Lumintop EDC15, custom Cerakote, TIR swap and 519A emitter swap

[ebastler (Moritz)]

Hello again!

Long story short - I am considering my first modding project, which would start off with a custom coating, since the light I would like to have does not exist in the color I need it to be.

Does anyone have experience with pricings for having a flashlight either coated or re-anodized? It’d be only for a pretty small 14500 twisty, so I am worried the price of having it coated would be just too high to be worth it for a 20$ light. Hobby or not, spending 100 bucks on coating a 20$ light just seems ridiculous to me. So maybe somebody has experience with what prices I have to expect (and ideally, can recommend me a good shop in EU, preferably Italy).

I have so far contacted becoating.be after they were recommended to me by a friend - their homepage lists 80€ for a computer keyboard ceracoating. I’d hope a flashlight might be cheaper, even if it is more complex, simply because it’s tiny.

The background: My girlfriend is suprisingly supportive in my weird and spendy hobbies, and since she mentioned a while ago she’d like a flashlight but “only if it is cute”. I have been looking around. Knowing her uses and aesthetic preferences, it should be:

• Bright enough to be an all-rounder (her only flashlight) - so no AAA/keychain light
• Small enough to fit a tiny purse without issues ( → 14500?)
• Not the regular simple knurling pattern we all know
• Pink or Rose Gold
• USB-C rechargeable, she does not use anything she can not USB-C charge
• I want it to be a bit custom - don’t want her to have an off the shelf light

I recently found the Lumintop EDC15 and love how small it is for a 14500, the simple twisty UI, the USB-C cell, and it’s looks: [Review] Lumintop EDC15 - 760lm AA/14500 twisty

BUT: It only comes in black. And 5700K low CRI. I checked the LED, I could reflow a 519A on the original PCB. That’s fine. Dedomed 519A (maybe 4500K, so should end up 3000K-ish after dedoming and nice and rosy) and we’re done.

H-311 would look pretty damn perfect on this light, I think…

Cerakote - PINK CHAMPAGNE

So, I am considering having it coated. If I can stay below 50 bucks for a ceracoat, or new ano, I’ll tackle the project. If not, IMO it’s just too much money poured on a low budget light for my taste, and I will search on to find something else.

We’ll see - maybe you have more experience with this and can tell me your price estimates. If not, I’ll update the thread once I got an answer from becoating and maybe some others. If it ends up being affordable, I’ll post some progress pics in here!

Cheers,
Moritz

EDIT: Lumintop EDC1 comes in pink and is pretty spot on to the look I wanna achieve - sadly it’s AAA. But it shows just how good the Lumintop EDC twisty design can be in pink.

[ebastler (Moritz)]

Update: I found a guy in Germany through a mutual other hobby who’s usually not taking commissions and only coats his own products, but since I asked nicely he offered to Cerakote the Lumintop for 10 bucks as long as I pick a color he has stocked and ship it to him fully disassembled.

That’s a lot less than I expected, and this means I’m going ahead with the project.

I changed the thread title since it switched from a question to a project thread now and will start ordering stuff over the holidays!

Does anyone know which 519A I should dedome for a neutral to warm, rosy tint? Iirc a 5700K ends up ~4000K dedomed, so maybe I should dedome a 4000K for this project? Has someone tested various 519As without dome and can share some experience?

[QReciprocity42]

Every 519A you dedome will have a neutral to warm CCT and rosy tint. What CCT are you looking for? Name that target CCT, multiply it by 1.3, that’s the CCT you want to dedome.

[ebastler (Moritz)]

Oh, so it’s multiplicative… I was aiming at something between 2700 and 3500, so I’ll have to pick between 4000 and 4500. Thanks! I thought it was like a fixed offset, not a multiplication. Knowing the factor makes things a lot easier

[QReciprocity42]

The 1.3x is a rough approximation, I’m not sure if there is a nice exact formula for what dedoming does. I think 3500-4500 is a good range, when dedomed it becomes roughly 2800-3400.

