There was a thread recently about throwers, and I remembered that I had a couple of A60s that I had intended to mod, but never did. I also had a couple of bare XP-L emitters (a CW and an NW) and a couple of the original EAST-92 drivers, so I decided that I’d try to put one of the XP-Ls in there with one of the EAST-92 drivers.
I stripped the parts off of the original 20mm driver and then jumpered from the emitter side of the 20mm board to the EAST-92, i.e., I am using the 20mm driver board as a contact board.
I put the CW XP-L in there and it’s working, but now I remember how ringy the beam is. I’m thinking that this is because the emitter isn’t deep enough into the reflector (which is flat-bottomed). I was searching around but wasn’t able to find if anyone had ever tried moving the emitter forward/deeper into the reflector on the A60? And if so, how? Is there an easy way to do that?
Ok, so I recently created a thread similar to this one. I couldn’t get the reflector focused with an XP-L HI. I had the reflector flat on the board, but it was still ringy and not focused. I will update my thread within the next few days with pics, but I found the sweet spot.
I had messed the bottom of my reflector up by sanding it down too much and it started to peel. I had seen another poster way back who Dremeled out the entire flat part on the bottom of the reflector. I figured what the heck, so I did the same. This leaves a few mm of space between the emitter and the bottom of the reflector. I just popped in the reflector and let it sit flush with the head of the light so there was space between the bottom of the reflector and the emitter. It will make more sense when I post pics.
Perfect! I mean perfect focus. And, the beauty of it is that there are absolutely NO rings. Just a tiny hotspot surrounded by a beautiful low level flood. Zero transition and zero rings. Just hotspot and flood. I still can’t believe it since I have been messing with this dang thing for almost a year now.
Not sure, but I think it might have been the flat part of the reflector that was causing the rings. Maybe somebody could correct me on that, but all I know is that it is focused now with no rings. It is just what I wanted. My theory is that the XML size was too big for the space needed for proper focus and got ‘lost’ per se in the tunnel of the spacers. Doesn’t really matter, but if you are feeling froggy, cut the bottom of the reflector out and pop ’er in and you should be good to go. It doesn’t actually need to go deeper as I was trying this myself. There needs to be a few mm of space.
Was that with an A60? It looks like the reflector in the A60 is basically in a fixed position inside the head, so if the flat part is ground off of the reflector (which is plastic, I think?), that would leave an even larger gap between the emitter and the reflector?
I always thought that ringiness was caused because the dome of the emitter is not INSIDE the reflector. Not arguing that what you did worked, but just trying to understand. Like you said, pics would help and please post a link.
I have the exact same problem with you ohaya, and I’m using a dedomed XP-G2 emitter in it. The beam pattern is super ringy and ugly.
I have not done this yet but I think by reflowing the LED board onto a copper piece may raise the vertical height of the LED and allows it to sit deeper into the reflector, but I’m not sure if this will solve the issue of the ringy beam or at least reduces it.
WillyD, looking forward to see your pictures, thanks in advance.
I’ve been wondering about something like that. I was thinking as a test maybe stick a penny under the star, which would raise it a bit… just to see if it helps with the rings.
The reflector is plastic right? Is that conductive on the A60, i.e., will I need to worry about shorting the emitter leads?
I think that I’ve had some success. I did a quick mod and made a small spacer disk with notches on the sides for the emitter wires. About the thickness of a penny. Slipped that under the star and a paper insulator (doughnut shaped) on top of the star and then put it back together. The beam seems to be much cleaner. There’s distinct gradations now, but I think the rings are gone.
EDIT: BTW, the reflector on this light has some blemishes on the flat part (not smooth) so the hotspot, while distinct, is a little “off”. I don’t think I can do anything about that.
Glad to hear that by allowing the emitter to sit deeper into the reflector does solve the issue.
So you didn’t do anything with the stock reflector at all, right? I mean no boring the reflector bottom (emitter opening), grinding and make the reflector bottom thinner… anything like that?
Mine is made from plastic, and yes I don’t need to worry about shorting out the leads. But even if the reflector is made from aluminium, two small pieces of kapton tape will solve the problem easily.
Correct. I did not do any modification of the reflector. All I did was take a penny and grind it to slightly smaller diameter, then ground notches on each opposing edge for the leads, then I literally slipped it under the star without even unsoldering the emitter leads. I did put some thermal compound between the star and the penny :).
I did sand down the two solder joints on the emitter to flatten them out a bit (I had “lumps” of solder on those originally :laughing:.
