I have had both the E09 and E10 for quite a while, and like them both. The E10 has the annoying hang-up issue with the SS tail switch that Kreisler posted in great detail how to fix it, but I didn't take on that challenge yet - sounds like the tail section is harder to open. So, I wanted to see if I could get a little more out of it, so a XP-G2 R5 on copper sounds like a nice idea. Here's what the light looks like, from Manafont:
It looks like Tank007 has stopped listing the E10 on their website, and FastTech doesn't sell it as well. It's possible they replaced it with this: http://www.tank007.com/product.php?id=167, an all SS, model ES12. This AAA looks outstanding, btw. Back to the mod.
I was able to remove the SS bezel/head with some effort of using a rubber jar opener and pliers. The threads were glued or LockTite'd, not sure. The star was 1 mm thick, about 11.5 diameter. After removing the star, I was surprised to find a whole lot of white thermal grease - it was used to fill a gaping hole:
this is after I cleaned out the grease and sanded the anodizing off the ledge. So the original star was sitting on thermal grease and an anodized circular surface, and didn't even extend all the way to the edge of the circular surface. Notice there's some sort of epoxy in that hole. I believe the wires are epoxied in there, and no idea what that rectangular shaped object is. The wires can't be budged - pulled out or pushed in. I decided I'll want to leave the wires and the driver as is.
So after doing experimentation and measurements, I found the new 10mm copper SinkPAD's were a perfect height to fit in the hole. This is the before/after shot:
What I did was first sand off the white finish, pads, lan's, then sanded down the edge til I got to the size I wanted. Here's what it looks like installed:
I'll simply use AS5 to seal it in. Next is the star. I though I'd find a use for the new 10mm SinkPAD, but it's just too small for this, plus probably couldn't get the wires to match. So, decided to work on a 16mm SinkPAD since it has the circle markers to use for reference. The head surface is about 12 mm. The stock SinkPAD is about 1.55 mm thick, and I'll have to take that down to something closer to the original star's 1.0 mm thickness. So, did the dremel sanding drumming thing - actually works pretty well though it takes a while. Once I had it down to size, I'll sand the bottom to reduce thickness, using 220 paper and rubbing it on it (wears down the finger nails...). Then I'll angle sand the edges so the remnants of the + and - traces don't run the risk of contacting the threads of the bezel pieces. Here's the results:
Here's the pieces:
Here's the final assembly:
All I used was AS5 under the star, and AS5 under and around the copper filler. The emitter is a XP-G2 R5, but I wasn't clear on the tint. As it came out, I believe it's a warmer tint, so I'm thinking 2B or 3D maybe? It's the only emitter I had bare that wasn't clearly marked.
Edit/Add: Notice the cutouts for the wires in the star above were made wider? I had to do this to make use of the existing wires because ther were so short. I needed to get the contact pads closer to the wire holes, so filed then open bigger. The bigger holes combined with bringing the thickness down to about 1.2 mm (from 1.55) made it possible, but still, the wires are barely touching the pads when completed.
As I mentioned earlier, Kreisler has a very thorough review posting on the E10 and how to fix the switch problem here: https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/10290. I'm not sure if I can tackle that right now. The main issue with the E10 Kreisler points in in post #37 of that thread is the E10's body has a fairly high loss of voltage, so I'm going to use the E10 head on the E09 body for now. Here's the measurements:
Mod'ed E10 head on the E09 body, fresh EFEST 10440: lumens @start: 265, @30 secs: 245
It's pretty bright and holds the output pretty well. For comparison:
Stock E09, fresh EFEST, lumens: @start: 194, @30 secs: 177
iTP A3 EOS, fresh EFEST, lumens: @start: 187, @30 secs: 170
E10 body, E09 head, fresh EFEST, lumens: @start: 160, @30 secs: 153
Unfortunately I didn't measure the stock E10, but guessing it would be about 155-165 lumens @30 secs because of the poorer performing E10 body, so a bump to 245 lumens is pretty good, between using the E09 body and the LED/star upgrade.
Mod'ed E10 complete, fresh EFEST 10440: lumens @start: 211, @30 secs: 194
So it does 245 on the E09 body, and 194 on the E10 body. Thats' quite a difference. Most likely it's the addition of the switch in the negative return circuit. The loss's for an XP-G2 would probably be greater than the loss's on the original XP-E emitter because of the higher Vf demand.
