Niwalker Vostro BK-FA01 Mod

Hi guys!

tatasal requested me to modify his Niwalker Vostro BK-FA01 and his package arrived 3 days ago:

Yes its a Vostro BK-FA01 together with an Olight SR52 Intimidator. The SR52 is his Christmas Gift to me. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect to receive an Olight. Much more an Intimidator. Thank you very much tatasal!

Back to the topic. :bigsmile:

I immediately compared it with my big single emitter throwers - a modified (dedomed and resistor blob) SupBeam K40 and a modified (resistor blob only) Courui D01.


The K40 is at the left, the Vostro at the center and the D01 at the right. The hot spot of the Vostro is smaller than that of the dedomed K40 but its corona is messing with the beam shot.

The next thing I did was get the lux readings at eleven meters and here are the results:

Flashlight lux at 11 meters computed cd computed throw
Courui D01 XM-L2 973 117,733 686 meters
SupBeam K40 dedomed XM-L2 U2 1A 1508 182,468 854 meters
Niwalker Vostro BK-FA01 XM-L2 840 101,640 638 meters

Time to open the light.


The LED looks like an old XM-L because of its green dye.


A closer look at the LED revels that its an XM-L2. Its 32 mm MCPCB is also made of copper and has direct thermal path - very similar with that of my K40.


Its reflector is huge - wider and much deeper than that of a Courui D01 at the right.


The center spring of its driver already has copper wire added. I think its AWG 26 and not silicon coated and its gonna be replaced.


Here’s a close up of the driver. Its sense resistors (3x R200?) already has two 221 resistors piggybacked. I would leave this as is and change the lead wires which are AWG 26.

So lets do the mod!


The lead wires were changed to AWG 22 silicone coated wires.


And the center spring wire changed to AWG 22 silicone coated wire.


The XM-L2 was of course dedomed (gasoline soaking).

So that’s it! The light was assembled and the mod was done. As simple as that! Time to test it.


Here’s the beam shot comparing the dedomed BK-FA01 (left) and my dedomed K40 (right) at 1.5 meters in their moonlight (level 1) mode. The Vostro’s beam is more intense.


And here’s their beam shots at level 2. I had to set the exposure of my Samsung Galaxy camera to negative 2 because of the corona of the Vostro messing up.


And here’s their beam shots at high. Despite the negative 2 exposure settings, the Vostro’s corona is still messing up the shot.

The readings at 11 meters were then taken and here’s the result compared to my dedomed and solder blobbed K40:

Flashlight lus at 11 meters computed cd computed throw
SupBeam K40 dedomed XM-L2 U2 1A 1508 182,468 854 meters
Niwalker Vostro BK-FA01 dedomed XM-L2 1845 223,245 945 meters

So that’s it folks! I’ll try to get the outdoor beam shots tonight. Probably at 680 meters distance. :slight_smile:

We’ll here are the beam shots. Sorry for the crappy photos. :bigsmile:

I’m using a similar set-up with my 680 meter beam shot thread. This time however, I’m using the 2nd communication tower which is a bit farther the first.


Per Google Earth, the distance from my house to the 2nd tower is 737 meters.

For this beam shot, I used my big (at least 60 mm head diameter) throwers to compare with the Vostro.


L-R: Shocker (106 mm), Vostro (80 mm), K40 (76 mm), D01 (76 mm), 3405 (66 mm), SR52 (63 mm), T08 (63 mm), & HD2010 (63 mm).


Here’s the BTU Shocker with 3x dedomed XM-L2 T6 1B @ 297.072 cd.


Niwalker Vostro BK-FA01 with dedomed XM-L2 @ 223,245 cd.


SupBeam K40 with dedomed XM-L2 U2 1A @ 182,468 cd.


Courui D01 with XM-L2 at 117,733 cd.


Yupard 3405 with dedomed XP-G2 R5 1A @ 163,229 cd.


Olight SR52 Intimidator with XM-L2


Small Sun T08 with dedomed Xm-L2 T63B


TangsFire HD2010 with dedomed XM-L2 T6 1B.

Well done that looks like a massive lite

Thanks nitro!

Yes it is massive. Here it is together with my big throwers.


L-R: Courui D01, Supbeam K40, Niwalker Vostro BK-FA01 & BTU Shocker.

Thanks for posting the writeup and pictures! Nice job.

So the gasoline soak removed the dark color that was on the base?

That’s a huge jump in computed cd and beamshots. Good work Nightbird95!

Thanks wight!

The dark color was like ‘painted’ between the base and the silicone dome and yes it was removed together with the dome.

Thank you Lightsaber!

Take your time with the mod, Nightbird95… Nice work! Thanks for doing it :beer:

good job done!

i a waiting for the beamshots!

Glad you liked it tatasal. I was wondering how much the current will be boosted if I add another or several resistors in parallel with the sense resistors, or replace them all with a solder blob? Doing it is very tempting though it would be much appreciated if anyone here in BLF already has info regarding this. :stuck_out_tongue:

Thanks M4D M4X!

The rain has finally stopped pouring. I guess I’ll be able to get the beam shots outside after all. :bigsmile:

Thanks for sharing. You have some very nicely modded lights. What tint do you prefer for dedoming?

Thanks MRsDNF!

I was using 1B before nut when I tried 1A, it was a lot better-without the greenish tint. I haven’t tried other cooler tints though but I think I’ll stick to 1A.