Breathed new life into my SpiderFire P7 light (C2 host).
—-LD-2 driver with moonlight at 6A
—-High gauge silicon wire to LEDs
—–3x Cree XP-L V6 2C (not de-domed) on 32mm Noctigon board
—3x 15.8mm X 8.8mm OP reflectors (http://www.kaidomain.com/Product/Details.S023420) Some dremeling was required (seen in 3rd photo)
—-AR coated lens
—-Omten switch
—-Spring bypass at driver and switch with high-gauge wire
The heatsink is made up of several stacked copper discs, and the 32mm Noctigon board all very tightly pressed together with Arctic Alumina thermal paste, making lots of direct contact with the body of the light. Should hold up great. From what I can tell, heat is transferring just fine when using on high.
I would have posted a moded blf X6 but tonight while measuring tailcap current, there was a slip (-ve lead on battery may have slipped and touched the +ve lead on body) and a little spark, and the light died. Amusingly, it went in stages. First, moonlight alone worked. After trying a couple minutes hoping the modes would come back, I took off the light. 5 mins later when I put it back on, nothing. Opened it up, battery was warm. Now it’s shorting. lol. Wouldn’t get a chance to check out the circuit till tomorrow evening. Nothing smelt burnt though. ;(
Just finished two BLF EE X6’s with spring mods, stock emitters. Had to trim the button on one tail cap cover to reduce switch sensitivity. Both measured ~ 5. 5A with new LG HE4 cells. Very thick, short wires but no guarantees on my set up. Medium is comparable to high on the stock BLF edition. Also modded is a 502 B that had some body work done to accommodate 2 x 18650 cells for an XHP 50. Baked ano, copper fins and pill that screws to reflector and fins, solder wick switch spring. Thanks for the tip on the NTC short. I’ll post current draw later this week.
Thanks Steve, P60 drop ins use 20mm x 1 mm thread and I found at tap at a local salvage yard and ordered a matching die. That thread details how the parts were made and threaded to allow that screw together connection. Should have much better thermal transfer than the typical floating drop in and the added mass and surface area won’t hurt either. No lathes involved.
I don’t know what took me so long to finally use the LD-2 driver, but here I used one of the 3 I got. This sinner titanium host has been through at least 5 different driver/LED configuration. The pill has been reflowed with a copper mcpcb on top numerous times but now it finally got a definitive combo to live with.
I used the new Nichia 219C, perhaps not the most efficient LED choice because of the extremely low vF and even with a low drain cell I can imagine it losing a couple watts in the driver. But I like the brightness produced in medium which draws exactly 1A (my high is set at 5A). I had a spare reflector and centering ring from a defective BLF A6 so I used that.
Pretty pleased with the result, the LD-2 is an excellent driver with easy to use UI but… High cannot run for 30 seconds or the temp sensor will activate and the warning flash is quite annoying, I would’ve preferred a simple smooth drop. Maybe LD-3 will improve on this?
I would test it in an aluminum host first before changing your overtemp setting. Are others complaining? TI is one of the worst materials used in flashlights for transferring heat, so its of no surprise that it overheats so quickly.
