What did you mod today?

giorgoskok · 2017-04-09T13:32:47.000Z

@TheOnlyDocc Nice work there .

You used the spacer to avoid adding the glass lens ?

TheOnlyDocc · 2017-04-09T13:57:34.000Z

Yes. And adding a 2mm spacer instead a 1,6mm glass gives a better fit. I can still screw the brezel complete down. If i could get a 2mm o-ring instead the 1,5mm i would use it. So i could get even more preasure on the MCPCB. But its ok for now. And the added copper could not hurt

cbrake10 · 2017-04-09T14:07:22.000Z

Nice work Docc. Did you just use a file to get the circumference rounded?

TheOnlyDocc · 2017-04-09T14:46:52.000Z

My loved Dremel and a file. 90% of all the metal work i do today is by hand. When i was working as a electrician in a brass producing company i could use all their machinery after work. That is something i really miss! And it makes things sometimes a little bit complicated.
Best example lies on my workbench. I worked a few hours on a heatsink to mod it into a heatblock for reflow soldering. Its now complete except for the four drillholes for the heating elements. To get them nice and strait i need a drillpress. So i have to drive to a friend (not here in town) and hope that i can use his. When moving to a new apartment in less than 3 month is behind me i am planning to get at least my own drillpress if i have the space for it.

TheOnlyDocc · 2017-04-09T15:53:29.000Z

A few pictures from my TN31 mod. It was in the early stage. The 5 Disks are now one pice soldert together and then polished and glued in. This pill filles up the driver cavity and it makes contact with the FET (i put a small thermal pad ontop of the FET to fill the gap) Also the LED “Copper pill” is soldert together. And the ring is not a pice of pipe. I cut out a strip of copper. Heat it up untill its glowing red (that makes it very soft when it is cooled down). And then bend it in place. It takes time to get it fit nice and tight but thats the fun. Right? But now i am thinking about changing the LED from a MT-G2 to a XHP50.2. Do not know if it would be an worthy upgrade.

!https://s4.postimg.org/l3kpw56zx/Weight.jpg !

goshdogit · 2017-04-11T01:20:30.000Z

I finally mounted a pocket clip to my DQG 7x 26650 3rd. I must credit my friend for devising this method that requires no modification of the flashlight.

We cut the head off of a #4-40 x 1” machine screw, then heated and bent it around a 1/8” bolt to form a U. We reheated and quenched it in water to temper it.

The clip is from a Benchmade 810 Contego knife. I filed the holes to bring them closer to the center of the clip, then trimmed the bolt flush with a Dremel after tightening the nuts with needle-nose pliers.

I’ve carried the light with the new clip for about a week, and is surprisingly strong and sturdy. An added benefit is that the switch is easier to locate because it is directly opposite the clip.

I also added a 1” x 1/16” N52 neodymium magnet to the tailcap using epoxy. The magnet has a pull force of over 7 pounds and is strong enough to support the flashlight horizontally even on a non-flat surface.

These two mods make this light my favorite mini-flooder!

KawiBoy1428 · 2017-04-09T19:34:12.000Z

A couple of the same ole triples a X5 EE and what was a red s2+ :confounded: This was my first time Chemically stripping the Ano off instead of glass bead blasting……using ZEP Oven Cleaner!

tim70 · 2017-04-09T23:35:20.000Z

KawiBoy1428:

A couple of the same ole triples a X5 EE and what was a red s2+ :confounded: This was my first time Chemically stripping the Ano off instead of glass bead blasting……using ZEP Oven Cleaner!

That look awesome! :+1:

KawiBoy1428 · 2017-04-10T00:19:34.000Z

Thanks tim70! It was kind of fun seeing the ano melt away! Both have kiriba-ru’s copper pills in them, I’m going to keep the S2+ now, I like the metal switch, real smooth, and it dose not slip out of the hand anymore!! :+1:

Rufusbduck · 2017-04-10T01:50:14.000Z

This place has some sweet mods going on.

vulpes · 2017-04-10T07:30:55.000Z

KawiBoy1428:

A couple of the same ole triples a X5 EE and what was a red s2+ :confounded: This was my first time Chemically stripping the Ano off instead of glass bead blasting……using ZEP Oven Cleaner!

Can you please tell me some more about that GITD stuff? Is it really like that in person or you managed to capture it in the photo?

djozz · 2017-04-10T15:52:50.000Z

Nice polishing job, Kawi!

My mod yesterday, just a few pics of the mod:

I had this triple for some time, waiting for an idea:

From Aliexpress: link

Cheaply made, it came with chinese lettering that is chinese to me, but with an interesting driver: a toggle between the three leds, with on the (20mm diameter) driver for each channel a little FET and a 1.2 Ohm resistor in series for current limiting. So this driver can do more! The design does not support that though, a P60-like floating pill pushed against the lens with a spring: the heat management is not great.

I decided to not make use of the driver (it sits in the parts box now for a future mod), but make use of the triple reflector feature: UV-leds can not use plastic TIR optics because it absorbs the UV, so a UV-led triple must either be build as a mule or use a triple reflector.

What did I do?

*After precisely measuring what length was needed, I replaced the spring by a copper ring. One of the EU standard copper piping sizes is exactly the size and nicely fits an 18650 inside. This copper ring should transfer the heat from the pill well to the (pretty thick) battery tube.