I’m glad it was helpful! Intuitively a fixed offset would not make much sense: if dedoming subtracts, say, 1500K from the CCT, then a 1500K emitter would dedome to 0K, which is not possible. CCT has highly nonlinear behavior: the same amount of perturbation in the CIE 1931 color space causes little change in CCT at the low end, but arbitrarily large change in CCT at the high end.

[ebastler (Moritz)]

That makes a lot more sense indeed, thanks!

I ordered a 519A light (Convoy S2+) in 5700K for myself, as I found I like ~4000K a lot, but this should definitely be warmer. I think 4500K (before dedome ofc) is good. Any preferred place where people order LEDs, or am I fine by ordering a random 519A 4500K on AliExpress where the seller claims it’s a 90CRI bin?

As you can probably tell, while I’m not new to electronics, I am very new to modding flashlights…

[QReciprocity42]

I see! IMO the most reliable place to order 519As is the Convoy Flashlight Store on Aliexpress, it’s run by Simon, the owner of Convoy, himself. (There are lots of other stores with similar sounding names, pay close attention to make sure it’s the right one.) You have the entire selection of CCTs, and they’re pretty cheap in bulk.

4500K dedomed is quite a nice color! A bit whiter and a lot rosier than a fully-driven incandescent, while still having that warmth.

[ebastler (Moritz)]

I just ordered the EDC15 from the official Lumintop store on AliExpress and 2 4500K 519A (bit of safety if I mess one up somehow) from Simon. Wish I would’ve planned this sooner, I could have had them shipped together with my 2 Convoy S2+ in that case… Oh well.

Thanks for the help regarding the LEDs! I’ll update the thread once the parts show up!

[ebastler (Moritz)]

That was surprisingly fast - it already arrived. Gorgeous light, I’m starting to regret I did not buy 2 so I could keep one for myself
I love the green fluorescent o-ring included by default. Nice touch.

Will take it apart these days and send the body out for coating. LEDs are still on the way, should arrive shortly.

[ebastler (Moritz)]

My 519A from Simon arrived these days, so I could get working. First I disassembled the light and desoldered the Osram LED:

Sadly most of my soldering equipment is still in my old apartment 900km away so I had to make what I had available do. Turns out, if you’re careful even an unregulated heat gun can solder LEDs

I managed to kill one 519A by shorting a wire to the body, frying the LED… Happens when you’re in a hurry and stop taking care. I was surprised the 14500 cell had enough power to kill a 519A though?? So many lights direct-drive off 18650s… I double checked the thermal pad when desoldering though, and the thermal paste from PCB to body had solid contact as well. No idea how this happened. Maybe I got it too hot when soldering and damaged it? The light worked well for a couple of minutes, then I put the battery in the charger, back in the light and it was dim first, then green for a moment, then gone (shorted both ways).

Anyway, working great now with the second 519A. This comparison pic is the EDC15 between a dedomed 4500K 519A and an Olight i1r2 Pro with unknown LED. Ignore the green fringes, those appear to be a cellphone camera artifact, as I can not see them with my eyes. The rest looks pretty much exactly how it appears to the bare eye.

Not sure I like how floody this thing is - both with stock led and with 519A. Imo it’s not bright enough to flood that much, as it gets too dim if you’re pointing it further away. Still nicer to use for navigating in the dark than my keychain olight. The tint of the LED ended up pretty much exactly how I wanted it to, very happy with that.

Next step, send the tube off to Cerakoting!

[James_C]

Nice job! I’ve always done reflows with a heat gun. No fancy hot plate for me.

[ebastler (Moritz)]

At home I’d have a proper temp regulated hot-air soldering station, would have preferred that over a heatgun that goes to god knows how many degrees - but it worked fine

[QReciprocity42]

Awesome mod! Out of curiosity, I really want to see the fried 519A!

I used to just put a blob of solder on the iron and put it under the PCB to do reflows. It’s ugly and inconvenient and corrodes the tip like crazy, but it doesn’t not work.

