Mod/Build: Ultrafire S5 - Now a proper Triple (DE)light

Flashlight Modding and DIY Parts
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Awhile ago, I found that ledsupply.com was clearing out their Luxeon triples (http://www.ledsupply.com/07007-pw740-l.php), for some reason, I got kind of obsessed with building something with them, so I’ve been wanting to build a small light that uses it and a Carclo 10507 (narrow) optic. In my mind, it felt like a tube-style host would work best, because a host with a head that was wider than the body wouldn’t fit the 20mm optic and triple very well.

A couple of things came together:

- relic found a really cheap tube-style light on ebay, a UF S5 (1x18650 XP-E Flashlight for $2.99; Deal?), and I bought a couple of them to experiment with. The nice thing about this S5 is the way the head assembly is designed. A retaining ring holds the pill against the reflector which pushes against the lens, so it easily accommodates the shorter Carclo lens.

- I also didn’t want to drive the triple in parallel but, rather, in series (less wiring), so I looked for a driver for a long time, and almost decided that I’d have to use direct drive with just 2x16340 or 2x18650. The problem with direct drive is that the triple in series needs about 1 amp at 9V, so with just 2 Li-Ion, the emitters were seriously under-driven. Then, I found this boost driver from CNQ:

The CNQ driver is perfect, because it is a true boost (outputs whatever voltage is needed, in this case, 9V) with 1 amp, which is what Luxeon specs as the max current for the emitters . It’s a double board driver, which is a pain, but it turned out that the smaller board fits the S5 pill/ridge.

So, at that point, I had all of the pieces to mod the S5 to use the triple, and it was just a matter of squeezing it all into the host.

Parts:

Here’re some pics of the pill mods:

This is what things look like when they’re all stacked. This whole stack just slides into the S5 head, and then the retaining ring screws in and secures it. In this pic, you can also kind of see how I “extended” the two holes in the pill down the side of the pill so that the emitter wires would not push the emitter PCB up:

The smaller board of the CNQ driver fits into the original pill, but the +/- contacts on the triple are both on the same side, so I drilled a 2nd hole in the top of the pill. I also used a small round diamond file to both open up the drilled hole and extend the hole down the side of the pill as can be seen in the pics above. The reason for that is so that the emitter wires would not be under the emitter PCB and cause the emitter PCB to be raised up.

I shortened the driver-to-emitter leads, then soldered the leads onto the triple.

I then used some AA around the driver side of the pill and then glued the small board onto the driver “ledge”. I let that set, and then used Fujik to fill up the empty space between the two driver boards.

[Note: I think that I should’ve filled the pill with Fujik before AA’ing the smaller driver board, but I realized that too late. This is because now, the only thing holding the driver in place is that ridge and the AA.]

I used the spring from the original S5 driver and soldered that to the CNQ driver, and then shoved the stack into the S5 head, screwed the retaining ring on, and VOILA, we have triple (de)light :)!!

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The clip is a Solarforce clip, which works fine:

Light on low mode:

Whitewall, about 1 meter:

EDIT: I forgot to mention that, per the thread about testing the CNQ driver, this light now works with a number of battery combinations:

1 x 18650
2 x 16340
2 x 18350

Probably it’ll work on 2 x CR123A, but I don’t have any. If it does, it even works on available primaries :)…

EDIT 2: I had the pill out tonight to add some thermal compound between the emitter PCB and the pill (forgot), so I took a couple of additional pics showing the Fujik’ed part of the pill and also a better look at the holes that I opened up down the side of the pill:

The enlarged holes for the emitter wires, extending down the side of the pill:

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I don’t know how it looks in real life but on my monitor the tint looks perfect (I know, dumb to say from just seeing a white wall shot, but hey). What CCT Rebel did you get from them? (Edit: link says 4000k).

Looks like a sweet build in any case! Something sexay about triple/quad TIR lights :heart_eyes:

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The triple is a “neutral white”, so yes, the beam is really kind of warm (4000K according to the ledsupply.com page).

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Like ^

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Very nice work ohaya. You’ve built a real nice practical light. Does it get hot at all on high and have mode memory?

