Build your dad’s first, to dazzle the non-flashaholic with his new toy 
Replaced the XPL HI 5A2 triple in my Jaxman E2L host with an XPL2 triple.
As expected, the beam pattern is much floodier than before. This is actually quite nice. A great close-inspection light with the best heatsinking available in a tube-type light.
XP-L2, eh? How’s the tint on your new triple?
I’m happy to present my first 2 mods, 1 completed, 1 ongoing
1st, I took my S2+ host and made a triple Nichia high-CRI with bristo out of it. I’m very happy with the results! But I’m afraid the Carclo optics will scratch to easely, and putting the glass in front of it makes is a very thigh fit for protected cells.
FET+1 driver before sanding the rough edges
Poorly drilled hole since my drill was nowhere to be found. Drilled using screwdriver and hammer, then a large allen bit and hammer to level back the shelf (please don’t judge )
Finished!
The second mod, which I actually did first, was a simple adding of AMC7135 chips to make a nanjg 105D 7135*6 driver into a *8. I also removed the ATtiny13 chip and am mustering the courage to install an ATtiny25, which I will only be able to program and test once my programming kit arrives. Unfortunattely I ended up removing 2 solder pads from the MCU. I wonder if this will make it much harder to solder the new MCU…
*6
*7
*8
Out with the MCU. I’m kinda scared at this part, but if I can do this successfully, my goal is to mod my convoy biscotti drivers into bistro 7135*10 drivers
Tint looks pretty good. Around 4000K I think.
More on my current cicle of mods here: My first idea for a S2+ triple mod
So far I’ve made an S2+ into a high CRI triple, changed the leds on 2 other flashlights for nichias and soldered 2 7135 and an ATtiny25 onto a Nanjg driver that I hope will still work
I replaced the brake lights in my wife’s Corolla with LEDs from JDM Astar tonight.
Once again, not much of a mod, but they’re amazing compared to the old incans. Never tried the mayans.
Started to mod a Palight Boss1 for a friend. He is also on the list for the BLF GT but can’t wait so I will put an XHP35 HI in the Boss and an LD51 driver what was super cheap. To make things easy with 2S battery setup it will use 8x 26350 batteries so no need to modify the battery boards or the host. The led is glued on the shelf. The stock driver is cleaned before to use as a contact board. I putted kapton tape on it and for the piggybacked LD51 I will put heat silicone on it to transfer heat to the flashlight body from driver. I will try the LD51 in stock form and if we are not happy with results it will get a resistor bump. When the light is finished I will make a separate topic for it.
Got a small order of Oslon Blacks in, & binned them in my light-pipe over the weekend.
The best candidate went into my Courui D01 test mule, & managed 376kcd after focusing.
Not bad, but I was hoping for a little better - the “good old” XP-G2 de-domed could better 440kcd in the same setup.
How did you bin them? How much current is it getting? How did you mount it?
Used a 4*7135 regulated driver to bin them individually. Each one flowed on DTP Nocitgon, bolted to CPU heatsink.
I took the brightest of the bunch, & installed it in the D01, which is running a BLF Fet+1 driver.
I didn’t take a current reading - silly me…
Give me a few mins & I’ll get back to you on that….
Ok, 3* Samsung 25r’s @ 4.15v rest gave 5.38A @ 3.93v load.
Zozz, nice shot head on of that Boss1, easy to see you took your time and got it right!
Thanks Dale. I took some pics to get there. I hope I can finish the build today after work and go out with it.
Thats probably a bit too much current. Reducing it to 4.5A or even 4A might give you higher numbers.
My Black Flats turn noticeably bluer right after they reach maximum brightness (0.3A difference).
Yes, they might just be over the curve. I’ll have to give it another shot with weaker cells.
The boss is working. Sorry about crap phone pics. It has 1,1A to the led and 2,3A from batteries. I measured 1300 lumens. Not have time for throw measurement yet. I will bump the current soon.
The church tower is 300m away.
FWIW, Bistro expects the driver to have an offtime capacitor (OTC). It won’t be able to do medium-press reversing without that.
Click the Link in my signature to learn all sorts of things about flashlight firmware. Bistro is a popular option, and it’s called bistro because it has a whole menu of options to configure.
For Convoy drivers, my favorite interfaces are Crescendo or S7. But I usually put in somewhat fancier drivers with more ROM space and more hardware features, like the 17mm FET+1 from Mtn Electronics with tiny25 MCU. And for that driver, Bistro works pretty well… or Crescendo works too, with its full feature set instead of the more limited tiny13 version. It’s mostly a matter of whether you want mode groups (bistro) or ramping (crescendo).
Just don’t use a FET to power a single Nichia 219c. It’ll turn the emitter into smoke unless you use a particularly weak battery. 
I got a Lumintop SDmini from a GB deal and today I swapped the led with a XM-L2 7A4 90CRI. The bezel was glued but with a strip of inner tyre around it and great force by hand I got it open without problem. The stock ledboard was aluminium and likely non-DTP, the new board is a 16mm Noctigon that I filed some cut-outs on the side to make it fit around some stuff in the head. I had to use a different centerpiece because the XM-L2 is a different size from the stock XP-L.
The result is rewarding: the tint went from meh to great, the hotspot went from ’ uncertainly ’ shaped to beautiful round. The output on max is now 750 lumen so the led is well driven (not so far from direct drive for this led).