[ebastler (Moritz)]

Mhh I think I threw it in the bin already… Can check if I find it without emptying the entire garbage bin to the floor tomorrow.

[ebastler (Moritz)]

Picked it out of the garbage ^^ I don’t own a macro camera, so this is the best I could get. Looks 100% normal to me, no idea what happened there.

It worked normally, then I charged the battery, put it back in, and turned on. Light was bright at first, then dim, then green, then off. LED measures 0 Ohm in both directions.

[QReciprocity42]

I see–thank you so much for digging it out for me! I don’t see any issues with it either. Phosphor is probably okay, I guess the issue is in the underlying die.

The green observation of yours reminded me, I once had an 519A go bad after mechanical stress from poor centering in a TIR. The beam started out okay and turned a blue-green color, also no externally visible damage.

[ebastler (Moritz)]

Hmm maybe the centering ring slid out while I closed the light, and the TIR pressed onto the die. Would be possible.

[ebastler (Moritz)]

While I’m still waiting for the ceracoat (the person I sent it to caught a flu and was in bed for 2 weeks straight, now has to catch up on work that actually pays and put mine that’s just a favor that pays for material costs aside for a while) I got some new TIRs from AliExpress.

The original lens has a gorgeous beam pattern, but it’s way too wide for the comparatively low brightness (esp with the high CRI rosy 519A). It illuminates everything a little and nothing properly. So I got new lenses in 15/30/45° and will try which I like best.

Another forum member used these in an EDC15 already, they only need some trimming of the white plastic and will fit.

[ebastler (Moritz)]

After a very long wait, the ceracoat place finally shipped me the finished product! Sadly they ended up disregarding my request to plug the holes so the insides would not be coated, so I had to manually sand the contact surfaces clean… Annoying, but no big deal. Was like 15min of work. And damn, it looks gorgeous!! Since my girlfriend is a huge fan of this particular shade of green, I added a short lanyard of green paracord, too. Not enough as a proper lanyard to wrap around ones wrist, but more of a decoration.

The new TIR, or rather its plastic housing, did not fit the enclosure. The TIR itself was the exact same diameter as the old one and fit perfectly. Since the housing also acts as a gasket, I decided not to remove it, and only cut it to size. Here is a link to the TIR used: Page Not Found - Aliexpress.com. Huge thanks to @quahog for the recommendation!

In the end I lubed all o-rings and the threads with some Krytox 205g0 I got due to custom keyboard modding. It is a rather expensive and pretty overkill o-ring compatible PTFE based lubricant, very nice to lube up o-rings and threads.

Now it is time for some beamshots! All taken with a Sony A6000 with locked exposure/ISO and with fixed WB at 4000K, DUV 0.
The lights used are:

• Lumintop EDC15 with dedomed 4500K 519A and original TIR or 15° TIR mod
• Olight i1r2 Pro (stock)
• Convoy S2+ (with dedomed 5700K 519A and OG reflector)

Original TIR / new 15° TIR / olight i1r2 Pro as a comparison:

I did not expect the TIR to also seemingly affect the CRI and/or DUV? Curious, I like the new one better

Beamshot, taken in our wine cellar. EDC15 high, EDC15 turbo, Olight i1r2 Pro turbo, Convoy S2+ 50%.

Sadly I have no wine cellar shot with the OG TIR, but it basically flooded a little bit everywhere, but nothing was really illuminated even on turbo because it flooded way too much for the (comparatively) low powered LED, especially after swapping from the low CRI Osram to the 519A.

Some Opple LM4 screenshots - the warm CCT and slightly negative DUV are gorgeous imo. Luckily the PWM is very high frequency, and I never noticed it in the slightest.

Overall I am very satisfied with my first real flashlight mod, and I hope my girlfriend will like the light as much as I do. It definitely fits her style, now, and with the new TIR and LED it has a great beam shape for a small EDC with a good middle-ground between throw and flood imo.

While cutting the new TIR in shape, I managed to slip and cut into my thumb…

Fitting soundtrack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jE2UM7dzZlw