3xAAA with a lantern head and flush with threads LED, but only 160 lumens. I think someone here was asking about a light that had a flush LED recently.
Obviously it tail stands well, and it looks like it has anodized threads too. That might be okay, but I'm thinking about what this thing could be like with a 26650, 3A and an XM-L2.
It does a really good job at reflecting light down and out. With the lux meter 4 inches away pointing at the ceiling, a ceiling bounce was getting the same lux as RMM's SRK on mode 4. The output on high is suitable for light reading, but I want more output, a LOT more output.
If a spring is added to the driver, it'll work with an 18500, but it wiggles around a lot. I wrapped it with electrical tape to fit better. Hopefully I can find a better spacer. Maybe some o-rings. The mcpcb is 17mm, so swapping that out with nicer emitter is going to be very easy. Solid pill, 18mm driver. No thermal paste or adhesive under the mcpcb...that could be why the lux dropped 33% within the first few seconds. I thought the batteries were sagging.
It's a lot nicer with 3 amps, 18500 and a XM-L2 T6 on Noctigon. Lux went up by about 10x!
Unfortunately Banggood raised the price from $12 to $15, which is annoying since there are flaws in the reflector and the "glass" was misthreaded.
with 3 amps on an XML and a single 26650 it the run time would not be very long. It would be bright, but not last long for continuous use camping or long power outages. Modding lanterns is my specialty and have a ton of LED modded lanterns for my camping and canoe trips, and tend to like to ad at least 2 or 3 modes, with a good run time medium mode, a good night light low mode, and a reasonable high mode for extra light when needed.
The first thing i do with some of these Up-pointing emitter lights is mod them to have the emitter point down to cut the glare, and install a neutral or preferably a warm white Emitter in place of the eye-searing cool or day-light tinted emitters that usually come with them.
I wish it could use a 26650 so run time would be 4 times longer. It's stuck with the lowly 18500. I'm still going to try to see if I can squeeze more lumens out of this light.
Can you recommend any mod hosts? Preferably with a better thermal path/mass than this light.
It depends on how much Lux you want to get out of the lantern versus runtime using the 18500. Some of my lanterns i use for longer camping trips, so i need a good balance of run time & output.
i used a Nanjg 105c driver, but the Q-lite Rev. version connecting the fourth star to get 4-modes, High, Medium, Low, and Moonlight for a night light.
One lantern i used this driver with five of the 7135’s removed, leaving three 7135 regulators for a roughly 1 amp high mode through a warm White tint XM-L2 mounted on an old heat-sink from a North-bridge chip off an old computer motherboard for cooling.
Low mode gave the same amount of light output (roughly 100 lumens) as the stock 20- 5mm leds did in the lantern, but with a run time of 30 hours on 3-AA cells, and twice that on an 18650. on medium it was roughly 235 lumens, with a run time of 8 hours or more on the 3 AA eneloops, on high it was atleast 450 lumens with a run time of just under 3 hours.
One example, is the side light on the OL’s 2nd hand-built Competition Steam-Pipe light i built.
The side light runs off the same Qlight Rev. 105C with the 4-modes, and uses a warm white wide-angle generic Bead type emitter with a resistor in the cirsuit after the driver. Its as bright on high as a Coleman Peak-1 Gas lantern i have, and has a run time of 35 plus hours on a single IMR18650.
Here: >> DBSAR - The 2nd. Annual BLF Scratch Made Light Contest Entry / UPDATE -June 27th, more photos ( scroll down through the photos to see the lantern_mode operating along side the Gas Lantern. )
Maybe i should to a photo of my LED lantern collection to snow some of the modded lanterns in that collection.
I'm going to go for lux just because I can. Modes will have to suffice for battery life. If I can learn how to use a lathe at the local maker space, I may see about using Solarforce's lantern head atop a block that makes up the pill, thermal mass and a spot for a electronic switch. I may power it with a bike battery since those are cheap, allow quick swaps, and there are cases that let you put in your own battery.
What I'd really like is a mod host that can use three emitters, have lots of battery life, and doesn't cost much more than $30 in parts.
Your light is amazing. Way too complicated for me to replicate now, but maybe someday. I like how you used a diffuser instead of the downward facing cone that most lanterns have. This just made me realize that I might be better off trying to get silicone diffusers made for big lights like the SRK/M6 or Solarstorm T3/T4.
i thought about building a “super Lantern” once of that style, using a SRK Kung host joined with the four 18650s in parallel with a Classic Coleman 200-Series gas Lantern host and placing the 4 XM-L emitters on a center copper square post heat-sink, with each emitter facing out at 90 degrees sideways, using 4 of the 3.06 amp 105c drivers for a massive output LED “converted” classic Model 200 Coleman lantern.
