Nichias are pretty tough!

Flashlight Modding and DIY Parts
1

Today I went ahead and did a little fiddling on my (wifes) mini maglite.

The story started a few weeks back.
I took a normal Mag incandescent bulb, and took the glass part out.
So it was emply, to add a 12mm board on top, with a Nichia 119, connecting the Pos and Neg with some wires, using it direct drive in my Mag 3D.
But after installing, the light worked for a few seconds, then turned BLUE... Never seen this before.
I turned it off, turned it back on again, seeing the same thing happening. from about neutral white.... to blue.
I guess 3 AA batteries are just too much for this led.

fast forward to today.

I had this mini maglite laying around, which is actually my wife`s.
Seeing all the mods of Old Lumens, I had already decided to try something out myself.
So I took this old PR bulb,(thinking it may be broken) with the nichia attached on top, and tried to fit it in the mini maglite..
of course that doesnt fit...
Having almost all my tools at church, I had barely anything left at home, other than my soldering iron, some sand paper and my "computer tool box" with a few screw drivers and pliers.
So I used the sandpaper and took as much off of the top of the body of the maglite , so the bulb would fit into the tube.
And to my surprise, the light directly turned on... wow... not Blue.. just uhmmm white?
that nichia is hard-core!

Then I tried to put the head on, that didnt fit either.
So I had to take the lips off on the side of the bulb (if you know what I`m talking about).
During this process of sanding and trying to make it fit, the dome of the Nichia came off.
This little bugger didnt care, and lighted up the same as before!

But it took a little too much of the silicone,and is now blue in 1 corner.


After a bit more sanding and fiddling, the *LED substrate broke, see pics below.
*Thanks Scaru

The Nichia didnt let me down, it still worked!

That Nichia 119 is bad to the bone!

Here some proof! ;)

Yeppp, that looks pretty bad huh!

Don`t you dare to laugh!

Whahaha.. No beauty! I know

I don`t have beam shots... You really don`t want to see them!
The beam is really ugly....
But hey.. its just for the fun...

The bulb actually goes into the body as deep as the black line.
So I put some tape underneath, so the light doesnt stay on, even with the head unscrewed.

I added the solder blobs so it had better contact with the body when the head was screwed down.

thanks for laughing.. watching.

2

Great story, and I love pictures of butchered leds!

3

Interesting. I had the impression (don’t know why) that the Nichias would be delicate. Glad to have that false impression corrected. Thank you for sharing.

4

As my Jewish friends would say "oy vey, and it still voyks?"

5

Is the beam partly blue? Or still white?

6

The beam has a big donut-hole.
Around the edge of the donut hole, there is a clear brighter circle, which is about 90-95% yellow, and 5-10% blue/purple.

I guess I can always put some diffuser film on the lens, so it can be used for close up work.
Other than that… not really useful.

But it was fun to do, and I could practice my modding skills :stuck_out_tongue:

7

The reason it went blue in the 3D mag is because you don't have any heatsink for it. The "led thing" is the LED substrate. :) Still surprised that thing works though.

8

Thanks… edited in the opening post.

9

Nice use of a pr bulb. It might focus better if you were to shorten the bulb base a bit.

10

Yep i had a xr-e overdriven it had a blue tinge for a little while before it died :bigsmile:

11

You have more luck than I. If I looked at it, it would off just broke without touching it. What a terrific mod though, one that not many off us will attempt on purpose though, maybe Rufusbduck will. I say this tongue in cheek, night shots?

12

How odd! :bigsmile: Can you post a beam shot (white wall)? It would be nice to see.

13

okay okay..... here some beamshots..

now you can see what I meant.

behind my laptop it depends on the angle I look at the screen, at some angle it shows the blue/purple color better than from another angle

14

Wow, it looks like something in space. :open_mouth: I really like that! Thanks, ChibiM!

15

LOL. Chole is right. First, I thought what a tragic looking beam. Now I really like it.

I looks like the emitter is too high in the reflector. Lowering it should get rid of the doughnut hole.

EDIT: Might be too low instead. I just tried adjusting the height in one of my lights and I got a doughnut hole when too low too.

16

Thanks!
it looks indeed a bit odd… not really something useful though.

I used the original reflector, and opened it just enough open so the dome of the led came through…
but then it became un-domed… so that partly the reason.

thanks for watching

17

Looks like UranusFire to me… J)