Hello BLF, long time lurker and first time poster. Today I’m writing to seek some led and driver advice for this old flashlight I found in my garage. It’s an old tactical flashlight that worked great (until I bodied it with a soldiering iron lmao) It has a driver which has four annoying modes H-M-L-Strobe that I don’t find useful for tactical purposes. But it did have a nice cree emitter in it, guessing an XM-L maybe? Anyway, I’m looking for a new driver and new emitter cause why not, this would be my first mod and I could use the soldering practice.
So it seems there is a 26mm driver and 20mm led board in and aluminum pill, driver has a spring on it.
single protected lithium cell (18650)
one or possibly two mode driver
high output led
able to be used with tape switch?
I found the mountain electronics website and it looks like there is some driver/emitter pairs that would suit my needs well, this being my first build/mod was wondering if anyone had any input/advice/words of wisdom, thanks guys n gals
MtnElectronics is a great place to pick-up what you need.
For a first mod, I’d stick with same size components for an easier mod and to minimize fitment issues.
There’s a 26mm FET+DD driver that should shoe-in just fine. Order it pre-wired with spring. I like Bistro firmware but definitely get the one with the features you prefer.
I’d also recommend spending a couple dollars more and picking up an upgraded emitter as well, such as this hi-CRI mounted on CU mcpcb.
Important, get a insulated centering ring and/or make sure the metal reflector does not short your LED connections.
FWIW, provided the reflector clears the contact/wires, one can always go down a size so the 16mm LH351D in 5000K will also work if you prefer the 5000K color temperature.
That’s a cheepie driver with µC and just a few parallel resistors (those 3 in a row) for “regulation”.
You can short out the µC part and just have the LED connected through the resistors for a simple stoopit 1-mode on/off driver if you want.
Chances are, the LED+ goes right to the + end of the cell, and gets “pulled down” through the resistors and FET (8-pin thingy above the “WS”). But looking at the pic, it looks like it might be the opposite, that the LED- is connected to the edge/ground, and goes through the FET to the cell+ (holes/vias dead-center of the board).
Anyway, poke it with a meter to get the generalities. A simple jumper or even solder-bridge might be all you need to bypass the µC and have it be always-on.
So, I totally forgot about this post. But I finished it… years ago. It hardly works but when it works its ok! Is this flashlight body familiar to anyone? It seems like an old convoy or something. anyway i forget what OS i picked but it has a single 100% output mode and its good enough for me. it’s warm as hell but gives me an oldschool weapon light feel.
!
