Olight Baton Pro mod with 4x E21A

Flashlight Modding and DIY Parts
1

I got a Baton Pro and it seemed like a useful light, but with a few exceptions: the tint was too cool for me, the beam had some tint shift, and wooden furniture didn’t look natural under its low CRI light. To fix these issues, I decided to put four Nichia E21A R9080 4500K LEDs inside. From maukka’s measurements their CCT seemed to be nice around 4200-4400 K when behind a TIR optic and Duv seemed to stay negative on all modes.

After removing the bezel ring and optics I found there was XHP50.2 driven with 12 volts:

Looks like there was not much thermal paste under the MCPCB:

I’m wondering what is that shiny thing poking through the LED shelf. Is it a thermal sensor to protect the turbo mode from overheating? Here is a pic:

I had to file down the VR21SP4 MCPCB to make it fit inside the light. The VR21SP4 is only 0.1 mm thicker and 0.3 mm wider than the Baton Pro stock MCPCB, so it fits almost fine. It’s also made of aluminum, so it makes the light 4 grams lighter. I just had to make some holes for the wires:

The Baton Pro optic has a frosted surface on the inside of the LED cavity. I guess this should suppress the donut hole and reduce tint shift from the XHP50.2. Still it was not enough to remove all tint shift from the beam.

After trying the optic with 4x E21A, the beam had an ugly donut hole in the middle! The cause for this may be the darker area between the four LEDs:

To fix the donut hole, I sanded the outer surface of the optic with 400 grit sandpaper. This fixed the donut hole, and made the spill bright and very wide, about 170°. It also caused a 20 % lumen loss, and even a greater reduction in throw.

I like the result. Not as throwy or bright as originally, but now the tint is neutral and colors look great. This diffused beam is good for close-up work, no artifacts in the beam. After the mod I did a rough measurement with a phone app and got 1100 lumens on Turbo, and 360 lm on High. Here is a beamshot comparison with other modded Olights on Low mode:

Does anyone know where to buy a suitable optic for Baton Pro? I measured that it’s 21 mm in diameter and 12 mm tall with the white conical stent. Without the stent it’s 11 mm tall. Here’s my measurements (I also happened to use this modded Baton Pro as the light source when I took this photo):

I measured the current draw from a 4.0 volt bench power supply before the mod. And the lumens at start in an integrating sphere after the mod:
table(table#posts).
|Standby|38 µA|0 lm|
|Moon|7.8 mA|2 lm|
|Low|57 mA|19 lm|
|Med|0.22 A|78 lm|
|High|1.17 A|383 lm|
|Turbo|5.07 A|1270 lm|

I tried the Baton Pro with the Warrior Mini charger (MCC3), and I’m happy to see that it charges the Baton Pro at 1.5 A current. This means that Baton Pro can sustain the High mode indefinitely, when connected to the MCC3. The charger (MCC 1A) that came with Baton Pro only charges at 1A.

On continuous High mode, indoors in free air, this modded Baton Pro heats up to about 50 °C, or 27 °C above ambient temperature.

Link to the photo album.

2

Nice mod :+1:
Yeah unfortunatly E21As needs diffusing optics, have you looked on Yajiamei store ?

Ledil doesn’t seem to have lenses of the right size, although I just looked briefly.

I think it’s just to prevent the MCPCB from rotating.

3

Looking nice, great mod.
What candela measurement do you get at top power output?

4

Here you can find perfect fit lens for Baton Pro

Yaijamei 5050/XML optics various sizes

5

Thanks. Comparing this modded Baton Pro on Turbo mode to Olight S1R-II, to my eye it looks like the throw is less than the High (600 lm) mode of S1R-II, so the throw should be less than 3000 cd. After the timed step down of S1R-II, the throws of both lights look roughly similar, so about 1500 cd.

Using a phone lux meter app, I estimate roughly 2400 cd (±900 cd). With the same app I estimate my Baton Pro to have 1100 lm on Turbo and 360 lm on High.

With this app I also tested that frosting a piece of plastic with 400 grit sandpaper reduces lumens by 20 . The swap from XHP50.2 to 4x E21A reduces output by 40. Together these reduce the lumen output of this modded Baton Pro by about 50 % compared to a stock Baton Pro.

As I don’t have a lux meter, I’m bouncing the beam from the ceiling of a room and measuring it with “Korona - Grow Light Meter” app on iPhone 7, with a copy paper diffuser in front of the phone camera. Then I’m comparing the lux readings to my other known output lights, that were earlier measured in an integrating sphere.

6

Wow incredible work! Those are the Olights I dreamed of having E21A in there. They have some of the most efficient drivers in the industry. How were you able to remove the bezel/optics? They look almost impossible to remove.

7

The bezel ring is press fit. Here is how I removed it:

  1. Place the flashlight head sideways on a wooden table.
  2. Then place a sharp knife onto the gap between the blue bezel ring and the black head, and use a hammer to push the blade max 1 mm deep into the gap. The gap starts to become wider. While doing this, often rotate the flashlight to make the gap evenly wide from all sides, to avoid bending the bezel ring.
  3. If the blade goes 1 mm deep, switch to using a wider blade, to widen the gap further.
  4. Finally the bezel ring comes off. Then the optics just fall out by gravity.