TIR P60

Flashlight Modding and DIY Parts
1

I needed something to do while waiting for my 3-up XP-G2 to arrive so I thought I’d try a TIR P60.

I ordered a few Carlco 26.5mm optics from ledsupply, plain tight, narrow and wide frosted and elliptical along with a few lens holders. I had a S/F 4.2-8.4V XM-L with a dead driver so I tossed the driver and removed the XM-L from the pill. By the way, E1320s advice about putting the pill in the freezer worked like a charm!

After filing the lip off the top of the pill I cut a 7mm piece of 3/4” copper rod, squared and lapped the rod and used AA to attach it to the pill.

I slipped the pill into a 10-12mm piece of 3/4” copper pipe and soldered it together (really more like sweat it all together) with a torch. I set the pipe flush with the top of the copper rod and covering most of the brass pill. Attached the XM-L and a KD V2 8 7135 driver with one extra chip installed.
With no spring and just one layer of tin foil it fits very snug in my L2m.

Now on to the optics. I messed around with the 20mm Carlcos quite a bit last winter in Match-mods and really liked the ease of swaping them out. I never tried using a lens holder with them because there just isn’t much room in a Mini-Mag head. I noticed that when in the holder these TIRs sit just above the base of the LED as opposed to sitting down over the base on the star. I decided to use the holder but to do so the top of the holder has to be cut off to fit in the head and the 4 posts at the base have to be filed/sanded down to fit in the body.

And here’s the end result.

I compared the plain tight lens with and without the lens holder and the hot spot is both tighter and more defined with the holder in place.
The light pulls 3.3A at the tailcap and the body gets nice and toasty in short order on high. I like the fact that changing optics is as simple as removing and reinstalling the head, and the pill is so tight that the head can be installed without any optic for an XM-L mule.

Now I wish those XP-G2s would show up.

2

But , uh , where are the beam shots ?

3

nice, always wondered what those larger Carclo optics would look like. I’ve used one of the 20mm optics with a holder - found it a pain to use and get centred, plus i prefer the pattern of a Ledil LC1. Looking forward to the beam shots!

4

Beamshots please :slight_smile:

5

Hi,

How’d you get a 3/4” pipe to fit into the “throat” of the L2M? I just got an L2M, and have a 3/4” piece of copper pipe, and it won’t fit into the front (throat) of the L2M body.

Thanks,
Jim

6

Hi Jim,

I have quite a few L2s and various home made drop-ins using the copper rod and pipe. I have no problem fitting any of the drop-ins in any of the L2s.

I have schedule 40 pipe, perhaps you have schedule 80.

If you scroll down in this thread there are a few pictures of a similar triple drop-in.

Matt

7

Hi,

I did some googling, and isn’t the O.D. for schedule 40 vs. 80 is the same (this is new to me)?

Anyway, I kind of mispoke. What I have is a copper tube cap, from HD. It’s labelled as 3/4”, but I just measure the O.D., and it’s actually something like .96”, i.e., almost an inch, so that probably explains why it doesn’t fit into the P60 throat.

I’m really confused at this point. As I said, that cap is labelled 3/4”, but is more like 1”. I also bought another cap, a 1” cap, and when I measured that, it was more like 1 1/4”.

I should’ve taken my wife’s advice and walk into the HD store with my flashlight :)!!

8

I’m not sure of the exact dimensions of schedule 40 vs. 80, just that the walls are thicker. Thinking about it though it would make sense that the OD would remain 3/4.

Also makes sense that a 3/4 cap will not work, 3/4 being the ID.

Next time you’re at HD just pick up a two length of 3/4 pipe, you’ll have more than you’ll ever need.

What are you planning to build?

9

It’s not so much “planning” to build, but more like “trying” to build.

I found what appeared to me to be a good deal on some 3ups, at ledsupply (3xLuxeons), so I bought one of them, and things have gone downhill from there :). After I got the 3up, I started trying to figure out what I could do with it, and unfortunately, decided that I’d try to do something with spare stuff that I had on hand.

It turned out that I had an extra Defiant AAA light, so I figured I’d try to put the 3up in that, with Carclo lens, direct drive (not much room in the “pill”), with the emitters in series (so 9V), mainly because I didn’t relish adding the jumpers to the 3up to make it parallel.

I’m using the 3xAAA battery carrier for power.

Right now, just to test, I have 2x10440 + 1 dummy 10440 in the carrier, and the emitters light up, albeit dimly, so I’ve been trying to figure out how to actually do the build… mechanical stuff, not something I’ve done with lights. The problem I ran into is that the head of the Defiant is kind of long, about 1.5”, so the emitter sits kind of far back from the front lens, so I’d been trying to figure out how to use the Carclo, which, as you probably know is very short, height-wise.

That was the reason I got the copper cap. I figured that I’d use that to “extend” the original pill, i.e., add some length to it, to move the emitter forward, so that it’d be just far enough behind the original lens that when the head is screwed on, it’d secure the Carclo lens. I had to shorten the copper cap a about 1/4”, which I just finished, but after that, the emitter is now too far forward, and I can’t screw the head in, so I still need to trim it down a bit. I don’t know about others, but so far, this whole thing has been rather “imprecise” :).

Anyway, I have some LifePO4 10440s incoming, and my plan is to eventually use 3xLifePO4 10440s to power it. That would give me nominal 9.6 V which would be just slightly higher than the max in the Luxeon data sheets, but I’ve already tested 3x10440 Li-Ion, for very brief periods, and the emitters survived that, so I think that should be ok.

Edit: Some pics:

Temporary state (pill extension still too long, thus the masking tape :laughing:. Also, I haven’t glued things down yet or centered the 3up, etc.:

And here is it lit (2x10440):

10

Jim, a 3/4 tube cap is designed to fit OVER a 3/4 tube to cap off said tube. So the id will be 3/4 and the od will be 3/4 + 2*wall thickness, hence your problem. A 3/4 tube is 3/4 od, a 3/4 pipe is 3/4 id (hence its important to stipulate pipe or tube).

You may need to use a piece of 3/4 tube and find a tube cap that slides in (either a 5/8” or 1/2” cap at a guess) or flatten out a bit more of the tube and shape a disk to solder in place or hit a jewellery making website and get some 3/4 copper rounds from them.

Good luck and I hope this helps.

11

Well a great big DUH (on me) :)! Thanks for the explanation.

I think that I’m good with the cap though, and it looks like it will work out for what I’m doing, which is to extend a pill. I got the cap (vs. a pipe) because I didn’t want to have to add the end to it. The cap already has that, so I am putting the emitter directly on that, after flattening the end a bit (it was “domed”).

Thanks,
Jim

12

Salvage yards are good for finding copper sheet scrap in various guages. From there, it’s pretty easy to reflow a piece to the end of a section of pipe on the stove (sitting on a tin can lid) so you don’t even need a torch. Then just snip and file off the excess. One thing to note, it’s much easier to add a layer of sheet to the inside of 3/4 pipe and ream it round than it is to add that same layer to the outside of a 1/2” coupler and grind/file/sand it to a cylinder so the two fit smoothly. A spinning drill bit with a piece of sandpaper taped on works admirably for reaming. Just add small pieces of tape under the sandpaper until you reach the desired id.