So this was a project I started way back in February or March and just finished it. It’s no secret that I have a soft spot for zoomies, so full disclosure there (no shame). I reviewed a couple of the “most popular flashlights on Amazon” Gearlight S1000 and S2000. The Gearlight S1000 was an 18650 size and was a decently-made host, so I decided to mod it.
It came with a one-hung-lo XM-L knockoff and made about 280 Lumens, but it was held back by a hollow pill with no LED shelf and a 1.5 amp max driver with awful PWM. I tried a Nichia 319A with no changes to the pill, and it was nice, but I wanted more. I picked up one of those YinDing 5050 round-die LEDs from AE along with a “P5000” 6A 20 mm driver. To address the hollow pill, I ground down a 5x25mm piece of aluminum bar stock to a circle that roughly fit inside the pill and press fit it in. I mounted a 1.6 mm MCPCB and secured it with the retainer so it rested against the inner lip of the pill to set the clearance. I followed behind the aluminum slug with some aluminum brazing filler rod to add more material and fill in any gaps. Now the hollow pill has a 6 mm integrated shelf. I added some thermal paste on the bare threads where it threads into the body since zoomies need help in the thermal department. I wired everything up, function tested it, and did some spring bypasses on the tail and driver. The light heats up much more evenly now with heat soaking into the body. The result:
I ran a candela test and got 78,550 cd at 5 meters using a Sanyo 18650GA. That’s about 560 meters of throw out of a sub-25mm aspheric. The beam is nice and round (no bat signal) and it throws really well with a narrow beam and a very nice spill for the flood position. It really breathed some life into an otherwise throw away zoomie.
Here’s a beamshot. That tree is about 200 m away.