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Hi,

Thanks! I agree with you about “practical” :). I think that between the battery combos and different power profiles with those, it covers a lot of uses.

Per the other thread where I described testing the CNQ driver, it has next mode memory.

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I picked up one of these from the same link. The first thought I got when I opened the package was to do a triple build. Looks great.

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I am a true expert when it comes to missing things I have read, even multiple times.
Next mode memory is a nuisance.

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Go for it! In the end, it was actually a pretty easy mod, with minimal tools.

Mainly

  • A soldering iron for soldering the leads to the emitter (I used the original leads that came on the CNQ driver, because the way the leads solder onto the bottom/larger PCB, it’d be kind of hard to solder new leads).
  • A drill/drill bit to drill the additional hole on the top of the pill.
  • A small round file (diamond file worked well) to enlarge and reshape the holes.

As I mentioned, but didn’t get into much detail about, I made a small metal disk to fit into the recess where the original emitter star was. That was from a penny, filed down. I AA’ed that to the emitter recess, and then I drilled the original hole through and drilled the 2nd hole next to it, then did the filing.

As I also mentioned, I think that it’d be better to fill the driver side of the pill with Fujik glue to provide some additional support for the small driver PCB.

Also, another thing I forgot to mention was that I didn’t use the original S5 lens, just the Carclo, which pushes up against the O-ring. I figured that the original lens would just reduce output light, so why use it?

Hopefully, the rest should be understandable from my pics and earlier post, but feel free to ask questions.

Good luck,
Jim

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Hi,

I forgot to answer your other question: Yes, the head gets quite warm/hot on high mode, so I think that even though I didn’t do much for thermal management, the original, rather simple design of the the pill vs. head is not bad for a $2.99 (now $3.99) host.

I mentioned earlier that relic found this and I’ve said it in his other thread, but thanks for this find!

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I’m doing a triple XP-G2 in parallel driven by a Qlite. Just need to finish start building the pill…

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How are you going to do the parallel wiring? Are you jumpering on the star/emitter PCB? Or are you planning to homerun the emitter wires to the driver?

If you’re planning to do the jumpers, keep the wires “low” because the Carclo lens sits very low above the emitter PCB (short legs).

Good luck, and make a mod thread when you’re done!

EDIT: I forgot to mention that I ran across a thread when I was researching for my build, that there were problems using the Carclo optics with XP-G2 triples (XP-G triples are apparently ok).

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Illumination supply has 20mm parallel PCBs. They also don’t require trimming like the Indus star PCBs from ledsupply

https://illuminationsupply.com/led-mcpcbs-c-52_43/20mm-triple-xpg-mcpcb-parallel-p-250.html

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Hi,

I knew that, but I’ve never reflowed, and wasn’t looking to do that for this build, but if someone was, then that might be a good choice, but you’d also have to get the XP-G from somewhere else… it looked like IS doesn’t carry the bare XP-G emitters…

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https://illuminationsupply.com/bare-leds-c-52_36_88/cree-xpg2-bare-r5-3d-tint-5000k-p-292.html

Edit- I didn’t realize they were on backorder. But they do have the 6500k XP-G2s

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I don’t remember where, but I’ve seen and posted some info that the XP-G2 on a triple don’t work well with the Carclo 10507, so at least for me, an XP-G2 triple wasn’t desireable. I think it was here:

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Interesting. I thought the triple squares I’m getting with my triple XP-G2 minimag was some how my fault. I just figured I didn’t center the LEDs perfect when reflowing. I may consider triple XP-E2s instead. Thanks for that link!

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It WAS your fault - you chose the XP-G2 instead of XP-G…

SORRY - JUST KIDDING :)!!

EDIT: BTW, as I said, I think that the IS triple PCB is a good choice for someone who can/wants to do the reflows - it opens up more driver possibilities, whereas with a series triple like the one I used, the CNQ driver was the only one that I found that would work, and I tried at least 3 other drivers, including 2 drivers from FT that they claim are boost drivers.

EDIT 2: Can you post a whitewall shot of your triple XP-G2? I’m curious what those “squires” look like.

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I do not have a quality camera, just a galaxy s3 and it will not pick up the squares in the beam. Through the camera the beam looks perfect. Go figure.