I then put a paper insulator (like a doughnut shaped one) that was stick on one side over the star, and then screwed the A60 head on. It didn’t cause the star to move around like some other lights, so the emitter stayed pretty much centered.
And that was about it.
I didn’t take white wall shot before the XP-L and penny change, but before, the hotspot was slightly smaller and more sharply defined at the edges and there were a bunch of like random rings.
Now, after the XP-L and penny, the hotspot is a little larger diameter and not as sharp at the edges and no random rings, but the spill has shades as seen in the pic I posted.
I think that overall, it’s a more useful beam then original?
I have done a ton of these and I remove the flat bottom part of the reflector and move the emitter up into it just a little bit if you want the highest possible Kcd out of them. The same goes for the HD2010, ZY-T08 and many other throwers as well. No rings and tightest perfect hotspot. Then of course it’s just a bunch of trial and error to get it lifted correctly and centered perfectly.
I use a small round file that is about 8 inches long to remove the bottom. Just flip the reflector over and file away a little at a time until it’s all removed. Some canned air after that to blow the shavings off and that’s it.
How do you move the emitter up into the reflector on the A60? As mentioned earlier, the reflector position is fixed in the head/bezel, so the reflector can’t (I don’t think anyway) be moved backwards, so the emitter has to be moved forward. As I said, in my case, I did that by basically putting a spacer (a penny) under the star, but is there a better/easier way to do that? Just wondering…
I always have extra parts around. So I use stars and then sand them down using various grits of sandpaper. Same thing if you use pennies. You want both sides as smooth as possible and use good thermal epoxy. You can also get copper discs that are already smooth. There are a couple sellers on ETSY that have copper discs for cheap. I have a hole punch as well and it comes in pretty handy.
Hi Jim, yes it definitely looks better than the original which still had some rings in the beam, although not as serious as mine now after modded.
Alright I will order some of the copper pieces and give it a try later. May I know what is the thickness of your penny? Simon does seems to carry those copper pieces in different thicknesses and I think there will be something suitable for my A60.
By the way I don’t think you would need to use the paper insulator if your reflector is made from plastic (which I think it is). But since you get good results with the paper insulator so why not just leave it there. Perhaps the thickness of the insulator itself does contribute to the good positioning of the LED?
The main problem of the A60 is its integrated shelf, and this reminds me of the new design of Convoy C8. Yeah, I personally prefer the removable pill design because they are easier to work with, perform just as good as those integrated shelf in terms of heat dissipation and allowing some rooms for LED vertical positioning adjustment.
I don’t have a Convoy C8, but from pics, it looks like the integrated shelf (where the star goes) is built into the head itself, which, I imagine makes it a pain to solder the emitter leads.
On the other hand, the A60 has a kind of mid-section “light engine” piece, that holds to both the star (at the front) and the driver (at the rear), so it’s actually pretty mod-friendly.
Hi Jim. Since we are unable to get the LED sitting deeper into the reflector, my idea is that if the A60 does come with the traditional (separated) pill, we only need to unscrew the pill for a few turns to raise the LED into the reflector instead of having to reflow it onto another copper piece to increase its vertical height.
Some people may think that this will hurt the thermal transfer since the pill is “hanging loosely” in there, but it is actually fine as the pill is actually not “hanging loosely” because the reflector still presses firmly on the pill. This is what I did on my overdriven HD2010, and the light output is still stable after 30 seconds (no noticeable heat sag).
I think (I haven’t looked again) that the way the A60 is designed, you only can screw the light engine section up to a certain point into the back end of the head, and when you do that, the emitter is physically not far enough into the reflector, causing the weird rings. You just cannot screw the light engine section any further into the head section, i.e., you can’t get the emitter any further “into” the reflector, not without “raising” the emitter physically, which is whhy I did what I did, which I really think is not that hard to do, plus with good copper disk underneath, is probably not bad for heat transfer.
I don’t have one, but I think that the sinkpad stars are slightly thicker than the one I used, so if you had one of those, it might raise the emitter far enough into the reflector, just by itself alone?
Yes the A60 structure isn’t like those conventional pill designs, so the only way to raise the LED position is by adding something under the star (copper piece, penny…).
I don’t have any Sinkpad with me but only Noctigons. I don’t think the Sinkpad is thick enough to bring the LED deeper into the reflector either, adding a copper piece is needed anyway. The gap between the pill surface and the reflector base is just too large.
