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).
I swapped the emitter in my Sofirn SP31, the tint shift in the XP-L2 it came with bothered me, even thought it’s only visible when white wall hunting or close up outside.
The bezel was glued but some inner tube/vice/pliers took care of that, the MCPCB is DTP copper so I re flowed a new emitter :
I started with a de domed XP-G2 I tried different combinations of gaskets/reflector heights, no gasket but couldn’t get the halo to disappear.
I ended up with a XP-L HI the halo is still there but less visible.
Not completely happy with this mod, but it will do for now.
I have seen a halo like that on a few of my builds and even on standard lights , I have found it to be caused by the edge of the led hole in the reflector.
In your picture you can see the centring ring is lower than the reflector LED hole edge, so imho light hits this edge and makes a halo.
Cheap and effective fix is to run a sharpie black felt pen around that edge from the back so as not to draw on your reflector! Just the inner edge of the hole that the LED goes through.
Reassemble and halo gone.
Worked for me in the past, hope it works for you too.
I have tried the black marker trick, the image with the XP-L HI is taken after I blacked out the reflector edge. The centering ring is the original one , it’s just when very close to the wall the halo is visible. I think I will leave like this but my guess is if I re-flow a XP-L HD the halo will be gone
There needs to be some light on the face of the flashlight, especially a black one, as it hides in it’s own shadows when the light source is behind it. A simple sheet of typing paper held in front of you to bounce some window light back at the flashlight can make a lot of difference and allow that carbon fiber to be seen.
I opened it in Lightroom 5 and made some shadows adjustments, tweaked contrast a bit.
I’ve been trying to grow a Carolina Reaper pepper plant, but it took so long for the seed to germinate that it’s now far too hot for the young plant to grow outside. So I got to looking around and found the copper pill section, finned, and the aluminum bezel that fits it, on my work table… this the early DBC-03 that I made in aluminum before I made my Ti/Cu EDC I now carry. Anyway, with a fat MT-G2 sitting on the table doing nothing, I set out to find a wall wart that would drive it. Ultimately found a 5V 2.6A power supply and wired it up. Nice! It’s bright without being a major heat source.
So this morning I brought the potted mini pepper plant inside where it stays right close to 80F and suspended the MT-G2 over it about 3 inches. Hopefully it’ll grow now and when it’s too big for my bedroom I can take it back outside.
I also just made the leap from my old flip phone to an iPhone SE, so these are among my first pics with the smart phone. lol
The 32mm copper mcpcb is Arctic Silver glued to the aluminum bezel which is in turn screwed down snug onto the finned copper pill. 18ga wires are covered by black electrical tape while the MT-G2 is left open, optimized as a mule for close illumination as it’s not running real hard. I used connectors to join the supply cord to the leads and taped them together. By weighting a 1/4” thick 3/4” x 12” piece of oak I’ve had sitting around like a ruler for ages I anchored this stick to the window sill and made a loop in the supply cord to suspend the light over the little pepper plant. As the plant grows, I’ll raise the assembly.
Have no idea if it’ll work or not, but it was something to do. The wife’ll skin me if my kid tells her about me moving these pots of dirt around, still not supposed to lift over 10 pounds.
The roach that scurried up out of the potting soil bag almost got away! I tried to swat it with my bad left arm and about fell out! I got him, a few feet away but I got him…… paying a price for all this now…. meds! Nurse! I need meds! Doesn’t help, she’s at work….
Edit: The weight used is a 4x4x4 block of steel I’ve had for about 13 years, sitting around as a door stop. See what you can do by searching the bits and pieces you have laying around the house? (yes, the block of still far exceeds my 10 pound weight limit. Shhhhhh!)
Today I finished my Elbow Grease Trilogy (directors cut) by reaming the tube of my trusted Jetbeam RRT-0.
Using an adjustable handreamer (upper object in picture).
It consists of a shaft with 6 parallel HHS blades in tapered grooves that are lengthwise adjustable between two nuts. The act of tightening and loosening the restraining nuts at each end varies the size that may be cut.
The object of my exercize has a head that is big enough to accomodate an 18350, but the tube is not big enoough.
Problem is that there is no tailcap. The switch rests on a ledge (shelf with a big hole) at the backside of the tube.
I can stick the reamer in till it hits the ledge, but I have to widen the bore all the way up until I reach the ledge.
So I took a reamer for which I only had to widen the hole in the shelf a tiny bit in order for the top nut to pass it.
Now the blades of the reamer can do their job all the way up to the ledge.
Then the next problem knocked at the door: the reamer I used could not expand to the necessary 18.65mm.
So I used a bench grinder to take away a piece of the shaft that holds the HSS blades in place.
That way both restraining nuts can be moved a bit closer to the base of the shaft, allowing the blades to expand further.
See the red square in the blurry picture. That did the trick. Now my RRT-0 is upgraded from 16340 to 18350!
Nice work Henk! Interesting to see how you did it, that gives inspiration!
Don’t be afraid to kill something, it is just part of the learning curve.
And if it comes out as expected, a next mod will be easy
I got my some of my lights back from getting them cerakoted by n10sivern. Here’s the Ultrafire F13 in sniper grey, triple xpl-hi 5000k v2 70cri, 22mm bistro otsm driver (thanks Lexel), kiriba-ru copper triple spacer, kaidomain triple reflector and orange/yellow tail light switch.
I’ve been looking for a gray Lumzoo GH10 for a while and BLF member charles lin happened to have one that wasn’t working and sent it to me for the cost of shipping, since he’d already replaced it with a newer model. Thanks again, I really appreciate the light!!
The driver no longer worked so I replaced it with a mtn fet with moppydrv…also had to replace the e-switch…used one of those from mtn as well. I also replaced the led with a XP-L V6 3D. On a fresh flat top 30Q it pulls .06a on moon light and 5.26a on turbo. On a fresh flat top VTC6 it pulls .05a on moon light and 5.89a on turbo. She puts out a lot of lumens.
