but on mine I got to build a new solid copper heatsink to make up the height of the bolt in aluminum emitter shelf in my original version.
(out = emitters in = AS epoxy drying, first look at awesomeness)
Also did some resistance mods, not only does this light run <6.6A on max but the DrJones FW has a cell resistance measurement feature which requires the best possible (lowest resistance) electrical path to read as accurately as possible. I ditched the crummy factory spring and built this
(out = cutting the 22Ga disk down to size, in = finished with OE spring for comparison)
Finally I was ready to fire it up without the reflector (I was thinking the reflector was going to be a much bigger issue that it was, infact it ws a non-issue all together, not I really feel bad about loosing mine :()
and finally put together (no visible PWM even on low, point DrJones!), This thing begs for an AR lens!
As always color numbers are most likely very inaccurate (and probably pretty low)
Lm measured in my lumen cooler (which is within 2% of F1 with white light), lux taken @ 5m and converted back to 1m
max = 800Lm
throw = 45kCd (very impressive!)
Beamshots with lots of other RGB / RGBW lights in the works (will be its own thread probably after this weekend). I will tease you for now by saying the color mixing is excellent, the large reflectors are very well aimed in on each other for a tight spot which means better mixing without using diffuser film.
And finally, I think this is the best part- every time he changed the battery he gets to be reminded just how special this light is to him, sure my name and logo is in white silkscreen, but his is written in copper and is part of the batt+ terminal!
Johnny, brother, I hope you never sell this light but if you do please give me first option and I'll buy it back from you, even if my custom reflector frankenlight turns out just as good I still want yours cause it was the first one.
ended up using supplied ring shifted by 45 degrees, not too happy with results…
