Anyone know where I could buy a few of these?
Thanks Hi-Beam
Would prefer a USA distributor if anyone knows of one.
I would be interested if anyone knows where to pick up some of these in the US as well.
Pretty sure I have a few laying around at home. How many are you looking for?
I need a few as well but was going to put an order together to get a few other things as well. Most of the big Asian distributors have them so I was wasting to see who had the most of my present needs. It’s odd that often both the p60 host and the drop in are sold without this spring.
Hmm I’ve never gotten a drop-in that didn’t include that spring. Regardless, many people remove it from higher output drop-ins anyways because it can reduce thermal contact. I don’t have any extras currently, but I’m sure someone does.
Many hosts do not need the large outer spring. The large spring can actually cause problems. If you wrap the dropin tightly with aluminum or copper foil, it may be necessary to twist the dropin into the flashlight or twist it to remove it. Twisting with the outer spring in place can cause the pill to cut the the isolation pad and short, or loosen and become out of focus.
If you don’t need and don’t use the outer spring, you can ‘twist to your heart’s content’ and the pill will not move in the reflector.
If the battery tube and head are one piece and there’s no anodizing in the ‘dropin cavity’, like the Solarforce, you don’t need the outer spring. If the head screws off of the battery and the threads are anodized (ultrafire), you do need the outer spring.
If you don’t need the outer spring, it’s a lot easier for someone to mail the ‘tiny’ driver spring to you.
It was just something I noted in that when you buy a reflector and pill it comes without the spring. You buy a 502B, it comes without the spring. The brass light I’m making now only uses the spring to keep the cell pressed into the tail and carries no current but I only have the one spring and several p60 hosts. I need to revisit the whole p60 pill thing since I picked up a 20mm x 1mm tap and die set to make copper pills and sleeves. It might actually be easier to ream out a brass pill, cut the threads off, and braze them onto a copper piece instead. Sort of like this:
1/2” copper pipe is about the same OD as a 16mm mcpcb and 1/2 copper slip joint pipe is close to fitting the ID of a brass pill. From there it’s just a matter of building up the layers to fit into the host pocket. Tedious, but doesn’t require any tools more fancy than patience and a small torch.