*The three plus-pads on the MCPCB were connected by a (sorry about the wrong colour) copper wire to make it a triple parallel board

*Three Lite-On 365nm 3535 leds were reflowed on the board (my test of this led here)

*the three (connected) plastic led centerpieces were opened up a bit more with a countersink tool to use the reflector more effectively

*The conical (made for gem-inspection) bezel was sawed off and sanded flat to make it into a (still pretty deep) standard type bezel

*the ZWB2 filter was too small to fit the inner diameter of the head, but just wide enough to cover the bezel opening, so it was placed on top of the reflector with a black o-ring pressed snuggly around it to center it (and waterproofing the head as well, the stock light had no waterproofing there)

*I wanted a 8x 7135 driver, to get 1A for each led, not more because it is not a DTP board. But I have no 20mm lineair drivers so I had to use a brass ring soldered onto a 17mm driver to get it fit, but that ring did not easily allow the 7135-chips on the spring-side, and the pill was too shallow to stack the 4 chips on the led-side of the driver. So I gambled on a direct driver and hoped that the relatively high voltage of these leds, the resitance of the springs and the use of a low-drain battery would keep the current in control

*swapped the unknown quality switch for a small Omten on a 16mm PCB, this is an almost direct fit. Replaced the red tailcap for a blue one which had the correct depth for the new switch.

Just before closing up:

Aaaaand gone:

The bezel pushes directly against the filter that via the reflector presses the ledboard to the pill and the pill to the copper ring. So the complete assembly is pressed tight without the dampening of any o-ring, maybe a tiny bit by the centering pieces. Good for heatsinking and if the filter breaks at some point I have enough spares.

Then I got careless and tried the first battery I could find: a NCR18650PF, so pretty high drain. I measured more than 6 amps, not good for the leds, . And sure enough:

So it was repairing time! Opening it all up again, replace the damaged led (the bond wires were visibly blown), replacing the led wires from driver to ledboard with the thinnest ones I could find (must be 30AWG or so) and assembling again. Now, on a NCR18650B (a lot lower drain cell) I measured, without tail, 3.7 A, so with tail on a bit less, maybe 3.5A. That feels healthy enough for these leds.

Here's projection (projection lens before the flashlight) of the leds on a piece of white paper:

It looks like the remaining two leds survived the 2+ amps without visibly loosing too much output :-)

It was not easy to catch the beam, here's an attempt on a white wall, the center of the hotspot looks messed-up in the picture but it is fine in reality. A nice broad hotspot and plenty spill.

And it is bright alright. Meet my gas stove after I prepared the evening meal yesterday:

You did not want to see that! :party:

So now I'm stuck with the the brightest 365nm light that I made to date. I do not have a way to measure radiometric output but it must be over 2W output. I know no one who works in forensics, but I would guess that this brings the 365nm light that they normally use to a new level

A few glampics:

Disclaimer: this light puts out a truck-load of completely invisible UV light that if watched directly or even in diffused reflection will (possibly permanently) damage your eyes. May you repeat such a mod, wear safety goggles (standard polycarbonate goggles will block 99% of the 365nm UV light, but test your goggles first to be certain) and do not use the light for a prolonged period.

MRsDNF · 2017-04-10T09:39:11.000Z

That is stunning djozz in more ways than one. One bit confused me though, I prepared the evening meal yesterday. :person_facepalming:

djozz · 2017-04-10T09:48:22.000Z

MRsDNF:

That is stunning djozz in more ways than one. One bit confused me though, I prepared the evening meal yesterday. :person_facepalming:

Thanks Moose! Actually, I do the shopping and prepare dinner for the family every day. Keeps the hobby in gear at least :partying_face: :person_facepalming:

MRsDNF · 2017-04-10T10:04:54.000Z

You have just cracked me up. I’ll be around tomorrow for dinner. What are we having?
Speaking of grocery shopping I was banned years ago as I wanted to buy the best bang for the buck where the wife just wanted to put items straight in the trolley without checking.
Would you be able to get your toys out while I’m there so we can play together?

djozz · 2017-04-10T11:44:32.000Z

Tomorrow will be chili, with tortilla’s and creme fraiche.
Yes sure, I have enough weird nerd flashlights around to make it a fun evening We will just have to endure the scornful laughter from the girlfriend, but that’s business as usual. :person_facepalming:

Rufusbduck · 2017-04-10T16:13:14.000Z

Oh no! Now we need to source that 20mm triple reflector.

KawiBoy1428 · 2017-04-10T16:31:39.000Z

vulpes:

KawiBoy1428:

A couple of the same ole triples a X5 EE and what was a red s2+ :confounded: This was my first time Chemically stripping the Ano off instead of glass bead blasting……using ZEP Oven Cleaner!

Can you please tell me some more about that GITD stuff? Is it really like that in person or you managed to capture it in the photo?

Yes its that intense when first charged, and it slowly dims over a period of 8-12hrs. Here is a link, search around the site, they had some brightness/time tables for the Glow On vinyl film. I have the paint too, but it is not nearly as good!

http://glow-on.com/products.html

glow-on.com

Glow-On

Glow-On Super Phosphorescent: Hi density glow-in-in-the-dark paint, Main uses: Gun sight paint, scale modeling, glow art. Is ready to use. Non radioactive, non flammable, non toxic, enviromentally safe. Water proof and superior adherence, use on...

pilotdog68 · 2017-04-10T17:25:06.000Z

Firelight2:

Got the lighted tailcap working in my shortened polished S2+. It’s not blazingly bright, but is quite visible in the dark.

I then took the stripped module and jumpered over where the resistors used to be. This resulted in even brighter output. Since the light still seems to still work even with no resistors on the switch I used the jumpered module as it had the most output.

I did not install a bleeder resistor on the driver. The driver still seems to be fully functional so perhaps this one doesn’t need it.

Be careful with this one. With no extra resistance it probably won’t take much time at all to bleed your battery dry.

scianiac · 2017-04-10T18:53:21.000Z

It’s amazing how much brighter the good SrAl based glow materials are than the old ZnS stuff found in most chinese GITD parts. I’ve been making tail rings for lights with the SrAl stuff for awhile now and in the dark they are amazingly bright. Like these.