What did you mod today?

Flashlight Modding and DIY Parts
9803

Yeah, Neutralfan, the pic looks a lot worse than real life since it's un-dried black sharpie ink right after I tried to color the board black. I probably didn't get it right since there are still wrings and weird tint shifts in the beam possibly from reflections.

@Djozz, my t20 mod isn't exactly perfect so far. Any suggestions are appreciated, here's the problem:

I first had an XPL-HI in there, and there was some weird tint shift across zoom and flood. Fully zoomed in the center of the LED die was white hot, while the outside of the spot-beam had the weird cree tint shift and warmer tint. Then I tried 90 CRI 4000k XP-G3 in there (not sliced) and the classic cree green/weird tint shift in full zoom mode came out again with a weird, much cooler tint center. I tried this led because of some of your old posts from 5 years ago:

Now, with the sliced SST-20 in there, I have a weird beam that my phone camera can't really capture. Zoomed in, it looks like there is a white hot center beam, a small circle around the center where no light is present, and then some weird off-colored corona and rings around the led-shaped center. The center of the beam, which I crudely outlined in the photo below, is a perfect shaped of the led surface, like in most zoomies, but the tint is much colder than it should be, with rings all around it. Here are some pictures, but like I said, the camera does not at all capture what the eye sees in real life:

Any clue how to correct this, anyone? I don't know if it's an issue of stray reflections inside the lens from MCPCB and pill etc. I believe the led board is at the correct height and focus, since it's sitting on the same shelf as the original led in the same spot, only with a 3mm wider board. Should covering the led and painting everything else with matte black paint solve it? Maybe I have a bad T20 lens since three different leds gave me similar bad results?

Here's another where I drew a line indicting the space with not light at all, again the center is shaped like the emitter, which the picture does not show at all. I tried different modes and all sorts of things but nothing would capture the real beam as seen in person.

Basically, my goal is a T20 with a warm tint that doesn't have a white hot center or crazy rings around it. I prefer 3535 footprint since I soldered that mcpcb in, but I could easily get it out if there's better emitter for zoomies. CRI doesn't really matter as long as the tint is on the warmer side, 4k or a little less. I know there are much better hosts or completed lights out there for $30, but I have trouble getting rid of old hosts and prefer to mod them even though getting a convoy z1 or something like that is probably a better idea. Anyway, thanks for any suggestions.

9804

Simple mod by BLF standards. Added GITD accents to an IF25A. Need to add more though, fades pretty quickly, but doesn’t go completely dim. Nice with night adapted vision.

9805

Swapped a 2700k LH351D into a cheap zoomie my parents have because my mom doesn’t like cool “blue” tints. I did it more to play around with my new iron than anything. The light is fed off 3 aaas but I changed one of the aaas for a 10440 so the light is running 6v+ instead of the usual 4v :smiling_imp: Dunno what the driver is because it’s soldered to the pill. These aaas probably can’t provide enough current and dip far below 6v when the current is requested

9806

Don’t mix chemistries like that. It’s going to run your AAA’s super low and could cause them to leak or bulge.

9807

haven’t post anything for a while.

Been busy with all kind of mods.

So, first one...

ZL SC5w II, XPL emitter swapped with sliced dogfart 5000K.

9808

I may have seen your reddit post :wink:
Looks great!

9809

Gas dedoming xhp50 goes wrong,but at least there’s no pwm :person_facepalming: :smiling_imp:

9810

I wonder whether Luxeon CZ would be a good match to GT Nano…

9811

To preserve the wow-factor of the nano, it needs a led with a small die but also with very low voltage, to suck enough current out of those small batteries. The White Flat is very low voltage and so is the SST-20 that I swapped in, but I would not know about the Luxeon CZ, never tested one.

9812

Further mods to my old DQG Tiny III the last few days.

I’d modded this one years ago into a triple XPL HI light with a 3 amp driver, but it was in need of upgrades:

  • The switch was a bit too recessed, making activation quite difficult.
  • The switch as I’d modified it previously used the original metal switch button over a retrofitted microswitch. It was not waterproof.
  • The switch I used wasn’t very good and lacked a satisfying click when pressed.
  • The driver I had installed with a 3 amp 17mm driver, set to 3 modes from Mountain Electronics. It worked, but clearly lacked some features available in more modern drivers. There was no moonlight or turbo mode. And there was no thermal senso. At 3 amps the light would get too hot to touch after a few minutes.
  • The star was sitting on a strip of copper bent into a ring with a liberal amount of AS5 around the edges for heat transfer. I discovered the strip wasn’t quite thick enough so the star was loose. It was basically floating in place with just a small amount of AS5 at the edges. I discovered this when the star overheated and the driver wires desoldered themselves from it.

So I set about upgrading it.

