Modding Eveready Dolphin

I was just looking through my shed, and found an old eveready dolphin torch.

For those not familiar with them, they are very popular in australia. Big, incan torch, runs on a 6v battery.

They are waterproof to ipx7 I believe, made of rubber/plastic(?) and pretty durable.

Has anyone had any experience with modding them? I think you could get a very interesting result if you knew how..

Included a picture of one so everyone knows what I am talking about.

Hmm, you might get lucky modding it to an XP-G R5 or XM-L but im afraid of this:

- Heatsinking would probably be a serious issue (the case will work as a heat insulator which is a serious drawback)

- Driver placement and type (6v optimized)

- Reflector might be inapropriate for cree emitters (XP-G r5 and XM-L are somehow forgiving)

It would be nice if we can see the intenals.

I believe it is hardly doable because of required heatsinking. Serious modding would be required. Sticking the led to a hefty CPU cooler (intel i7 stock cooler without fan comes to mind) might do the trick but there is probably not enough space for it.

I find such mod to be not worth it if the fun factor does not compensate the effort involved.

I found two in the garage last week and was thinking exactly the same thing but then I thought heat would be an issue. Mine has an adaptor that takes 4 d cells.

I had an idea. I put my teralux globe in it and hooked it up to 4.5 v. Very floody. It doesn't fit the globe holder so you will have to improvise. You could make a battery holder so you could run a 18650 . At least it would be a hell of a lot lighter than one of those 6volt batteries.

defeats the purpose of such a massive torch though.

We have one of those from the early days when they were actually square with grey rubber trim. Have been buying the *other* brand of torch because the dolphins have always had waterproofing issues with the square head.

Arlec branded i think the other one is.

They are nice torches, and 6V is not an issue with drivers if you use buck drivers which are easy to find. Again i agree that it all comes down to heatsinking. Theres alot of space within the torch, but not where you need it. The bulb literally almost sits on the center terminal of the battery. You do have room to play around with, but only if you really rebuild the torch from scratch. The only way you can make it work is with a large thermal mass behind it, simply to absorb the heat, but it wont be dissipating it anywhere fast.

Beam wise it should be fine, should be very throwy, its just a matter of getting the emitter in the focal area.

My opinion is that its not worth the effort, you would be better off starting with a large host from your favourite online store.

seems like heat is the big problem.

Perhaps a low ROP bulb? could that be pwoered by a regular 6v battery, or would you need lithiums and an adapter?

Like everyone has said, probably not worth the effort, but still, it would be sweeeet.

Just go for thermal mass heatsinks and limit runtimes to a couple minutes, per 5-10 minutes or something like that.

i go one of those but i think the huge battery version, they still sells them at bunnings lol also the arlec ones but they not waterproofable, i do have a bunch of CPU heatsinks but not sure if it would fit though ?

A similar threads here:
https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/9463

https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/9655

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?196582-Thor-X10-Mod-3Power-1000W-Spotlight-UDATED-FET-Components-Beamshots-Added

Transferring heat seems to be a big consideration with LEDs.
The plastic case doesn’t help.

Could you swap to a brighter bulb of the same type ?
Maybe add more bulbs with a different reflector ?

only mod i can think of is car headlight bulb with 4x 26550 batterys lol

I stuck a ROP High and a 6XAA battery carrier with eneloops in mine, works brilliantly, as long as I don’t have it on for more than a minute :wink:

Truthfully, though, the contacts in the Dolphin aren’t up to the full load of a ROP High. The Low is whiter and because the filament is smaller, the hotspot is tighter, and throws a lot further.

We're all very glad to have you here, mvyrmnd!

Cheers!

Although sadly I no longer own any of the lights in that photo!