Mod of a very old Luxeon Lux I flashlight.

Flashlight Modding and DIY Parts
1

A customer asked me to update his very old Sportsman’s Outfitters CR123A Luxeon Lux 1 flashlight. He gave me a budget to work with and asked for more output, neutral white tint and 3 modes as opposed to the 1 of the original driver. When the light arrived, it maybe made 75 lumens but had a great beam and very good hand feel. I can see why he wanted to upgrade as opposed to buy new.

The light used a pill very similar to a P60 except it screwed into the head and tensioned the glass and the o-ring under the glass. The light was seriously glued at the head end of the battery tube and at the base of the bezel. The entire front of this light depends upon interference fitting to properly work. I dropped the light into a crockpot liner and boiled it for about 10 minutes to get it apart, strap wrenches and channel locks would not work!

I chose to put a Nichia 219B 4500k emitter in this light. Before I could do that I had to remove the glued in Luxeon led and fill in the machined low spot that it sat into.

JB Weld was my friend with this pill.

There was just enough room between the holes to place a 16mm Noctigon with the new led. The opening in the reflector was smaller than an XM series and larger than an XP series led so I had to adjust the OD of the insulator/centering ring. I choose to use a 105C with 380 mah chips and removed 3 of the chips for 1.8 amps of drive. As I said, this is all tight interference fit, I had to shorten the battery tube with a file a few strokes at a time until the seams came together for the fit you see in the first pic. The switch needed some help as well, it was oxidized and not making good connection. That was easy to fix with some good cleaner, mild sandpaper and a tiny bit of No-Ox-Id-A. I did for the first time use blue locktite on a light. the threads around the head and the top of the battery tube were not well cut and I wanted to prevent them from ever coming loose.

This little light has an amazing almost perfect beam with the OP reflector and the clear centering ring. If I ever found one for myself, I would not hesitate to pick it up for the same treatment. Total mod time, a little over 3 hours.

2

Very nice mod, and I like the flashlight too! So what would be the new output, about 200 lumen or a bit more?

3

Cool looking light, nice job!!

The head/bezel has a hole, looks like you could use a pin spanner on it to loosen/tighten with the proper spanner?

4

Thanks djozz.

I am estimating the output to be between 200 and 250. The customer wanted to maintain good battery life and blend it with good tint and more output. I could have driven an XM-L2 about that hard and would have gotten more output, but not the great CRI. Plus, it will get heat out of the light, but is not a great heat path.

5

Neat, it looks like a prop from the Thunderbirds. All of my early mods were of this type, getting my feet wet on older styles I already had(little did I know what it would lead to) and I still have an unfinshed project of two of that kind. You didn’t happen to check to see if a p60 pill had the same threads?

6

I did check, the threads on this were much finer. A P60 reflector would not drop in either.