  • This one is a royal pain to mod. The manufacturer used a massive amount of threadlocker to attach the head to the body. I couldn’t get it off no matter what method I tried (unlike the DQG Tiny IV, which can be unscrewed). To mod the light I had previously used a dremel and burrowed out the center of the stock driver board leaving approximately 2mm left on all sides, with all components stripped from it. The new driver sits on the ledge left by the old board. Ground connection is via wire soldered from a part of the original board soldered to the new board.
  • I dremeled out the switch compartment so I could fit a larger switch in. This worked, but my first attempt resulted in the button being too high and too easy to pressed. I removed it and installed a much flatter switch deep in the head of the lead to allow for a flatter switch button.
  • I had a 17mm FET driver from Mountain Electronics laying around with Emisar D4 firmware on it. It came with a bad 7135 chip which I replaced. I also reflashed the firmware to Anduril. I spent many hours trying to get this driver to work right, but it just wasn’t happening. Either it wouldn’t work at all, or the 7135 chip wouldn’t work properly. I finally gave up and tried a different driver.
  • Next driver attempt was a 20mm FET driver also from Mountain Electronics with D4 firmware installed. This one also came with a bad 7135 chip, which I replaced. I reflashed the firmware with Anduril and filed the edges of the driver down slightly so I could fit it into the battery tube. This time I fully tested the driver outside of the flashlight.
  • Inserted the new driver… and it still didn’t work. GRRR. Turns out this time the problem was the wire from the MCU to the switch. Fortunately I was able to resolder it without having to redo the switch.
  • Built a new copper platform for the star to sit on. Liberally applied AS5 around the sides of this housing and on top and on the edges of the star.
  • The light had three 3D XPL HI hi in it. I swapped out one for 5D. I thought about going with high-CRI SST-20 or LH351D, but decided against it. This is a pocket rocket and XPL HI are more impressive.
  • With all the soldering and desoldering I was doing trying to get this to work, my star was getting offly ratty looking. So much so that at some point the bondpad for the positive driver wire became damaged and I could no longer solder to it. The head is too small for a 20mm triple star, so swapping in a new one would have meant an hour with a handfile grinding it to size. Fortunately, the Noctigon star had little brass jumpers for selecting series or parallel. I used one of them as the new positive wire bondpad.
  • Rebuilt the exterior switch components. The button is a piece of aluminum sheet glued to a piece of silicone. The silicone is glued to all edges of the switch compartment and makes the switch waterproof. The ring around the switch is a filed down nickel-plated brass finishing washer. Thermal epoxy, bits of aluminum strip, hobby paint colored to match the anodizing with a super-glue lacquer cover the tiny gaps at the lower edges of the switch ring.

Finally it works!
This light is tiny. It makes an Emisar D4 look huge. Even an FW3A looks big alongside. I notice DQG hasn’t come out with any lights in years. I wonder if they’ve gone under.

Here are some pictures next to a Sunwayman V11R triple. Note how the DQG is just a tiny bit bigger even though it uses a MUCH larger battery.

Here is a pic of the interior. As you can see it is a pain to work inside. The space is fairly small since the head could not be removed. And it was a royal mess due to all the Arctic Silver 5 from modding it. This picture is of the 17mm driver before I gave up on it.

Here is a picture of the shelf I made for the star. It is a single piece of copper and is soldered on the underside. I also made a copper washer to sit between this shelf and the star since the shelf wasn’t quite tall enough.

So far so good. The new switch has a satisfying click (well as much of one as you get with a tiny momentary pushbutton). Also due to its stiffness, small size, and slightly recessed position inside its protective ring it is unlikely this would activate in the pocket accidentally. Anduril UI is also a welcome improvement.

9813

Do you have any pics of these comparisons to share? :wink:

9814

Here you go:

Note: my D4V2 Ti above is actually using the D4V1 Ti’s tailcap, which is a bit shorter due to lack of lanyard ring. A D4V2 with the tailcap it came with is actually a couple mm longer than the D4 in the picture.

With Sony VTC6 installed, the modded DQG Tiny III measures 88mm long by 25mm wide.

9815

I have a 4000K 90 Cri from my last mouser order. I was thinking about rigging it onto a virence optisolis board and doing and output test. Interested?

9816

Definitely!

9817

I became interested after trying a 20mm triple with NM1s. REALLY nice beam pattern IMO. Even a 10507 w/ sst20s is too floody for my taste/application to EDC. 1mm² though is the trick. I’ll try and do that tonight

9818

Boring reflow, but for some reason felt the need to share:

2020 RRT-01, replaced the stock awful 219C with a high CRI LH351D 4000K

9819

Nice work e1000. It’s interesting how some of the “same” LEDs can be good or bad.

I have a modified JAXMAN E2L with triple Nichia NVSL219C D240 4000K 90+ CRI LEDs and the tint is fairly good. And I have a modified AA/14500 flashlight with a Samsung LH351D 90+ CRI 4000K LED where the tint is barely tolerable.

9820

Nice work! Yeah sometimes you have to get the emitter right with the optic. In the case of the RRT-01, although it’s a 219C, they did not use one that’s high CRI. It had to go!

9821




9822

Thanks for testing JaredM :slight_smile:
It is not a led for extreme output but still good. How is the tint when a hotspot is projected from a reflector?