I’ve been digging around for information on modding small modern keychain lights for lower output/longer runtimes. Besides the resistor mods on the Olight I3e and Skilhunt E3A, I haven’t found too many.
I’ve been toying with the idea of stripping down an old Olight Imini 2 to see just how accessible the guts are, and to see if it’s possible to perform such a mod to increase its utility. Assuming near inversely proportionate runtime/output ratios, I assume that cutting the lumens down from 50 to 5ish would increase the runtime approximately 10×, or up to 10 hours. Realistically, I’d like to drop to around 1 or 2 lumens, for a 20+ hour runtime.
**(also have an OAL Iultra on the way, would like to do something similar to make a tanky long runtime keylight.)
If any brave souls have already attempted this, any tips, pointers, or suggestions?
I dunno, 1 or 2 seems like a nice round number. While 50 lumens is plenty for this type of light, the new OAL version bumps up the brightness for 10 minutes less runtime…I get that power is plentiful this day and age, but for my purposes, 80 lumens is a bit overkill for a keychain light. If it were to be cut down to 1/10 the brightness, it would be visually just a tiny bit dimmer than a candle, with almost 8 hours of runtime. To me, 8 lumens for 8 hours is a heck of alot more useful in an emergency situation where you might need to signal/mark your position.
Granted, that may not be for everyone, but having such a durable/convenient light and not capitalizing on that runtime seems counterproductive. Heck, at this point, I’d settle for double the runtime at half the brightness. It would only lose 20% brightness vs. the imini2, but have a 66% longer runtime.
I’m hesitant to mess with the OAL when it comes in…I’ll probably play around with an older imini2 first when I work up the courage. I’ll be shopping around for a (whatever the size is) multi-mode driver that starts on low. Hopefully the imini2 guts won’t be too proprietary.
JUST A GENERAL PSA, IF YOU DO REMOVE THE TAILCAP/CELL FROM THE IMINI2, MAKE SURE IT GOES BACK IN THE RIGHT WAY. THERE IS NO REVERSE POLARITY PROTECTION, AND THE LIGHT WILL GET HOT IF THE CELL IS THE WRONG WAY, AND MAYBE WORSE.